Why is OK to humiliate a public figure by publishing sexualized nude photos of them? I'll hazard that it isn't OK, but that we kid ourselves because the cases where that happens, the mere existence of the photos is newsworthy. We conflate two different pieces of information: (a) that the photos exist, are real, were sent as alleged, &c and (b) the visual content of the photos themselves.

(a) is a valid product of journalism; (b) probably isn't.

We think (b) is, though, because one way that media outlets secure power for themselves in the market and elsewhere is by exploiting (b) to inflict punishment on the targets of their stories. They don't like Anthony Weiner (no surprise), so they're happy to torture him to get extra pageviews.

I think that cases involving public figures is more complicated than many people think.

Most of us would probably agree that paparazzi publishing pictures of celebrities naked in their back yard with telephoto lenses is not okay. Publishing pictures of Rob Ford smoking crack? That seems more than reasonable. Publishing pictures of Rob Ford smoking crack, naked in his backyard? I don't think that Rob Ford's attire changes the situation (does it really matter if he's wearing a t-shirt, a business suit, or his birthday suit? Either way, he's smoking crack), but how do you encode that in the law? I am not convinced there is a good way, even if we just say "lets hash it out on a case to case basis in courtrooms, then you have to consider SLAPP concerns.

Or, another way to look at it is that an authenticated report of clear evidence of Ford smoking crack is "okay", but repeated broadcasts of private photos of him smoking crack is simply torture pornography.

I don't know. Like you said, it's not simple.

But the fact that it's not simple gives lie to the idea that persecution of revenge porn sites somehow impinges on the civic function of "journalism".

Good point. So I'll disagree with yummyfajitas in a different way: revenge porn is not journalism, so if publicly shaming Weiner is no different than revenge porn it also isn't journalism.

Similarly, to take a slightly different topic, was it journalism to reveal the existence of Abu ghraib photos but not to publish the photos themselves?

I'm also not sure I trust the media in the role of verifying and then hiding evidence. Far better to just do full data dumps and let us figure things out for ourselves.

I don't agree with the person you're responding to, but I feel that the Internet has already basically blurred the line between "public figures" and "normal people" to a degree that needs to be addressed by the law.

As a basic example, someone who is a "normal person" might have a photo leak that goes so viral the photo leak itself makes them a "public figure" by the old celebrity definition. What then?

When it comes to publishing nude photos sent in a clearly private context, what is the distinction?

I do make no distinction, because the only meaningful distinction I see is "do reporters care about person x".

Is pax dickinson a public figure? How about joe the plumber? Both have been the subject of journalistic investigation.