News

Man Jailed For Revenge Porn Says He Posted It To 'Memorialize' His Life

by Hope Schreiber
Washington County Sheriff's Office

Benjamin Barber, 31, of Oregon will be the first to serve jail time in the state for uploading a video of a woman onto pornographic websites without her consent.

The state's "revenge porn" law was passed in 2015 and will protect people who have explicit images published online without their permission. This includes "upskirt" photos and photos of an ex-partner.

He will serve six months in jail and five years probation.

Washington County Sheriff's Office

According to The Oregonian, Barber uploaded four videos of himself and a woman to nine websites. The pornographic clips were filmed when they were still a couple.

He has since been found guilty of five counts of unlawful dissemination of an intimate image.

The court ordered him to cease contact with the woman, destroy the images and not use a computer except for work during his probation.

Barber said that he uploaded the videos in April because he was planning to commit suicide, and he wanted to "memorialize all the things [he] had done."

 

He also believed that he had the copyright to the videos and he would be allowed to publish them. His defense said that he had the right to upload the videos and that the woman had no right to privacy.

However, the district attorney said the woman only found out about the video's existence after he threatened to publish them, which suggests she never consented to the filming to begin with.

Barber lost an election for the Oregon House of Representatives in 2012 and is a computer programmer.

Sergeant Bob Ray of the Washington County Sheriff's Office explained,

If you use the internet with the intent to harass or embarrass or basically demand someone, and there is sexually explicit material, and you can identify the other person who has not given their consent, that's essentially the threshold. If a person does that, they are essentially violating the law. Even just posting it on Facebook. Yes, even if the video was taken consensually.

Citations: Oregon man is jailed for six months under new 'revenge porn' law after he uploaded explicit video of his ex-girlfriend online without her consent (Daily Mail)