The Power and Peril of the Internet: How Should “Revenge Porn” Be Handled?

Revenge porn is one of the unsavory downsides of the Internet. The Internet makes invasions of privacy costless to the invader, instantaneous, damagingly widespread, and almost impossible to undo. But revenge porn, like upskirting (secretly taking pictures up a woman’s skirt and, typically, posting them on the Internet) is not an obvious violation of most existing privacy laws, which were designed with more traditional invasions in mind. Revenge porn doesn’t fit these laws in large part because the images, when they were produced, were generally consensual. Sometimes they were taken by the “victim” herself—as a “selfie,” perhaps, and sent in digital form to a partner, who has since become an ex-partner, and a tormentor