The recent trend of posting ‘sneaky
hat’ pictures on the Internet has started to cause a stir in the
news. The trend involves taking a picture of a near naked subject
with a hat covering their genital areas, then posting this photo to
sites such as facebook and tumblr. The meme gained some popularity
in mid-November of 2011 with a group of 15 year old boys in Australia
creating a facebook page for the subject matter, which rapidly gained
followers and accordingly content. A webpage ‘sneakyhatboys[dot]com
was created at the same time.
The popularity of this meme with
teenagers has created concerns in the wider community. Those
involved with the facebook page have been quoted as stating that the
page was started because they “just thought it was funny”, and
attempted to justify their actions because “... mum saw it, she
knew and just thought it was funny." (Lees, Philippa, Ninemsn,
22 November 2011).
If you combine this with the facebook’s
description which stated “This page is restricted to people 17 and
over so don’t complain about kids seeing it. I’ll also be
vigilant at removing all porn. Let’s do this right! PS showing
ballsak and soft d**k isn’t porn you f**king morons”
(http://www.redditpics.com/i-introduce-you-to-the-sneaky-hat-i-think-its,377719/
23 November 2011).
This points to a clear lack of
understanding of the law in Australia (where these persons reside).
The Telecommunications
Offences and Other
Measures Act as amended in 2006 gives this definition of child
pornography.
child
pornography material means:
(a)
material that depicts a person, or a representation of a person,
who
is, or appears to be, under 18 years of age and who:
(i)
is engaged in, or appears to be engaged in, a sexual pose
or
sexual activity (whether or not in the presence of
other
persons); or
(ii)
is in the presence of a person who is engaged in, or
appears
to be engaged in, a sexual pose or sexual
activity;
and
does this in a way that reasonable persons would regard
as
being, in all the circumstances, offensive; or
(b)
material the dominant characteristic of which is the
depiction,
for a sexual purpose, of:
(i)
a sexual organ or the anal region of a person who is, or
appears
to be, under 18 years of age; or
(ii)
a representation of such a sexual organ or anal region;
or
(iii)
the breasts, or a representation of the breasts, of a
female
person who is, or appears to be, under 18 years
of
age;
in
a way that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all
the
circumstances, offensive; or
(c)
material that describes a person who is, or is implied to be,
under
18 years of age and who:
(i)
is engaged in, or is implied to be engaged in, a sexual
pose
or sexual activity (whether or not in the presence
of
other persons); or
(ii)
is in the presence of a person who is engaged in, or is
implied
to be engaged in, a sexual pose or sexual
activity;
and
does this in a way that reasonable persons would regard
as
being, in all the circumstances, offensive; or
(d)
material that describes:
(i)
a sexual organ or the anal region of a person who is, or
is
implied to be, under 18 years of age; or
(ii)
the breasts of a female person who is, or is implied to
be,
under 18 years of age;
and
does this in a way that reasonable persons would regard
as
being, in all the circumstances, offensive.
The
statement on the facebook page that material involving people 17
years old is already admitting that the subjects could the age
criteria for images of a child and that depictions of genitalia are
considered acceptable under his definition of acceptable content,
i.e. things not porn. The law is accompanied by an explanatory
memorandum that urges sanity in the enforcement of the law, and
defines home pictures of your children as outside the intent of the
legislation.
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/ems/r2131_ems_c79a0bd1-87a4-42e4-be65-485ba6850273/upload_pdf/66344.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf
Facebook
and ISPs are obligated to report the page to the federal police under
the same act.
The
bigger issue here beyond youth creating and distributing child
pornography is the apparent lack of understanding of the consequence
of their actions. These acts are illegal not as an act of moral
censorship, that is legislated elsewhere. The purpose of these laws
is to protect children from being or becoming victims. Creating a
method that encourages public access to these images creates an
opportunity for sexual harassment, verbal abuse, child grooming and
physical abuse. These images will very likely be re-distributed on
other forums for voyeristic behaviour such as isanyoneup[dot]com and
most certainly wind up in the archives of pornography collectors, and
paedophiles around the world.
Even
the pictures that cover more than a bathing suit does, create the
potential for harm when put on the internet in this context. Ms.
Angie Varona became infamous after uploading some images of herself
in a bikini to a private site in 2007 when she was 14 years old.
The pictures spread across the internet and Ms. Varona was soon
bullied at school and began to receive threats of rape and had her
personal details spread worldwide. She had to change schools twice
and is still now suffering from the effects of the harassment that
came from putting those images on the Internet.
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060065/Angie-Varona-Most-Googled-teen-tears-risqu-photos-ruined-life.html?ito=feeds-newsxml)
Let’s
just hope that the people in power don’t get carried away with this
issue and let the current laws that we have do their job. Also the
media should take this as an opportunity to educate teenagers about
the dangers of spreading images online.
The
first picture ever uploaded to the internet
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Les_Horribles_Cernettes_in_1992.jpg)
is still there, nearly twenty years later. Imagine having a picture
of a pimply faced kid in nothing but a hat being mentioned at the
interview when you are applying for that prestigious position twenty
years from now.
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