Yesterday, Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper addressed the students of Clifford Smart Middle School in Commerce Township about the dangers of social media and potential criminal liability for conduct involving the transmission of naked images through the Internet.  The presentation was part of the ongoing Educating Our Youth initiative at the prosecutor's office.

The prosecutor warned the students that nothing is ever deleted once posted to the Internet via social media.  She also advised that the hard drive of a computer can be seized by law enforcement and explained the trove of information that resides on such devices.

The wide-ranging talk covered sexting, how to exercise proper caution when online, and the recent case in Brandon where a student hacked into an after-school app to post violent threats that included references to the Colombine massacre.  Often, coming of age in the post-modern world now involves facing certain digital realities.

With a compelling digital backdrop for her presentation, the primary thrust of Jessica Cooper's address to the middle school students was the dangers of sexting one another.  She warned students of the serious felonies of: possession, distribution and solicitation of child sexually explicit materials and the steep penalties those convicted could face.  She cautioned students that deleting such images does not make the problem go away.

Recently, Cooper's office has exercised its prosecutorial discretion to bring charges against a large group of middle school and high school students in Rochester Hills.  The students were sending nude images of themselves to one another through their cell phones.

No one wants to witness the witch-hunt that could result from mass prosecutions of teenagers; that was not the point of Cooper's message.  Rather, the digital youth culture needs to scale back some of its reckless nubile abandon in our digital age.

We here at the Law Blogger applaud the prosecutor's efforts in the Educating Our Youth initiative.  With an overburdened schedule, Madame Prosecutor is finding the time to personally take her serious message to the youth who need to hear it the most.

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By: Timothy P. Flynn

Believed to be the first social media site in 2014 to be hacked, last week Snapchat  had 4.6 million accounts breached, including account names and partial cell phone numbers.  To add insult to injury, the hackers posted the stolen information and an explanation of why the hack was executed on this tech post from TheVerge.

Young peeps, mostly teenagers, have been drawn to the site since its inception in September 2011 because a user can send a pic or video that disappears upon opening in 10-seconds or less.  Imagine the possibilities for regrettable selfies and sexting.

Snapchat reportedly turned down a multi-billion dollar purchase offer from Facebook last year; this episode will not add value to the company or its service.  This is especially true for a company with a founding principle of preserving the anonymity of its users.

From a privacy standpoint, our cell numbers are hugely important for a variety of reasons.  First, a cell number is a basic building block for a cyber thief.  Also, we tend to hold onto our cell numbers for a long period of time; even longer than some of our social media accounts, some of our emails, user names and even residential addresses.

Second, if a hacker has your cell number you can be subject to "smishing"; spam that comes to you in the form of a text message that requests you to click on a link.  When you do, malware is deposited into your cell phone that can retrieve stored data such as photos and contacts.  Third, hackers can use your cell number to side-step some security measures in the world of e-commerce.

We here at the Law Blogger have taken note of the teen-aged "daily use" flight from trusted -and now ancient- sites like Facebook, to newer sites like Snapchat, Instagram, WeChat, and Vine.  Teenagers simply do not appreciate the potential harm posed by hackers lurking on line within the seams of these new platforms.

Last week's Snapchat hacking episode hearkens social media users back to June 2012 and the infamous Linkedin hack [another ancient platform] resulting in 6.5 million compromised LI accounts.  This blogger had to change his username and password on that buttoned-down social media site as a direct result of that crime.

If you have children that are active on such sites, take a moment to emphasize some basic security steps and the importance of not giving away your personal information.

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Last winter, a 14-year old from Olympia, WA wanted to send her boyfriend a special momento.  In an exercise of judgment she would come to profoundly regret, she snapped a full-on frontal nude with her cell phone.

She then attached the pic to her boyfriend Isaiah's number and pushed send, sealing her fate.

For his part, Isaiah was coaxed by another girl he thought was good friends with his girlfriend into forwarding the pic.  Actually, the other girl was a rival for Isaiah's affections with an epic episode of cyber-bullying on her mind.
 
Annotating the pic with a disparaging comment, the rival did a global attach, publishing it to all her contacts.  From there, it went viral within hours.

Before school started the next day, parents and middle school administrators alike were scrambling with damage control.  By mid-day, local police were on the scene conducting interviews.  Isaiah was arrested at the school by the end of the day.

Isaiah, the rival, and another middle school student were charged with distributing child pornography; a felony.  The three teenage offenders spent at least one night in the local juvenile detention center and were brought before a magistrate in standard blue jumpsuits.

The community was pitched into an uproar.  Some parents wanted the accused teens tried as adults; others wanted the subject of the photo charged along with the publishers.

In the end, the prosecuting attorney moderated the charges, offering a misdemeanor reduction equivalent to our "disorderly conduct", with the opportunity to earn a dismissal in exchange for some very targeted community service.

As a component of their probation, the teen misdemeanants were required to create a public service  campaign about the hazards of sexting.  The prosecutor fashioned a sentence that would both capitalize on the aftershock of the incident as well as educate the public about what was acceptable conduct for their children.

Looks like "mission accomplished".

But you would be fooling yourself to think that our culture's sexual saturation is going to change anytime soon. Our children are bombarded with images on a 24/7 basis.  Remember Motorola's Super Bowl ad of Megan Fox snapping a pic of herself in a bubble bath.  Wonder who she sent that pic to...?

We here in the Detroit area are well familiar with sexting hazards; it basically brought down the hip-hop Mayor after all. [Well, technically a perjury conviction accomplished that; but still, just sayin....]

So think twice before you push send folks.  This bit of digital common sense applies to any manner of content you are about to publish.

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