What Is Considered A Sex Crime Online?
The online world can be fun and exciting. You can go to new places across the globe without having to leave your home. You can meet new and interesting people online and make new friends. There is a darker side to the Internet, however, and it can be pretty scary. Sex crimes are in every state, but with online activities taking up so much of people's time now, they have shown up here too.
What is considered an online sex crime?
Child Pornography
The most prevalent of the online sex crimes is the creation and distribution of child pornography. This can be broken down into two areas. The people who create the content – be it video, audio or pictures and then distribute the images to others online via email, social media sites, websites or other means. There are also those in possession of these images and videos. It doesn't matter if you wanted to receive them or not, if you still have them on your phone or computer, you can be charged with possession.
If you have visited a chat room in which you can see images of child pornography or videos and you entice the child to act in a sexual manner, that is also grounds to be charged with a sex crime. It is also a fact that if these images cross state lines, it becomes a federal case and the charges increase.
Luring Underage Persons for Sex
As long as there have been chat rooms there have been predators hunting within them. While the majority of people within chat rooms are honest, good people, there is a chance that someone might try to send inappropriate images or send explicit private messages to underage chatters. This is in itself a crime, but there is a chance that they may also try to lure these children to meet them for sex. This is a felony and those convicted will have to register as a sex offender everywhere they go for the rest of their life.
Online Sexual Assault
While it might sound impossible, there is also the crime of online sexual assault. This means, if a predator demands you to perform some form of sex act for a webcam so they can watch it against your will, they have committed sexual assault.
They may try to use a former conversation they had with you or images you shared or even used your own webcam – if they have hacking skills to take images of you for example, in your bedroom to use against you. They may threaten to post these images online if you do not comply with what they ask.