“We do not live in a world where thousands of websites are devoted to revealing private medical records, credit card numbers, or even love letters. By contrast, ‘revenge porn’ is featured in as many as 10,000 websites, in addition to being distributed without consent through social media, blogs, emails, and texts. There is a demand for private nude photos that is unlike the demand for any other form of private information. While nonconsensual pornography is not a new phenomenon, its prevalence, reach, and impact have increased in recent years in part because technology and social media make it possible to ‘crowdsource’ abuse, as well as make it possible for unscrupulous individuals to profit from it. Dedicated ‘revenge porn’ sites and other forums openly solicit private intimate images and expose them to millions of viewers, while allowing the posters themselves to hide in the shadows.” Franks, supra, at 1260-61. Because the nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images “so often involves the Internet and social media, the public, law enforcement, and the judiciary sometimes struggle to understand the mechanics of the conduct and the devastation it can cause.” Citron & Franks, supra, at 347. ¶ 20 For example, in the course of its analysis, the circuit court speculated as follows: “[W]hen a girlfriend texts a nude selfie to a third party—her boyfriend—she gives up all expectations of privacy in the images. And if she cannot reasonably expect that the image remain private, then didn’t the act of sharing it in the first place demonstrate she never intended the image to remain private?” (Emphasis in original.) Such postulating is refuted by reams of scholarship. Moreover, the above comments reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of such communications. Given the circuit court’s factual starting point, the boyfriend to whom a nude selfie is sent is the second party to the private communication—not a third party. As a consequence, a girlfriend who transmits such a photo does not automatically relinquish “all expectations of privacy in the images,” as the circuit court hypothesized. Contrary to the circuit court’s conclusion, the sharing of a private sexual image in a personal and direct communication with an intended recipient does not demonstrate that the transmission was never intended to remain private. -6-