THE evening TV news caught my attention of yet another case of blackmailing through the posting of nude photos and videos in social media sites. Fortunately, the one who did it was collared and is now in jail.
The case stemmed from a simple acquaintance of one married man and one married woman through a chat of online players on a mobile gaming application. The exchange of messages led to another and soon the two became "online girlfriend."
Thereafter, the two are now communicating with their Facebook accounts and later on, the man is requesting for nude photos and videos of the woman. At first, the woman dissented to the request of the man.
However, with perhaps the great convincing power of the man, the woman finally sent online her nude photos and videos to the man who would later be her blackmailer.
The man, now armed with nude materials of the woman, sent a video to the woman's husband, cursing him and threatening that he will have her wife soon after having their illegal relationship. The husband then parted ways with his wife.
After less than a month, the husband decided to patch things up with his wife. The reunion of the husband and wife led to the "break-up" of the wife and her online boyfriend.
The "splitting" of the wife and her virtual boyfriend earned the ire of the latter. The boyfriend is now demanding the wife to leave her family and live with him instead. When the wife disagreed, the boyfriend started sending and posting her nude photos and videos to the woman's friends and relatives.
While this is a case of a sweet-turned-sour relationship, there existed an illegal act that is damaging to the woman perpetrated by an online criminal who blackmailed his victim for a demand but declined.
This is not the first time that such case happened. In fact, since the dawn of the internet age, a lot of photos and videos of nude people and even while on their sexual acts have been posted on the internet particularly in social networking sites. Prior to such postings, there were blackmailing with the perpetrator demanding some money or some favor from the victim.
The golden rule is this: never share through any means, nude photos or lewd videos on the internet as these may be used later on by opportunists. In the first place, I don't see any reason why some people should take photos or videos of themselves in their nudes unless they are adult film actors or actresses.
I am not blaming the woman though, but she should have learned her lesson from previous cases of the kind that happened to her. She may have been carried away by the "courting" of her former online boyfriend however, she should have known and realized the limitations.
This case should serve another lesson for some people who are too adventurous to send nude photos and videos to other people.
While the boyfriend was already charged with violation of the Anti-Photo and Video Voyeurism Act, which is punishable by up to seven years in prison and P500,000 penalty, the damage has been done to the woman with her nude photos and videos in the hands of other people.
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