Nudes: Whose Fault is it?

In the last week Snapchat has been hacked leading to 4.6 Million users photos being posted online. In the BBC News article “Nude ‘Snapchat Images’ put Online by Hackers”, Dave Lee exposed the reality of this hack. One of the app’s major attractions is the idea that pictures, text and videos all disappear after a few seconds, which is now known to be untrue. Many people use this app to send uncensored pictures of themselves to people for many different reasons. No matter who these pictures are being sent to, this action is very dangerous. In the large amount of hacked photos there were bound to be some ones that were inappropriate but is the hacker at fault or is it the sender? Lee writes, “As half of its users are aged between 13 and 17, there is concern that many of the images may be of children” (Lee 1). Because of the ages of the majority of the users, if nude pictures were involved of these underaged kids, there is the possibility of infringement of the law seeing as these photos classify as child pornography. In this case, the child would be at blame for taking the picture, not the hacker. It may not seem fair for the child to be at blame in this situation because of their lack of knowledge and their ignorance, but it is their fault in terms of the law. From an ethical standpoint it isn’t his or her fault for trusting the claims of the application as well a the receiver but sending nude photos is almost always has a negative effect on the sender. Sending nudes through social media never ends up positivey effecting the sender. The receiver most of the time doesn't do what you ask with it, and there is always the possibility of it spreading and returning in the future. In many cases the law gets involved and a person’s livelihood may be lost. Teenagers should stop sending nudes through the internet because it always has a negative impact on his or her lives in the future because of the possibility of them getting leaked and exposed to much of the world.