Many educational presentations continue to straightforwardly frame both consensual and nonconsensual intimate image distribution among youth as child pornography. This continues despite the availability of a purpose-built offence for nonconsensual intimate image distribution (NCIID) that was designed, in part, to avoid the use of child pornography offences in NCIID cases and the existence of a “private use exception” that limits the applicability of child pornography offences in cases of consensual “sexting” among youth. This sometimes inaccurate and, I argue, inappropriate focus on child pornography offences is especially common in presentations by police and public safety personnel. Through a discursive analysis of Canadian case law and a case study of educational approaches provided by the CyberScan unit, I find that the continued dominance of a child pornography framing is based on both genuine misconceptions of how these offences apply to intimate image distribution and intentional misrepresentations of the legal context.

Middle and high school students interact via powerful social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Social media platforms are sometimes misused, resulting in cyberbullying and sexting that could adversely affect many in the school community. School counsellors, school psychologists, and educators are uniquely positioned to proactively address cyberbullying and sexting in schools with targeted educational and preventative programming. Attention to four facets is recommended: school climate initiatives, policy development and implementation, training in empathy and decision making in the context of online disinhibition, and challenges to use technology positively. Resources for cyberbullying and sexting prevention in Australia and the United States are highlighted.

The emerging phenomenon of youth ‘sexting’ presents a range of unique legal, policy and educative challenges. In this article we consider four key issues in recent responses to youth sexting behaviours: (1) the definitional dilemmas surrounding the term ‘sexting’; (2) the inadequacy of existing legislative frameworks for responding to these behaviours; (3) the problematic messages conveyed in anti-sexting campaigns; and (4) the relative silence around gender-based violence in non-consensual and abusive encounters. We argue that the non-consensual creation and distribution of sexual images has largely been framed in public debates as a problem of youth naiveté, with the effect of censuring young women's ‘risky’ sexual behaviour, and leaving unproblematised gender-based violence. We suggest that more nuanced understandings of sexting that distinguishes between the consensual and non-consensual creation and distribution of sexual images must inform legal, policy and education-based prevention responses to the misuse of new technologies.

Sexting among teens has become a huge problem in the US as well as in India. This has given birth to numerous issues including issues related to child pornography, exploitation of images by perpetrators and revenge porn. While in the US laws are being created and tested for regulating sexting in relation to revenge porn, the situation is quite different in India. This paper emphasises that there is a lacuna in dealing with adolescent sexual behaviour including revenge taking attitude with the help of sexted images. This paper argues that instead of dealing the issue of revenge porn by teens in the traditional procedural ways as has been laid down in the legal provisions or by way of rusticating the children (including the perpetrators and the victim) from the school as has happened in India in several occasions, Therapeutic Jurisprudence approach should be taken up.