The Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation yesterday proposed a draft bill to ban revenge pornography, saying current laws are insufficient to prevent the crime and protect victims.
Recent years have seen increased cases of cyberattacks against women, with the majority of them being revenge pornography, foundation chief executive Fan Ching (范情) said.
While the precise number of victims is unknown, the foundation this year alone has helped approximately 200 victims of revenge pornography and the media on average reports one such case every day, foundation deputy executive officer Jasmine Bai (白智芳) told a news conference in Taipei.
Under current law, victims of revenge pornography who wish to press charges against those distributing the photographs or videos typically have to sue them for contravening their privacy or distributing obscene content, lawyer Mik Chen (陳明清) said.
However, the provisions on such offenses in the Criminal Code were written before cybercrime became prevalent and do not offer victims the protection they deserve, he said.
“By suing others for distributing obscene content, the victim in a way makes herself the subject of something considered obscene and most find that unacceptable,” Chen said.
Revenge pornography is only considered a contravention of someone’s privacy under the Criminal Code if the victim never agreed to the filming or photography in the first place, even when the victim later refuses permission to share the content with others, he said.
While distributors of obscene content are sentenced to no more than two years in prison, contravention of privacy is most often punished by fining the perpetrator, lawyer Chu Fang-chun (朱芳君) said.
Under the draft act proposed by the foundation, which has worked on it with a group of 10 experts for a year, anyone who distributes a person’s intimate, sexual photographs or videos without their consent, even when the person had previously agreed to the photographs or video being taken, is guilty of distributing revenge pornography and would be subject to a prison sentence of between six month and five years, Chen said.
“The punishment should be more severe if the distributor has used the sexual content to blackmail the victim,” he added.
For victims, there is nothing worse than having unwanted content distributed on the Internet, because there is no way to ensure it is completely removed, Chu said.
Considering that, the draft act also requires that Internet service providers to remove the content and preserve the evidence within 24 hours of being informed by police of a revenge pornography case, she said.
Internet service providers that fail to comply would be fined between NT$200,000 and NT$1 million (US$6,554 and US$32,770), she added.
The draft act also bans the media from revealing any information that could disclose the identity of a revenge pornography victim, she said, adding that those who do would be fined between NT$100,000 and NT$1 million.
The draft act also requires the distributor to cover all the expenses incurred when removing the content from the Internet, she said.
The foundation is to hold a public hearing with Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) next month to discuss and promote the draft act, Fan said.
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated