A user who “sends nudes” is actually sending them to Snapchat, the company, who then sends them to the user’s friends. Snapchat also stores the nudes on its servers, and likely even has code that processes (reads!) those images for analytics purposes.

It’s not like Snapchat servers are some blackbox, either. Any engineer at the company with proper access rights could theoretically view any user’s uploads.

So I’m not sure “they’re sending them to each other” can really be a defense here, unless the media is truly e2e encrypted (it’s not).

By your definition, the postal service is the recipient of letters containing child porn.

No, because the postal service doesn't have access to read the contents of letters and parcels in transit. Not only do they not have access, but it is illegal for them to access the contents without a warrant.

This is why common carrier status is so important. Snap can't possibly police it's user base.

Which is probably why they're involved in investigations and prosecutions of same.

However, the postal service doesn't retain a copy of the data it receives, nor does it even open or view said data.

Nah, they don't open the letter, make a copy, store it, etc...

"Images of child pornography are not protected under First Amendment rights, and are illegal contraband under federal law. Section 2256 of Title 18, United States Code, defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (someone under 18 years of age)."

That's not even slightly what the article is about...

It may not be what the article is specifically about, but I'm willing to bet that a large majority of the "child porn" on services like SC are teen to teen, and in fact teens are being convicted as sex offenders for taking pictures of themselves.

Whats weird to me is the meeting point of where sex between two people is legal, but them taking pictures of each other naked is a felony.. there is a lack of common sense being applied here.

The law correctly anticipates that teenagers would get it on. It did not anticipate that they would create and exchange explicit images of themselves. In retrospect, that's an obviously bad assumption, but it wasn't so obvious when photography required high cost/skills/turnaround time. It was assumed that photographer/exploiter and subject/victim were different.

Not sure how you fix it (other than to educate youth and setup technical blocks). I suspect in most cases that police, prosecutors, and other adults "apply common sense", but some prosecutors will do anything to get re-elected (a nude selfie doesn't necessarily ruin a teen's life, but a criminal conviction for it surely will).

Right, age of consent is 16 in most of the US, so you could meet up and do all sorts of things, but if you take a picture of your consensual sex you are a felon. Hmmmmmm...

The law makes sense though from one perspective, as silly as this sounds. Having sex is far less worse than a video/picture of you naked, which may exist on the internet for a very, very long time. Think Amanda Todd and it being used as blackmail; the added threat of it being child porn is a real turn off.

Of course you then wonder how much can change in just 2 years, but if you're legally an adult, and you consented to the image, it won't be classed as child porn, but revenge porn laws are a thing.

But the easiest solution is not to consent to being filmed/photographed if you don't want to be...With how google photos uploads automatically the second you take a picture I don't trust smartphones these days...

I'm not sure a picture of you on the internet is a bigger responsibility to assume than creating a child, so I don't really think the law makes that much sense even in that perspective.

If we're honest, a lot of the laws were made so far away from the context of the current internet/smartphone culture that they are pretty much useless unless seriously reconsidered (and probably do a lot of immoral harm the way they are written right now).

So? The majority of anything is probably not criminal. This is about the portion that is.

I agree. The reason I see CP as bad is the implication of child abuse.

Underage teens sending nudes to each other doesn't seem a big deal to me, morally, irrespective of what the legal position happens to be.