San Antonio Employment Law Blog

Revenge porn now illegal in Texas

In Texas, you have rights as a worker. You can’t be harassed at work, and sexual harassment is an offense that you can make a claim over. One thing that you could come across in the workplace is sexual harassment through revenge porn.

Revenge porn, which is essentially when a past lover or other person puts your nude or sexual images or videos online against your will, is now against the law in Texas thanks to a bill passed by the Texas Senate.

This bill was passed unanimously and makes revenge porn a Class-A misdemeanor. On top of that, anyone who is victimized in this way now has legal recourse to seek compensation for the damage caused. What defines revenge porn under this law, though?

If the ex-partner or coworker with access to these images shares them online in an effort to seek revenge and to cause harm to you or someone you know, then it is revenge porn and can cause serious harm to you. Once images go on the Internet, eliminating them completely is nearly impossible, making it very hard to undo any damage that has already been done by making the image or video public.

Criminal penalties can be assessed against the owner of the website allowing the image to be published as well as against the person who uploaded the images. The maximum fine for an offense would be $4,000 and a jail term of up to a year could be sentenced by a judge. Previously, there were no laws against revenge porn, making it harder for victims to pursue charges.

Source: Dallas News, “Texas Senate passes bill to criminalize revenge porn,” Terrence Stutz, April. 14, 2015

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