Facing Sexual Cyberharassment Charges?
Everyone knows that most of what you see online is not real, but that does not stop it ruining your day. Everywhere you click, there are digitally enhanced images of impossibly beautiful people, and even though you know that they do not look like that in real life, it still bothers you that you do not. Now that we have technology to make fabricated video footage of events that never happened but which look real enough that viewers cannot always tell that they are fake, the capacity of technology to spread lies is unprecedented. If someone spreads a rumor about a sexual situation in which you allegedly engaged, you can just dismiss it as a rumor; the person who spread the rumor cannot prove that it is true, and besides, the fact that these people are saying these things about you says more about them than it does about you. If they make a sexually explicit deepfake video that really looks like you, this crosses the line. Florida considers the sharing of sexually explicit deepfake content sexual cyberharassment, and the federal government is considering enacting a similar law nationwide. The bill has its critics, though. For one thing, if the First Amendment gives us the right to post cartoons of hamsters dancing, doesn’t it also give us the right to post deepfakes of our exes and enemies copulating? Here, our Miami sex crimes defense attorney explains the current federal and state laws against sexual cyberharassment and nonconsensual sharing of sexual content.
Sexual Cyberharassment Laws in Florida
Florida law defines the crime of sexual cyberharassment as the sharing or posting of sexually explicit images or video content without the consent of the person or people depicted in the content. This applies to so-called revenge porn or nonconsensual pornography, where the person depicted knew that the defendant captured the images or videos but reasonably expected that the content would remain private, such as if they took the images within the context of a romantic relationship, but one of the exes posted the content online after the couple broke up. It also applies to deepfakes, where the person depicted never posed nude or filmed himself or herself in sexual situations; rather, the defendant used artificial intelligence to make a video that looks like it shows the subject engaging in sexual acts.
According to Florida law, if someone asks you to remove online images or videos that depict him or her in a sexual way, you must do so within 24 hours and notify anyone with whom you have shared the content to do the same. If you do not, you can be charged with sexual cyberharassment, which is a first-degree misdemeanor for a first offense and a third-degree felony for a repeat offense.
The Take It Down Act: A Proposed Bipartisan Federal Law Against Nonconsensual Pornography
A bipartisan bill known as the Take It Down Act passed the House of Representatives in April 2025. The bill, sponsored by Ted Cruz and Amy Klobuchar, aims to criminalize the sharing of nonconsensual pornography online. It defines nonconsensual pornography similarly to how Florida law defines it.
Defenses to Allegations of Sexual Cyberharassment
Although most lawmakers support the idea of criminalizing online harassment through the sharing of sexually explicit content of the likenesses of real people, some of them disagree with the specifics of the Take It Down Act. Specifically, they think that the way the bill defines nonconsensual pornography is excessively broad. Critics of the bill believe that it could be used to prosecute people who post consensually produced images, such as where a model accepted payment for posing nude for photographs that he or she knew would be published. Given the trend toward some officials attempting to categorize all content related to same sex love as pornographic, some critics of the bill fear that it could target content which is neither nonconsensual nor pornographic, such as if a man posted a video on his own Facebook account of himself dancing with his friends at a gay club.
If you get accused of sexual cyberharassment, you might be able to argue that you reasonably believed that the content was consensual. You might also be able to argue that there is insufficient evidence that you are the one who posted it.
Contact Our Criminal Defense Attorneys
A South Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you defend yourself against criminal charges of sexual cyberharassment. Contact Ratzan & Faccidomo in Miami, Florida for a confidential consultation about your case.
Sources:
leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0784/Sections/0784.049.html
mprnews.org/story/2025/04/29/take-it-down-act-addressing-nonconsensual-deepfakes-and-revenge-porn-passes-what-is-it
