Revenge Porn: Why Peers Don’t Like It

Some people met the news about the revenge porn law’s disapproval by the peers of the British parliament. I met it with a slow disappointment, but eventually, I realised what was in store for the United Kingdom if the revenge porn law was approved. 

Let’s define terms first. Revenge porn is when a former partner uploads to a public network media explicit in nature that both of them have produced. However, in publishing law, all parties who had partaken in producing a medium must have the approval of both parties in question. This means that the victim is also part-owner of the produced media and has a veto on the publishing of such.

This is the law that British peers are trying to use instead of having the revenge porn law. The revenge porn law incriminates anybody who had uploaded explicit media that could tarnish the reputation of another party, namely the victim. This gives the victim the right to litigate the suspect or uploader because of damages to privacy.

However, it is similar to Google’s defiance against the EU data laws that allow people to erase their online histories because it damages the private lives of such persons. If we have the revenge porn law, journalists will have limited rights to publish material especially with exposes and documentaries. It commits damages to personal privacy.

So, until the definition of revenge porn, cyber bullying and other new terms the internet has come up with is put into the constitution, we will never have a good chance of having good governance in the internet. This may work for the worse, or for the better.