Eels Blogs

I don't like making excuses for footballers. Being a role model is part-and-parcel of any professional sportsperson, and generally they're paid well for their positions. When you choose to play professional sport, you not only commit to a certain standard on the field, but also off it.

However, the Shaun Lane saga that has come to public attention over the past 24 hours, shows that things have gone too far, and it's time for legislators to step in.

Not, on Shaun Lane, but on the person who has made public what is apparently a private Snapchat message. 

We already have laws in place in relation to revenge porn. It is now a criminal act to share sexual images or video of a partner taken in a relationship. And so it should be.

But I ask, how is this any different?

The whole rise of Snapchat was centred around passing around images that would stay private. The very use of the platform implies that you do not wish for the images to be shared. 

There is certainly no consent to share.

These images are damaging to Lane. There are damaging to his former and current employers.

Revenge porn laws relate to "intimate" images. However, as this case shows, it isn't limited to images of a sexual nature, that can harm the victim. It is near identical in its level of betrayal, malice and intent to injure.

This is where our outrage should be focused. In this "digital sharing" age we live in, it's important for society to have legislated laws around what is acceptable to share and to whom. I would argue strongly that any sharing of images, whereby those images were obtained based on a trusted relationship, should be criminalised.

And while I'm generally an advocate of freedom of the press, in lieu of their not being adequate laws around this area, I think all editors and publishers need to consider the merits of publishing materials obtained unethically.