Despite specific warnings from prosecutors, the 15-year-old Ohio girl who was arrested last week and accused of sending nude pictures of herself to classmates probably doubted that she could ultimately be forced to register as a sex offender under state law, psychologists and Internet experts say.
More than likely, they suggest, she was only after a sliver of notoriety, the product of a culture where pornography has gone mainstream and fame can be had in an instant by simply distributing a sexually explicit video with a cell phone or on the Internet.
“They think they’re going to get attention — that it makes them stars of their own reality show,” Internet privacy and piracy lawyer Parry Aftab said of the growing number of U.S. teenagers who publish sexual images of themselves online.
“They don’t understand the consequences,” said Aftab, an ABC News consultant. “They don’t think about where that video is going to go, or how long it’s going to be on the Internet and the 50-year-old who is going to be drooling over it.”
