Ah the internet. What wonderful opportunities the digital age has thrown our way. I could go on forever about its positive impact on my everyday life. That I’ve made a career out of it, that thanks to FaceTime I’m able to see my family in England on a regular basis and that I have access to an unlimited amount of information about absolutely anything on a 24/7 basis.

Although sadly, this era has a dark side too. A side that makes me really angry if I think about it for too long and leaves me wishing more censorship and legal measures could be introduced to better regulate the internet.

Many of us will have heard in the news about the mass theft and distribution of nude female celebrity photos online. Hackers were said to have gained unauthorized access to iCloud accounts to steal and share the private photos.

I wholeheartedly agree with Scott Mendelson’s words in Forbes magazine when he called this a ‘sex crime’ against these celebrities. It goes far beyond a ‘scandal,’ which is a word some media outlets are using to describe what’s happened. These women should not be criticized for taking private photos on their personal cell phones – they had every right to do so. The focus should be on the sadistic actions of the hackers who have left their victims feeling violated, with no control over the situation.

As much as I love the British comedian, Ricky Gervais, he deserved the backlash he received after sending this tweet blaming the nude photo victims:

Wanting to reassure and maintain iCloud users worldwide, Apple is denying this security breach is any fault of its own. The company says that after investigating the hack, it’s sure that the hackers involved used a “very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet.”

The FBI has said it is “addressing” the stolen photos and let’s hope the hackers are brought to justice. We must campaign for changes in the law, too, in order to censor this type of online abuse in the future.

Allison Tungate of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law recently wrote about the need for an amendment in federal law to better protect victims of internet abuse.

She explains how unintended consequences of something called ‘Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act’ make it nearly impossible for victims of the online posting of nude or sexually explicit photographs or videos to get what they want most: the offending images removed from public view. This is because the law effectively makes only the posters of offensive content culpable – with websites and internet service providers under no legal duty to remove it.

Writing in Information and Communications Technology Law, Tungate says: “The line between our Internet activities and real world activities is growing thinner as technology progresses. Thus, there is an increasing need of laws that will protect both our ‘online’ lives and ‘real world’ lives.”