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Explicit Or Intimate Image Of Your Child Shared Online Without Permission: What Should You Do?

Okabe & Haushalter Nov 28, 2018 Child Pornography

In today’s world, parents introduce their children to the Internet and social media from a very young age. It may sound unthinkable, but children as young as four and five years old hanging out on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is not something out of the extraordinary nowadays.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of terabytes of photos with children under the age of 18, uploaded by children, their parents, and third parties. Sometimes, however, images of minors under the age of 18 are shared by third parties without permission from the children depicted or their parents.

What to do if an explicit image or video of your child has been shared online?

Although most of the time the anonymity on the Internet makes it nearly impossible to find out who uploaded the image of your child without your consent (unless you hire a private investigator), our Los Angeles child pornography defense lawyers at Okabe & Haushalter knows exactly what to do when you have found any inappropriate or explicit photo or video of your child online.

Since everything you share on social media and the Internet as a whole is up for grabs, child pornography and explicit images depicting minors are distributed online faster than McDonald’s sells Happy Meals with new toys. So if the images of your child have been uploaded without your consent, how should you approach this situation?

Provide moral support to your child

Our best child pornography defense attorneys in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California advise parents to get your facts straight before taking legal action. After all, you never know if your child has uploaded the image himself or herself or shared it with someone else online voluntarily.

If your child is traumatized by his or her explicit photos circulating all over the Internet, focus on providing moral support to your child. After all, your child is in much deeper distress over this situation than you are (unless, however, the child shared the photo or video voluntarily and was aware of the potential consequences).

Identify the person who might have shared the explicit images

If the explicit or inappropriate images or videos showing your child have been shared online without his/her permission and/or knowledge, you will need to sit down and talk to your child. Your goal is to find out who might have uploaded the image, whether or not the child ever shared this photo or video with anyone else, and whether anyone else had access or login info to your child’s phone, computer, laptop, cloud services, or social media accounts.

“If your child is able to identify the alleged perpetrator, contact this person personally and ask him or her to remove the explicit materials that have been shared without your permission,” advises our Los Angeles child pornography defense attorney at Okabe & Haushalter.

What to do if explicit images of your child have been shared on social media?

Even if your child exchanged self-produced images or videos as part of the so-called “sexting” with his/her girlfriend or boyfriend or a complete stranger, leaking these images and videos online could still constitute child pornography as long as the child depicted in the explicit or intimate material is under the age of 18.

If you have found a nude image of your child under the age of 18, that image has been shared without your permission, and it is not impossible to identify who shared the image, you should report it to the police and contact a child pornography attorney in Los Angeles or elsewhere in California to investigate the case.

If an explicit photo or video depicting your child under the age of 18 has been shared on social media or messaging app, you may be able to get the inappropriate content removed as soon as possible by contacting the appropriate service provider or support team.

Before taking legal action, consult with our attorneys at Okabe & Haushalter to learn about your legal options. Call our offices at 310-543-7708 today.