User:Vjordan222/Sexual harassment

'''What is sexual harassment in Social Media? What does it look like?'''

Sexual harassment includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature in the workplace or learning environment, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Pew research defines online harassment by: offensive name-calling, purposeful embarrassment, stalking, physical threats, harassment over a sustained period of time, and sexual harassment. As sexual harassment does not require the action to be physical, sexual harassment can occur via the internet. A Pew survey found that 33% of women under 35 and 11% of men under 35 say they have experienced sexual assault online. Social media has allowed for an environment of hypersexualization which can ultimately lead to sexual harassment. Sexual harassment online can take a unique appearance, including: threatening to distribute or actually distributing explicit images without consent, sending unsolicited nude images, preseuring a person to send explicit images and chats, taking sexually explicit content of a person without their consent.

Legal Protections from online sexual harassment:

Sexual harassment online has predominantly become a lot more common with the increase in use of social media. It is super common for someone to receive unwanted nude photos, degrading comments, and many other things online through the media. There are many important aspects that define sexual harassment but the legal aspects are not talked about a lot.

To take legal action on unwanted sexual behavior through social media the first thing that you should do is report the incident to your local police department. In order to report an incident you will need to be prepared to show some sort of proof such as a photo, text message, etc.

Unfortunately, going through the legal system can be expensive and does not always end in justice. Cases of online sexual harassment can be addressed through civil criminal law. If done through civil law one can sue their perpetrator. However, going through civil law can be draining and very expensive which is not very accessible to the common public. In criminal law the use of federal cyberstalking laws help in ways that allow people to press charges against those who harass online. With cyberstalking laws, it makes it easier for people to press charges against their harasser. Many people who go to the police are told that this is more a civil matter than a criminal but there are criminal laws that are there to stop the harassment. The police are inadequately trained to help with this type of crime.

The law does not seem to be updated to deal with such harassment because of the advancement of technology. Legal officials are moving to take next steps in updating legal actions that can protect those who are being sexually harassed online.

Case: Jacob Blanco

Jacob Blanco, 29, of Fresno, California was sentenced to 55 years in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release for sexual exploitation of a minor and distribution of child pornography. When communicating with young girls, Blanco used apps like Musical.ly, Kik, and Snapchat to have them produce and send explicit pictures of themselves. By claiming to be a modeling agent or to be a minor himself, he was able to pull this off. Once parents of a six-year-old child found out their child had used the social media platform Musical.ly to connect with and generate sexually explicit photographs with another user, law enforcement authorities were able to identify Blanco (now TikTok). As a condition of his plea agreement, Blanco acknowledged having contact with at least 50 juveniles and getting numerous sexually explicit pictures from them. For each instance of sexual exploitation, Blanco would receive at least 15 years in prison, and for disseminating child pornography, he would receive between five and twenty years, according to U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott.

Sources:

Barnhart, Toria. “California Man Gets 55 Years for Getting Kids to Send Him Sexual Images.” Newsweek, Newsweek, 9 Oct. 2021, https://www.newsweek.com/california-man-gets-55-years-getting-kids-send-him-sexual-images-social-media-1637261.

“Man Sentenced to 55 Years in Prison for Sexual Exploitation of Multiple Children through Social Media Apps.” The United States Department of Justice, 8 Oct. 2021, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-sentenced-55-years-prison-sexual-exploitation-multiple-children-through-social-media-apps.

Atske, S. (2021, May 25). The state of online harassment. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. Retrieved March 15, 2023, from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/01/13/the-state-of-online-harassment/

Sexual harassment. RAINN. (n.d.). Retrieved March 15, 2023, from https://www.rainn.org/articles/sexual-harassment

Social Media and Sexual Assault. Social Media Victims Law Center. (2023, January 9). Retrieved March 15, 2023, from https://socialmediavictims.org/sexual-violence/sexual-assault/

Choirunnisa, S. (2021). Legal Protection Against Women Victims of Sexual Harassment Through Social Media (Cyberporn). The Indonesian Journal of International Clinical Legal Education, 3(3), 367-380. https://doi.org/10.15294/ijicle.v3i3.48266

Sweeney, Marlisse Silver. “What the Law Can (and Can't) Do about Online Harassment.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 2 July 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/11/what-the-law-can-and-cant-do-about-online-harassment/382638/.

“Social Media and Sexual Assault.” Social Media Victims Law Center, 9 Jan. 2023, https://socialmediavictims.org/sexual-violence/sexual-assault/#:~:text=Sexual%20harassment%20on%20social%20media,lesbian%2C%20gay%2C%20or%20bisexual.