Canada's New Cyberbullying Law And Teen Sexting: Implications And Provisions

Discussion Piece: Browne, Rachel (2015), “Canada’s New CyberBullying Law is Targetting Teen Sexting Gone Awry,” Vice News.

This case study is based on the effect of the new form of cyberbullying law that would be based on the effect of teen sexting. Teen sexting is considered to be a major form of offense that could impact the individual rights of a person. The paper discusses that the digital images of various bodies circulate within the online platform that supports gender inequalities. In this form of cyberbullying activities, the feminine body is depicted within pornography. In the modern times, the social media has made a major form of impact within the mindset of people where they are free to participate in various kinds of activities (Temple et al., 2014). They can produce, distribute or can even access different forms of properties. The paper discusses about the recent form of illegal activities on the move that have rendered the law bodies to implement such forms of laws that have been able to curb the effect of cyberbullying on the internet and social media platforms.

This report puts focus on an incident of child pornography and cyberbullying that had taken place in Canada. The images of a person was forwarded to different other individuals in order to seek vengeance. This was a violation of personal properties and had also brought a bad name to the accused. As the news of this incident had spread on a global basis, the identity of the girl was leaked. People in the society were even taunting her and had even called her to be a pedophile and pornographer. The story of the girl was one of the number of growing cases on a worldwide basis (Canada's New Cyberbullying Law Is Targeting Teen Sexting Gone Awry, 2018). This had scored tension among the pre-existent laws based on the prevention of child exploitation and the new form of realities based on teen sexual exploitation.

Based on the story of the incident of the exploitation of personal rights of the girl, the lawsuits within Canada focused on the importance of cyberbullying laws. These would be essential based on protecting the rights of the person based on the sharing of different things on the social media platform and the Internet. Based on the new form of provision based the new laws on anti- cyberbullying, it was made illegal to share different intimate images of a person without their consent (Temple & Choi, 2014). In the year of 2009, it was seen that some of young kids of the age group of 13 were facing the charges faced on child pornography. These kinds of situations were primarily faced by these teens based on receiving and sending of texts that contained naked photos, which was shared within the group of friends. In the previous years, five teens were found to perform different activities based on sexting. They were mainly charged based on possessing of illegal services and the distribution of child pornography. Based on the review of such kinds of activities, it was found that Australia was one of the many countries in which the police had laid different charges based on child pornography. Since the past few years, the state of Victoria had proposed a new law that had made it to be illegal based on the sharing of sexually explicit forms of images without their consent. The Victorian law would also would also be able to prevent someone under the age group of 18 from getting convicted based on child pornography within cases of sexting (Baumgartner et al., 2014).

Conclusion

The law within Canada would recognize the constitution freedom of people based on protecting their freedom based on expression and their rights to engage within a narrow subset of expressive practices. Numerous campaigns based on anti-sexting would criticize the possibility of safe texting (Ringrose et al., 2013). Based on the review on the article based on intruding of personal properties, the different laws implemented by different bodies have been focused upon. In the recent times, the social media is the most powerful platform where both men and women participate at equal levels based on sharing of media. This has enabled different women and girls to access the various alternative forms of social based support. They have also enabled the developing of new modes of communications and thus become to be engaged based on different kinds of issues (Hasinoff, 2013). The widespread form of presence of women on the social media platform has glimmered a major form of concern based on the increasing form of vulnerability of harm and getting abused on the online platform. This form of pattern in the present age of social media have brought about frequent warnings towards female users to not become too much public. This would help in the reduction of the imminent risks based on damage of reputation and causing of sexual harm for the society. There are different kinds of questions based on gender, publicity and privacy that would be deeply implicated based on debates over women and their safety based on the participation in the online platform (Karaian, 2014).

In the context of the case study, sexting could be defined as a hybrid term, which combines the word of ‘sex’ and ‘texting’. This term defines the creation, sharing and thus forwarding of sex-based nude images with the aid of digital technologies such as internet and mobile phones. This case study focuses on the amount of panic that hinges with the impact of sexting on different gender and age groups. Firstly, the production and distribution of the different forms of sexualised images at the present time is no longer restricted to wealthy corporations or producers (Albury et al., 2013). In a second form, the production of sexualised image was at a time largely confined to the adult society. These are now widely practised by children and teenagers. The practice of sexting has largely become widespread among the public. They have also raised public concern based on the potential risks in relation to digital form of technology (Slane, 2013). There are various forms of risks that are in relation to the impact of sexting on the younger people. These include the general kinds of worries based on early exposure of pornographic or sexual content, sexual form of grooming, cyberbullying and sexual mode of harassment.

