SnapChatting Around the Issues

By suggesting a technological "work around" to getting caught sexting, we're acknowledging that politicians are going to sext people, and that it's acceptable behavior. We're not holding someone accountable for their actions here.
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In the aftermath of Anthony Weiner's most recent sexting scandal, I keep hearing this argument for better technology from pundits and late night hosts. Something along the lines of "Why didn't he just use SnapChat? Those photos on only last up to 10 seconds! Any middle schooler who has ever sent a picture of their bits knows that!"

There are a bunch of problems with this argument, and I wanted to address them.

First, let's take care of the "use better technology" part. SnapChat, for the uninitiated, is an app for iPhone and Android phones that allows users to take and share photos with other SnapChat users. They allow captions, drawings on the photos, and a set expiration time: usually 10 seconds or less. In my experience, the technology is used to send dumb, double-chinned photos with Perez Hilton-esque finger paintings back and forth to your friends. But the app gained some popularity with sexters because of the set time limit. Finally, people could send NSFW photos to others and have them disappear after mere seconds!

This argument is flawed. Even with this "new and improved" sexting technology, there are ways to keep that photo. You can still screen grab them -- and screen grabbing DOES allow you to send the photo along to others. The app has developed a notification system for the sender in case this happens, but it doesn't actually do anything to stop the recipient from freezing that photo, adding it to their camera roll, and then sharing it with others.

The second problem with this argument is, technology is not the problem we should be focusing on.

By focusing on the technology part of this scandal, we're ignoring the fundamental fact that Anthony Weiner sent photos of his junk to women who were not his wife -- some of whom probably didn't want that photo in their inbox. After doing so, he lied about it and said his Twitter feed was hacked, and spent thousands of dollars to investigate the hack (when he could've saved that money and simply owned up to sending the photos). After swearing to never send those photos again, he sent more photos of himself to women who were not his wife, and appeared unrepentant when asked about it.

In this way, the news media and entertainment media focusing on the technology used, instead of the transgression, is a disservice to their viewers. This is an elected official lying about his personal life, and wasting campaign money in investigating a "hack" to save face. This is a candidate for public office, expected to be (semi) honest with the people he governs, and by focusing on SnapChat as a solution rather than his lies as a problem, it's not helping anyone.

More importantly, by suggesting a technological "work around" to getting caught sexting, we're acknowledging that politicians are going to sext people, and that it's acceptable behavior. We're not holding someone accountable for their actions here -- we're telling them how to obfuscate their behavior even further. By saying "Just use SnapChat!" we're saying "You're an idiot, instead of not sending pictures of your junk, you should've just sent them another way so we have less chance of finding out about it."

Call me crazy, but I think people should be held accountable for stupid things that they do. I think Wall Street bankers that shafted millions out of their homes and retirement savings should be punished by more than pithy fines. I believe that 18-year-old kids that post drinking photos on Facebook without at least making their profiles private should have employers find them and question them. I believe that journalists that mislead people and report false news should be exposed as the frauds they are. And I believe that public figures should be questioned when they do dumb things like send photos of their naughty bits to constituents. I don't think we should be advising them on how to lie more easily, because this just grows the problem into something larger -- and it has nothing to do with technology.

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