Naked photos on phones get teens in hot water
Who would be foolish enough to send a naked self-portrait to someone's cellphone, creating the possibility of it being passed along to other phones endlessly? As it turns out: teenagers. KTLA reports in the above video that local teenage girls (mostly girls, it seems) send naked pictures of themselves to their boyfriends, but once they get in a fight, the boyfriends send the photos to their friends, the football team and maybe even the chess club. What cads.
But teens tempted to snap cellphone photos of their lovers in the buff should think twice. Turns out that taking a picture of a minor's genitalia qualifies as child porn, and if the photographer is over 18, he or she can be prosecuted. If a minor took the picture, KTLA reports, he or she may end up in another school or ... in therapy (the horror). Investigators urge parents to "frequently" monitor their kids' phones and to scan through the photos often.
Don't worry -- you can still watch the KTLA video without doing anything illegal -- the news team keeps it chaste, with lots of photos of teenagers' legs and a mysterious detective whose face is not shown, a la Dr. Claw on Inspector Gadget. With all the secrecy, we may not know who exactly is taking these photos, but we do know that if the question, "Who does that?!" comes up, the answer is probably, "Teens."
-- Alana Semuels
