By Emily BazelonPosted Monday, March 1, 2010, at 4:34 PM ET
A teenager in Wisconsin named
Anthony Stancl set up a fake Facebook profile, pretending to be a girl.
Seventeen or 18 at the time, Stancl used the profile to lure 30 of the
boys he went to high school with to send him nude pictures or videos of
themselves. Then Stancl threatened to post the material on the Internet
unless they performed sex acts with him. Seven of them say they did—and
that Stancl took pictures of them with his cell-phone camera.
Last week, Stancl was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading
guilty to repeated sexual assault of a child. This is the kind of lurid
sexting story that gets the prosecutorial blood flowing. But if Stancl
is at the scary end of the teen sexting spectrum, at the other end are a
12-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl in Valparaiso, Ind., who
reportedly exchanged nude photos of themselves. The kids were
in school when they were caught in this new form of "You show me yours,
I'll show you mine." When a teacher confronted the girl, she started to
cry. What's the best way to handle an incident like this? Should the
police and prosecutors be involved, or should schools and parents handle
the fallout? How can states draft laws that protect against Anthony
Stancl without sweeping in more innocent behavior, like that of the
students in Valparaiso?
Read more at http://www.slate.com/id/2246371/?gt1=38001
