A candidate in a high-stakes legislative contest in Virginia performed sex acts with her husband in live videos posted on a pornographic website while asking viewers to pay them with “tokens" or ”tips” for individual requests.

A candidate in a high-stakes legislative contest in Virginia had sex with her husband in live videos posted on a pornographic website and asked viewers to pay them money in return for carrying out specific sex acts.

Screenshots of Susanna Gibson on the website were shared with The Associated Press. The campaign for Gibson, a Democrat running for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates in a district just outside Richmond, issued a statement Monday in which it denounced the sharing of the videos as a violation of the law and her privacy. Gibson called the exposure of the videos “the worst gutter politics.”

“It won’t intimidate me and it won’t silence me,” she said in the statement. “My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up.”

  • utopianfiat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    592·
    1 year ago

    The real controversy is that somehow Wapo and AP decided to assist a GOP operative in violating Virginia’s revenge porn laws

    • SwampYankee
      101·
      1 year ago

      Chaturbate TOS:

      You may not, download, reproduce, sell, rent, perform, or link to any content made available through the Platform, except as expressly permitted by the Community Member and/or Independent Broadcaster, as appropriate, responsible for such content or otherwise as permitted by the rules of the Platform.

      Virginia revenge porn law:

      Any person who, with the intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate, maliciously disseminates or sells any videographic or still image created by any means whatsoever that depicts another person who is totally nude, or in a state of undress so as to expose the genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female breast, where such person knows or has reason to know that he is not licensed or authorized to disseminate or sell such videographic or still image is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

      It’s clear from the TOS that unless Mrs. Gibson expressly permitted dissemination of the materials, that the sites on which they were reposted AND the GOP operative “had reason to know” that they were not licensed or authorized to disseminate the content. That said, it’s hard to prove malintent in a political context. GOP operative could simply argue that there was a public interest in this information being shared.