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Jennifer Tisdale currently has all her social media set to private. If someone wants to interact with her on Twitter or Instagram, she must explicitly allow it.
The Crofton-based entertainment writer wasn’t always so guarded about her web presence. In fact, three years ago, she went viral on Twitter for a post about receiving an unwanted photo of someone’s genitals.
The former stand-up comic made a joke out of the situation, but the experience didn’t just inspire new material, she said — it led her to take action. Tisdale reached out to Del. Lesley Lopez, a Montgomery County Democrat, and on Thursday, she testified before the House Judiciary Committee in support of Lopez’s bill that seeks to punish cyberflashing in Maryland.
The bill would allocate more than $67,000 in the state budget to set up the Task Force on Preventing and Responding to Nonconsensual Sexual Imagery. The goal of the task force would be to determinine how to best prevent the distribution of, and response to, unsolicited sexual imagery, like so-called “dick pics” and deepfake pornography — falsely manipulated video that makes it appear someone is engaging in a sexual act, when they aren’t.
The task force would include 11 members from various state government offices.
Payton Iheme is the vice president and head of global public policy for Bumble, a relationship app. The company has worked extensively to stop cyberflashing on the platform and support legislation to mitigate the behavior around the globe.
“Some people may laugh it off,” Iheme said in her testimony, “but if this were to happen in real life, there are laws in every single state that prevent this type of activity from happening. And if one does it, there’s ramifications.”
“What’s happening online, there’s a gap,” Iheme said.
The gap is more like a crater. More than 75% of millennial-aged women report having received unsolicited lewd imagery.
Tisdale is open about the fact that she uses humor to cope. But she said it’s hard to laugh off feeling violated. “If you admit that this upset you then you’re weak, which I don’t want to subscribe to.”
“You just feel like you have to accept this; maybe this person will be banned, but they will immediately probably start a new account on whatever social media platform they’re using,” she said.
In her opening testimony, Lopez explained that a task force is not the solution she had hoped to put forward when she began working to address the issue last fall. However, after consulting with the attorney general’s office, a number of constitutional issues specific to Maryland popped up.
Lisae Jordan, the executive director and counsel at the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, called the issue “extraordinarily complicated,” as it deals with free speech and freedom of expression. A task force, Jordan said, is the best way to address the issue from a legislative perspective.
Two of Maryland’s neighboring jurisdictions have proposed action on cyberflashing and nonconsensual sexual image sharing. This is another reason Lopez said action is so critical.
Last year, the Virginia legislature passed a bill that allows recipients of an unsolicited “intimate images” to sue the sender for up to $500. In January, seven members of the D.C. Council introduced the Forbid Lewd Activity and Sexual Harassment (”FLASH”) Act of 2023, which proposes similar punishments for the act.
In March 2022, the United Kingdom made cyberflashing a criminal offense when it passed the expansive Online Safety Bill.
Lopez’s bill received no opposing testimony.
callan.tansillsuddath@thebaltimorebanner.com
Callan Tansill-Suddath covered the Maryland General Assembly for The Baltimore Banner. She previously covered the beat for WYPR 88.1, and Capital News Service, and reported on Montgomery and Prince George's Counties for WAMU/DCist. A native of Silver Spring, Callan holds a Master of Journalism degree from the University of Maryland.
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