Based on the recent form of case study, it has been seen that the Canadian government have recognized the rights of young people based on the engagement of a narrow subset of sexual form of expressive practices in subject to prosecution of child pornography. The court has also faced some form of constitutional challenges based on the criminalization of the possession based on child pornography. Based on the different forms of unethical practices, the Canadian Criminal Code has been implemented by the government of the state (Simpson, 2013). The primary purpose of the development of the criminal code of conduct is based on the protection of children and teenagers based on exploitation and abuse. This would be done by prohibiting the possession of materials that would present a reasonable form of risks to the rights of children. The Canadian provision, which is responsible for dealing with non-consensual form of sharing would be able to provide a suitable form of definition to the performed crime and would also be able to provide suitable means for curbing these practices in relation to sexting and cyberbullying (Lee & Crofts, 2015). The new law implemented by the Canadian government would be applicable to adults who would share any intimate image that could be defined within the aspect of pornography, video or film in which any concerned person would be semi-naked or fully-naked. This law would be implemented on those people who would be indulged in such form of activities without the consent of the creator. The form of punishment that would be imposed on the accused is based on a sentence of five years in prison (Van Ouytsel et al., 2015). The child laws in relation to the porn would be primarily be designed for protecting the consensual rights of the children. This form of protection would be based on protecting the children and teenagers from sexual predators.  

Conclusion

Based on the review of the case study, it could be concluded that the impact of child pornography, sexting and cyberbullying could have a major impact on the society. IT might be able to put a bad reputation on the lives of the accused. Sexting can impose a major form of threat to the reputation of an individual. The use of digital kinds of technologies have majorly helped in the propagation of such kinds of explicit materials. Such kinds of practices can lead to the accused to get exposed in the public. Sexting also poses other forms of threats based on blackmailing of the accused. People with such kinds of images could extract money from the accused by blackmailing them with the help of the digital content. Hence, the laws of the country should be stringent enough in order to protect the rights of the teenagers and children. The impact of laws would be able to curb the practices of sexting, cyberbullying and child pornography.

References

Albury, K., Crawford, K., Byron, P., & Mathews, B. P. (2013). Young people and sexting in Australia: ethics, representation and the law. ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation/Journalism and Media Research Centre, UNSW.

Baumgartner, S. E., Sumter, S. R., Peter, J., Valkenburg, P. M., & Livingstone, S. (2014). Does country context matter? Investigating the predictors of teen sexting across Europe. Computers in Human Behavior, 34, 157-164.

Canada's New Cyberbullying Law Is Targeting Teen Sexting Gone Awry. (2018). Retrieved from https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/59ezm3/canadas-new-cyberbullying-law-is-targeting-teen-sexting-gone-awry

Hasinoff, A. A. (2013). Sexting as media production: Rethinking social media and sexuality. New Media & Society, 15(4), 449-465.

Karaian, L. (2014). Policing ‘sexting’: Responsibilization, respectability and sexual subjectivity in child protection/crime prevention responses to teenagers’ digital sexual expression. Theoretical criminology, 18(3), 282-299.

Lee, M., & Crofts, T. (2015). Gender, pressure, coercion and pleasure: Untangling motivations for sexting between young people. British Journal of Criminology, 55(3), 454-473.

Ringrose, J., Harvey, L., Gill, R., & Livingstone, S. (2013). Teen girls, sexual double standards and ‘sexting’: Gendered value in digital image exchange. Feminist theory, 14(3), 305-323.

Simpson, B. (2013). Challenging childhood, challenging children: Children’s rights and sexting. Sexualities, 16(5-6), 690-709.

Slane, A. (2013). Sexting and the law in Canada.

Temple, J. R., & Choi, H. (2014). Longitudinal association between teen sexting and sexual behavior. Pediatrics, peds-2014.

Temple, J. R., Le, V. D., van den Berg, P., Ling, Y., Paul, J. A., & Temple, B. W. (2014). Brief report: Teen sexting and psychosocial health. Journal of adolescence, 37(1), 33-36.

Van Ouytsel, J., Walrave, M., Ponnet, K., & Heirman, W. (2015). The association between adolescent sexting, psychosocial difficulties, and risk behavior: Integrative review. The Journal of School Nursing, 31(1), 54-69.