Protecting Women's Privacy: Female Intimate Videos Deemed Insulting, Prosecuted as Insult

On January 25, at the second meeting of the 14th Jiangsu Provincial People’s Congress, Shi Shitai, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Chief Procurator of the Jiangsu Provincial People’s Procuratorate, delivered a work report to the conference, summarizing the province’s procuratorial work in the past year and looking forward to 2024 work tasks.

According to the Beijing News, one of the highlights of the report is how the Suzhou Procuratorate handles situations where private videos of women are posted online by others.

Previously, in China, "one-night stands" or ex-boyfriends who posted women's private videos on the Internet were generally considered guilty of spreading obscene materials. This crime not only fails to allow the women involved in the case to be identified as victims, but is also stigmatized as the "heroine" of the obscene video, leading to "social death" and failing to protect the reputation, privacy and other personality rights of the women involved.

In one case, the People's Procuratorate of Suzhou Industrial Park accused the defendant Li of posting a "one-night stand" private video of a woman with complete facial information on an overseas website. It additionally found the crime of insult with a heavier penalty and initiated a public prosecution in accordance with the law, which was supported by the court's ruling. The procuratorial organ accurately accuses crimes, not only comprehensively protects the personality rights of women who are "scammed by Internet pornography" in accordance with the law, but also provides the victims with due protection.

Many netizens expressed support for this matter and believed that publishing private videos of men should also be criminalized. Some men also said that many men are eager to show others their "Enoki mushroom suicide". On the contrary, many private videos of women are secretly filmed and released by men. In addition, some netizens mentioned that not only women's private videos are spread on the Internet, but also women's photos are scanned for obscene purposes, so women should be protected in this way.

However, some netizens have questioned this, thinking that "what kind of chastity arch should a one-night stand have?" and suggested that women should love themselves more. Others emphasize equality between men and women and believe that both men and women should be treated equally.

These comments show that society has different views on the protection of women's privacy rights. Some people support the prosecutorial agency's approach and believe that the protection of women's privacy should be strengthened, while others question whether this approach is consistent with justice and fairness.

But no matter what, the highlight of this Jiangsu Provincial Prosecutorial Work Report is that the release of women’s private videos is considered a crime of insult and the protection of women’s rights is an important progress in the rule of law and provides a reference for the trials of similar cases in the future. I hope there will be more cases like this to protect women’s rights in the future, so that women can enjoy the respect and protection they deserve in the Internet age.