The Naked Truth: Insufficient Coverage for Revenge Porn Victims at State Law and the Proposed Federal Legislation to Adequately Redress Them

Abstract

The distribution of revenge porn is a cyber-bullying phenomenon that has proliferated on the Internet. The nonconsensual sharing of sexually explicit photographs and videos causes irreparable harm to revenge porn victims. The current state of the law, however, does little to redress the damage. Tort claims are often unsuccessful because many victims do not have the resources necessary to initiate a lawsuit. Furthermore, federal law grants operators of revenge porn websites immunity from state tort claims. In an effort to fill this gap in the law, many states have made changes or additions to their criminal statutes. To date, thirty-eight states have legislation prohibiting the distribution of nonconsensual pornography. Some states, including New Jersey and California, successfully passed anti-revenge porn legislation, while others, such as Arizona and Vermont, faced constitutional challenges. In July 2016, Congresswoman Jackie Speier introduced the Intimate Privacy Protection Act of 2016 (“IPPA”), a proposed federal law criminalizing revenge porn. This Note argues that the IPPA effectively balances the competing interests of revenge porn victims and Internet service providers and thus should be adopted by Congress.