The naked truth

By Daniel Patrick Sheehan Genevieve Marshall and Brian Callaway Of The Morning Call Once in cyberspace, images like those of nude Parkland students are with us forever.We begin on a fogey-ish note: What's the matter with kids these days?The news out of Parkland High School last week -- that at least two students had taken pictures of themselves nude and that the photos had made their way into cyberspace beyond all hope of recall -- is just the latest version of what is quickly becoming an old story. Today's technology, joined to the rashness of youth, can mean humiliating, reputation-haunting trouble.The speed of image-making and message-sending has taken away the time for reflection.''There's no time between the 'Gee, would it be a good idea to do this?' and the click of the mouse,'' said Parry Aftab, executive director of the New Jersey-based Internet safety organization WiredSafety.In addition, youth are more willing to make their private lives public in part because of media influence, she said.''They're watching reality shows, they're seeing things, they log on to MySpace and they see other people doing this and they think it's acceptable,'' she said. ''Sort of a mob mentality.''To the horror of their parents, young people living so much of their lives in cyberspace seem unaware that there is no expectation of privacy in that realm and little recourse for people who feel violated by what happens there.''People forget when they put pictures up, it's not just for their friends,'' said Sarah Rutstein, 19, a Muhlenberg College sophomore from West Windsor, N.J. ''It's really for the entire world to see.''Existing law makes it tough to prosecute cases in which photos are posted without the subject's permission.Luke Heller, a former Pennsylvania state trooper from Lower Macungie, was arrested in 2006 after posting photos of his estranged wife nude on a Web site. He initially was charged with felony crimes, including unlawful use of a computer, but a judge said Pennsylvania's computer law wasn't appropriate for the circumstances of the case. So Heller could only be prosecuted on less-serious misdemeanor charges. He pleaded guilty to harassment and was sentenced to three to 12 months in Lehigh County prison.In the Parkland case, authorities threatened to prosecute anyone who knowingly held on to the pictures -- not because they were disseminated online, but because the subjects are underage and the images constitute child pornography.Despite the threat of prosecution, the pictures -- including one of a sex act between a boy and a girl whom officials have yet to identify -- have been circulating for months and, according to some students, have already been sent to people in other states.Experts said the fallout is potentially devastating.''Look at what one click can do,'' said Sarah Stevens, a Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network physician who specializes in adolescent medicine. ''That's a level of damage to an individual that I don't think can ever be undone.''The wife of a Virginia school administrator learned earlier this month how fast a few choice words can spread when she left an angry cell phone message for a high school student who called her husband at home to ask why he hadn't ordered a snow day. In a minute-long tirade that within a day had been forwarded to hundreds of students, posted on YouTube and picked up by the media, the woman made reference to ''snotty-nosed little brats'' as she scolded the 17-year-old caller for his impertinence.The student's decision to post the administrator's home and work numbers on a Web site and encourage others to call him has some wondering if he crossed the line.Stevens says teenagers aren't fundamentally different than they were before technology changed the speed of life. They are impulsive risk-takers ''who sometimes do things they kind of know they shouldn't do,'' she said. ''Some of that is part of the process of figuring things out and growing up.''But many of the safeguards that helped protect teens despite themselves have disappeared, she added. Many cell phones have cameras, and a growing number are Internet-ready. The combination has made it devastatingly simple to take inappropriate photos that spread from phone to phone like a virus.Before the advent of that technology, Stevens said, ''you'd have to get a camera, which had film in it…When you took the picture, you had to take it somewhere to be developed, and if there was something inappropriate there, it probably stopped at that point.''What happened at Parkland isn't unique, said Muhlenberg College students, who had no problem reeling off examples of technology-aided vengeance and voyeurism.Four years ago, Melissa Kaplan saw something similar happen at her suburban Philadelphia middle school. A ninth-grader used her cell phone to take photos of herself naked and send them to her boyfriend. He sent the photos to his friends. It was the talk of her town for several weeks.''It became a community problem,'' said Kaplan, 19, a Muhlenberg College sophomore. ''You just don't take pictures of yourself naked, and failing that, you certainly don't send them to someone else.''Christopher Szczerbienski, a Muhlenberg freshman, said a girl at the high school he attended in Holmdel, N.J., tried to make her boyfriend jealous by taking topless photos of herself with another girl. She sent the photo over her cell phone to his phone, and he got his own revenge by quickly forwarding them to everyone he knew.''People talked about it a lot for a few weeks but the administration didn't know about it,'' said Szczerbienski, 18. ''Now it's just a funny story.''And a cautionary tale.''Teenagers need to learn to stand up for themselves,'' he said. ''You don't let people take photos of you that you wouldn't want your parents and the entire world to see. You don't do that to yourself, either. And you certainly don't pass them on.''''They think it won't happen to them,'' said sophomore Trisha Kadakia, 20, of Cherry Hill, N.J. ''Even though it happens all the time.''Muhlenberg students said they were cautioned during orientation about the potential for lasting negative impact when they publish anything on the Internet, from diaries on weblogs to networking profiles and photos of them drinking before they turn 21.Sororities warn their pledges not to post photos of themselves drinking alcoholic beverages on Facebook and other social networking sites. They are told to adjust their privacy settings so only friends can see their photos, and officials in risk management check to make sure they haven't posted anything that would harm the student's reputation or the sorority.College students have seemed to interpret this message as such: As long as the alcohol is in a red plastic cup, no one will be the wiser.''It's become part of the college experience to get drunk and take stupid photos,'' said sophomore Emily Harris, 19, of Chatham, N.J. ''And then on Monday you check all the party albums to see what happened.''Inappropriate gestures. Body parts exposed. Beer cans in the hands of underage students.''A lot of kids are posting pictures with the unrealistic expectation [that] only the people they want to see it can see it,'' Aftab said. ''But this is not a diary locked up in your sock drawer.''From the Morning Call 30/01/08