A 14-year-old girl is suing Facebook after a naked photograph of her was posted on the site.
Lawyers for the teenager from Northern Ireland claim the picture was
obtained by blackmail and published on a 'shame' page as a form of
revenge.
The girl is taking legal action against Facebook and the man who
posted the image in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in
the world.
At a hearing in the High Court in Belfast, one of the teenager's
barristers, Edward Fitzgerard QC, said blocking the sharing of the image
should have been a “red-line” issue for the company.
“A naked 14-year-old's picture was being put on a shame page,” Mr Fitzgerald said.
“If they had blocked it all this subsequent publication of her naked image would not have taken place.”
The teenager's two barristers, Mr Fitzgerald and Peter
Girvan, compared uploading and distributing the image to an act of child
abuse.
Brett Lockhart QC, acting on behalf of Facebook, argued the claim for damages should be dismissed.
He referred to a European directive that he argued provided protection from having to monitor a vast amount of online material.
Mr Lockhart also stressed that the social networking site would have deleted the image immediately if it had been notified.
But Mr Fitzgerald contended that Facebook had the power to block any
republication of the photograph by using a DNA process to identify the
image.
The girl, who cannot be identified, is seeking damages for misuse of
private information, negligence and breach of the Data Protection Act.
The judge reserved his decision on an application to have the case halted.
On Tuesday, an official report revealed that more than 200
prosecutions have been brought since new laws to tackle revenge porn
were rolled out across the UK.
The offence - which carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison
- was introduced in April last year after calls from campaigners and
victims to criminalise the distribution of private sexual images of an
individual without their consent.
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