Should sharing images of victims be made a criminal offence?
In the media image: Shutter Speed via Unsplash
Political parties are calling for a ban on sharing images of victims. Bart Schermer, Professor of Privacy & Cybercrime, spoke about this with Rijnmond: ‘Criminal law is too often used to solve societal problems.’
Two secondary school students from Capelle aan den IJssel and Rotterdam died by suicide last week. Bystanders, many of them young people, took images of the victims and shared them online. Experts, including Bart Schermer, are calling for a broader public debate on this issue. ‘I get the impression that children do this on impulse, because they think it’s cool or interesting. If the consequence is that they end up facing criminal law, I’m not sure that’s proportionate’, the professor said.
Social media platforms are currently not obliged to actively remove such content, unless it involves child sexual abuse material or terrorist content. According to Schermer, it would not be unreasonable to assign platforms greater responsibility in tackling distressing content. However, he does not expect this to change any time soon: ‘There has been discussion about this since the beginning of this century, but so far without result. I don’t think that will change.’
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Read the full Rijnmond-article (in Dutch)