The first week of Zoom school last spring, one of my own children changed his image to a black square with white lettering that said “Click here to end call.” Which is exactly what the teacher did, several times. Everyone laughed, even the poor teacher … eventually.
Because teenagers are assholes. And if being obnoxious were against the law, we’d have to throw all of them in jail.
But according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, that’s exactly what the cops in Henry County, Georgia are threatening to do after reports of kids posting porn onscreen during remote classes.
“Students: If you stream pornography in an online class, myself and the Henry County GA Sheriff’s Office will find you and charge you with life-altering charges,” the original post read. “We’re 24 hours in, and I’m over it.”
It appears to have been edited now to include reference to specific Georgia statutes, before being removed altogether once the story hit the papers.
Luckily, the internet is forever.
How standard 9th grade dipshittery is transformed into “manufacture and distribution of child pornography charges, child molestation charges, and hav[ing] to register as a sex offender” is not entirely clear.
Georgia’s obscenity distribution laws are generally applied to commercial sale, rather than a 14-year-old holding his phone up to the webcam to flash a photo during math class. Law enforcement declined to elaborate on the “incident” currently under investigation by a Henry County Sheriff’s Office school resource officer. But if it involved the bog standard, consenting adult porn that’s never more than a click away, it’s not clear how the child pornography statutes might apply.
O.C.G.A. 16-6-4 criminalizes showing porn to kids under 16 “with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of either the child or the person.” So being a little twerp trying to get a rise out of your classmates is probably not going to satisfy the mens rea requirement. And, by the by, the sex offender registry statute specifically states “conduct which is adjudicated in juvenile court shall not be considered a dangerous sexual offense.” So kids 16 and under specifically excluded.
But other than that, bang up legal work there, fellas! Zoom school sucks, but somehow the Henry County Police Department managed to make it even worse.
Cops say students are streaming porn during virtual class [AJC]
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.