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When it comes to kids and mobile phones, relentless dispatch and receipt of text messages is an annoying habit that comes with a wide social circle. However, a habit with darker implications is gathering pace with mobile phone users and it’s called ‘sexting’.
Sexting: a new way for kids to be naughty. Image: Gaetan Lee/Flickr.
More pointedly, two male students in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, have this week been charged with child pornography after police discovered pictures of naked children on their mobile phone handsets.
Local authorities were alerted to this latest example of sexting after the images came to the attention of a resource officer at Spotsylvania High School.
While the notion of the two unnamed teens (aged 15 and 18) procuring nude pictures of children from the Net is disturbing enough in itself, the official court filing against the pair outlines that the imagery was actually solicited from three pupils attending elementary and middle school.
“It’s absolutely becoming a bigger problem,” said Michelle Collins of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in a USA Today report.
The two teenage criminals have been charged with electronic solicitation and possession of child pornography with intent to distribute.
The Virginia sexting scandal is the latest in a recent spate of such incidents to have been investigated in the United States. Moreover, police authorities in at least six states have reportedly dealt with teens sending lewd photographs through their phones since the start of the year.
The Tech Herald: Teen exhibitionist faces prosecution for sharing nude photos
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