Mississippi Senator attends White House meeting to discuss ways to combat revenge porn and sextortion

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) -You may remember us sharing the story of the Starkville-area family reeling from the loss of their teen son because of sextortion. Now, the wheels are turning for lawmakers on how to turn that tragedy into action.

”I’m just asking you to protect our kids from the evil that lives in this world because it’s out there, and we’ve crossed that point where’s technology, social media, the internet is a real problem for our kids,” said Brain Montgomery.

Brian Montgomery lost his 16-year-old son Walker because of sextortion. That quote is part of his comments to lawmakers in March, pleading with them to take action.

“Some of these issues are gonna be really tough to legislate against,” noted Senator Jeremy England.

But Senator Jeremy England is willing to try.

“It’s going to take examples, and it’s going to take scary examples to let our children know about this,” said England.

England took those examples to a recent White House task force discussion. And posed a question of how to best address those cases not tied to people you know but strangers bullying behind a keyboard.

“We can put laws in place, but when it comes to holding the criminals responsible, when they reside in other countries...that makes that entirely, you know, it makes our law basically not have any teeth,” noted England. “Because we can’t reach those individuals and punish them as they should be punished. So, you know, if there was a perfect law on a perfect way to do this, I think every one of us would be on board. But we shouldn’t let that keep us from addressing the issue.”

England did gather other ideas to explore ahead of the next legislative session. For example, he learned Utah passed an age restriction for social media use. In New York, they’re looking at solutions once the intimate photos are already out, whether that be a teen or an adult with an ex looking for revenge.

“State of New York allows individuals to sue a platform like a social media platform to remove images. Now the suit is not one of damages. It’s one strictly to require images to be removed from online, and I think that’s a very good step that they’ve made there,” added England.

England says it helped to hear from lawmakers in other states, and he’ll be exploring options ahead of the next legislative session.

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