Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced long-stalled legislation on Thursday that would make it a federal crime to share sexually explicit material of a person online without the subject's consent.
The "Intimate Privacy Protection Act" is an effort several years in the making to combat the rise in recent years of "revenge porn," images that are shared on the internet in order to extort or humiliate someone. The practice disproportionately affects women.
"These acts of bullying have ruined careers, families, and even led to suicide," Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat and lead author of the bill, said in a statement.