Wendy Rogers may have violated Arizona’s ‘revenge porn’ law by tweeting x-rated pictures of Hunter Biden

L4sBot@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 398 points –
Wendy Rogers may have violated Arizona’s ‘revenge porn’ law by tweeting x-rated pictures of Hunter Biden
azfamily.com

Sen. Wendy Rogers shared sexual images of Hunter Biden with her more than 300K followers on Twitter, where users have to be at least 13 years old to sign up.

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My best guess is they do this to prevent defamation lawsuits against themselves. The person can't come back and say XYZ news corp accused me of posting revenge porn and tarnished my reputation.

This is the exact answer. It's also the reason why, for example, most major news outlets refused to call Trump's lies "lies" for years. A word may have one meaning in everyday conversation, but has a completely different meaning that carries infinitely more weight in a court of law.

Tarnished their reputation by stating facts?

Seems like a reasonable defense.

It's not a fact until they are convicted.

So if I drive 100 mph through a school zone it isn't a fact until I'm convicted?

More specifically in cases of defamation, it would be on the news agency to show evidence (and that they had the evidence at the time) that what they wrote is true. Now whether they have the evidence is one issue, whether they want to reveal the evidence and by extension their sources is another. So even if the news agency has the evidence to back up its claims, it may still choose to throw in "may" and "allegedly" rather than to have to show these things in court.