Sydney Morning Herald | March 16, 2011 | AAP
The South Australian government wants to make it an offence to post violent or other degrading images on the internet.
Attorney-General John Rau said the state’s proposed legislation, to be introduced this year, would be the first of its kind in Australia.
It will make it an offence to knowingly take or publish humiliating, demeaning or degrading images of another person without their consent.
Mr Rau said it was designed to tackle thugs who filmed assaults and then posted them on the internet.
The move follows the appearance of a viral video on YouTube showing a student in an Australian school playground tormenting another boy and then being picked up and violently thrown on the ground by the victim.
“The government wants to attack this disgusting fad of thugs engineering and filming violent and humiliating acts and posting the images to websites,” Mr Rau said today.
“This behaviour is so disturbing and potentially damaging to the victims that I believe the creators of these images should be subject to severe penalties, including jail sentences.
“The government wants to make it very clear that if a person participates in any way in an act of this sort, then the consequences will be severe.”
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