Revenge pornography ban tramples free speech, law tossed out where else but Texas!
A Texas appeals court last week ruled that the US state's Relationship Privacy Act, which prohibits the disclosure or promotion of intimate images without the consent of those depicted, is unconstitutional.
Enacted in 2015, the Texas law was intended as a way to stop what's known as revenge porn, in which a person discloses intimate sexual images, online or otherwise, to cause harm and embarrassment to another person.
The law covered images to those taken under circumstances when the depicted person had a reasonable expectation that the material would remain private.
It's one of 38 state laws that have been enacted in the US to combat revenge porn, also referred to as nonconsensual distribution of pornographic images because the perpetrator's motivation – revenge or otherwise – wouldn't mitigate the act.
In its consideration of an appeal by defendant Jordan Bartlett Jones, accused in a civil complaint last year of revealing a explicit image of a woman without consent, the 12th Court of Appeals in Tyler, Texas, found the privacy law too broadly drawn.
"We have concluded that Section 21.16(b) [of the Relationship Privacy Act] is an invalid content-based restriction and overbroad in the sense that it violates rights of too many third parties by restricting more speech than the Constitution permits," the appeal court ruled, directing the trial court to dismiss the charges.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/24/texas_first_amendment_revenge_x_rated/
