Why retweeting Santi Millán's sexual video is also a crime: the lack of protection of privacy on the internet

The last popular victim in Spain of the non-consensual spread of a video with sexual content has been the Barcelona actor Santi Millán (53 years old).

The images of a relationship between the artist and a woman have gone viral, despite the fact that the law is clear.

"Dissemination is a crime," says criminal lawyer Jesús Jiménez, who recalls that these practices are prohibited by article 197.7 of the Penal Code.

The actor has spoken in the same sense.

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Column: 'Intimacy', starring Santi Millán

The law establishes: “Whoever, without the authorization of the affected person, disseminates, reveals or transfers to third parties images or audiovisual recordings of the person who had Obtained with your consent [consent] at a home or in any other place out of sight of third parties, when the disclosure seriously undermines personal privacy.

Despite the terrible wording, the article is clear in punishing the dissemination of intimate images without consent.

The rule establishes the greatest burden on whoever initiates the illegal chain, an act that is considered more serious if the origin is a person who has been linked to the victim by "emotional relationship, even without living together", or if the affected by the spread is minor.

But a new rule also targets those who share or contribute to the dissemination of content.

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'Intimacy', rapists and much more

In this sense, the Law of Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom, known as "only yes is yes", approved on May 26 in Congress and currently being processed in the Senate, incorporates this figure of complicity by setting a penalty of “a fine of one to three months to whoever, having received the images or audiovisual recordings referred to in the previous paragraph, disseminates, reveals or transfers them to third parties without the consent of the affected person”.

Criminal lawyer Jiménez is blunt in this regard and recommends "not forwarding any image without the explicit consent of the affected person."

In this sense, he recalls that there are already convictions for people who forwarded images to third parties, even those originally sent voluntarily.

In this way, the penalty not only affects viralized content, but also those delivered personally, but whose dissemination limits are violated.

"The key," according to the lawyer, "is to prevent disclosure from seriously undermining a person's privacy, as the rule says."

review the laws

Borja Adsuara Varela, lawyer, consultant, university professor and expert in digital law, privacy and data protection, goes further and considers that the case of Santi Millán should serve to take advantage of the processing in the Senate of the law of "only if it is yes” in order to review the legal texts and improve them.

“Article 197.7 is limited to the one who obtains the images, with which, if you are not the one who has obtained them, you get away with it.

It should be extended to those who receive and redistribute them”, claims the lawyer, considering the fines provided for accomplices to be “ridiculous”.

“On the other hand”, adds Adsuara, “it is too limited to images, photos or audiovisual recordings.

But a recorded conversation or a screenshot of it [if done via messaging] can seriously undermine someone's privacy as much or more than appearing nude in a photo."

Whoever suffers humiliation for their sexual life not only suffers it for the one who uploads the video or the one who spreads it the first time, but also for all those who dedicate themselves to redistributing it, also insulting and harassing the victim instead of the offender who has uploaded it.

It is the greatest symptom of a sick society

Borja Adsuara, lawyer, university professor and expert in digital law, privacy and data protection

The lawyer points out that, as in the case of Veronica, the Iveco worker who committed suicide after sharing sexual images of her without her consent, "these crimes are committed in two acts."

“The first”, he explains, “is the dissemination of the video, but the second is committed by those who redistribute it, also adding humiliating comments.

Whoever suffers humiliation for their sexual life not only suffers it for the one who uploads the video or the one who spreads it the first time, but also for all those who dedicate themselves to redistributing it, also insulting and harassing the victim instead of the offender who has uploaded it”.

"It is the greatest symptom of a sick society," he states emphatically.

Adsuara points out a first germ of this disease: "the misnamed press of the heart".

"We have become accustomed to sacking people's privacy and it has already been said, even by the European Court of Human Rights, with a ruling on Princess Carolina of Monaco, that it is one thing for celebrities to have more limited privacy. and another thing is that they lack it: because it is a fundamental right of every human being.

And not just sex life, but any aspect of life."

The case of Santi Millán, as well as that of others registered throughout the world, has three paths for the lawyer: the serious impairment of privacy would be criminal, but compensation for moral damages can be requested through civil and, In addition, it is an infringement of the General Data Protection Regulation.

Adsuara insists that it is a good time to review the legislative texts, although he admits the difficulties in controlling all the implications of syndication.

“You can get a porn video,” she explains, “and you don't know if it's authorized or not.

In addition, you can act against the most serious cases and the first ones that are republished, but if it goes viral, you are not going to judge 10,000 people”.

And he concludes with an insistence: “The one who uploads the images for the first time is just as guilty or more so as the one who redistributes them.

If this society were not so hypocritical and, instead of turning against the victim, it did so against the person who uploaded it, no one would spread an intimate video.

If society throws itself on top of whoever uploads or redistributes it, we will be able to change things.”

Virginia Sánchez-Jiménez, from the Department of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Seville, investigates violence on networks and their perception.

In an investigation published in the

, she describes two phenomena that have to do with society's perception of this type of behavior as a result of practices in adolescence: they are common and boys believe they are less serious.

The study introduces a little-studied factor: moral disconnection, a process of self-conviction through which ethical principles do not apply to oneself in a certain context, an intentional deactivation to maintain coherence between values ​​and behaviors.

But, in any case, he is blunt: “Let it be clear that the responsibility for the aggression lies with the aggressor.

Not attributed to the victim.

We cannot force this to be preventive in a circumstance that should not happen.

We cannot lose the perspective that the responsibility always lies with the aggressor”

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