It'd be interesting to see the differences int his sort of crime in more open cultures.
"Standing up to bullies is the kind of thing that gets young people expelled from school. Something about those zero tolerance policies."
So it's not really the standing up part but the policy that gets them expelled.
I think this is false. You can stand up to a bully without physical fighting or retaliation.
Many discussions here about freedom of speech and the value of anonymity to this; the freedom to express ideas without worrying it may explode in our faces later.
I think right-leaning people use "cancel culture" to describe the same category of concerns. At lest, I hope that's what they mean by the term.
Business and governments say similar things, saying that if every meeting is recorded, people will be less willing to speak up.
A society where we don't care about people having had dumb opinions in the past would help more… but that creates a game theoretic risk, we need some kind of reputation system to avoid the iterated prisoners' dilemma degenerating into the ordinary prisoners' dilemma.
I don't have any complete answers. But at the same time, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, we can certainly make things better.
Also Taylor Swift will probably save us all if she takes on AI nudes and she can help teens by leading by example. That will help to change the dialog shame and stigma.
We also need to help kids with self-acceptance and reduce shame. But yes, instagram and social media need to do more, that has been clear for awhile.
Hopefully we can move past restrictive religious ways of looking at the world and actually prevent things like what happened in the article.
That said, Christians, in general, would agree with you that law by its very nature has no power to bring about good in people. That's pretty much one of the core tenets. In the end, laws serve only like the double yellow line in the middle of American highways. It's a guide that helps us share the road without hurting others.
The guard rails of commitment, love and genuine care for others brings about an environment where relationships can flourish. They provide stability and care that children need to thrive emotionally. They keep us from swerving into relational "oncoming traffic" when we get frustrated or angry, instead encouraging us to stay in the lane and figure out how to work together.
I think if you want to reduce the shame of people in situations, the absolute best thing to do is to make extortion a crime that law enforcement has the ability to prosecute forcefully. If that's the case, people who are in this situation know that the law and the resources of the law are on their side.
I think this law -> culture change has already been shown to work in similar situations. For instance, when women know that law enforcement will help them investigate sexual harassment/assault it makes it means they have less shame about dressing/socializing how they want.
Your comment reminds me of the first time I received the phishing scam where the email claims that your computer was hacked and that the hacker has a video of you pleasuring yourself that they will allegedly send to all of your contacts if you don't pay them money.
After immediately recognizing that it was a phish, my second thought was "I value that money way more than I value my dignity ... so even if this were legit ... sorry grandma!"
There is always going to be ways to hurt or threaten to hurt people.
I’m not from a puritan environment at all but when I was a teenager I had low self esteem. I believe I could have been an easy victim back then.
For example, we often educate children to set boundaries and tell adults about unwanted sexual advances. That doesn't mean that children who failed to set boundaries and tell adults deserve to be molested. .