Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Is clicking on Jennifer Lawrence’s naked pictures really as bad as hacking and distributing them?

And if so, what was your justification for clicking on the headline above?

[Getty Images] 
issue 06 September 2014

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[/audioplayer]‘If you click on Jennifer Lawrence’s naked pictures,’ said the headline on the Guardian’s website, ‘you’re perpetuating her abuse.’ That gave me pause. Even though I haven’t. In all honesty, I haven’t even had the opportunity, and I thought I actually followed quite a lot of invasive perverts on Twitter. But if I had, and I had… well, just clicking? Really?

The creepy mouth-breather who hacked them, sure. Definite abuse there. Might as well be hiding behind her curtains. And the people who circulate them. ‘Stand on this hillside,’ they could be saying, ‘and point your binoculars over there. Look! Look!’ And the people who, well, enjoy them, in the traditional manner that nude internet pictures are enjoyed; that’s definitely bad too. But a click? Just a wee click?

It’s true and, at once, not true.

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