The House gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a measure that would create criminal penalties and increase civil options for sharing sexually explicit images without consent from the subject.
The bill, H.105, addresses so-called “revenge porn,” when someone posts nude images or videos of an ex-lover as a way to get back at them.
Often, images are accompanied by names, personal addresses and links to social media profiles, Rep. Barbara Rachelson, D-Burlington, told fellow lawmakers when she reported the bill Tuesday.
Victims are often stalked or threatened with sexual assault, Rachelson said. In the course of testimony, the House Judiciary Committee heard numerous accounts of Vermonters’ personal experience with having their images posted online without their consent. The committee passed the bill with unanimous support.
More than a dozen other states have similar laws against revenge porn.
Members of the House unanimously supported the bill in the floor vote, with several legislators speaking out to support it.
“I was really glad to see so much bipartisan support,” said Rep. Kesha Ram, D-Burlington, a co-sponsor of the bill.
Critics of the legislation have raised concerns that the legislation runs afoul of the First Amendment. Allen Gilbert of the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont said the best way to remedy cases like revenge porn is through civil action.
“We’re opposed generally to the criminalization of forms of speech,” he said.
Gilbert is concerned about language in the bill that holds someone accountable for posting images if they “know or should have known” that the subject of the images objected to publication. He said that language is common in civil cases.
“Whenever you have a free speech issue like this one butting against a desire to help a person who is allegedly a victim of the use of that speech, it results in a really difficult situation,” Gilbert said.
Gilbert expects that if the bill is signed into law, its constitutionality will be challenged in court.
If the legislation passes the House on third reading Wednesday, it will head to the Senate.
