Sheffield student sent nude image from man she met on Tinder welcomes new cyberflashing laws

People sending unsolicited pictures of their genitals will now face up to two years in prison under a new law in the Online Safety Bill.

Cyberflashing, the act of sending sexually explicit pictures to others, will be a criminal offence.

University of Sheffield student Madeleine, aged 23, has been a victim of cyberflashing and said she is pleased about the new regulations

She said: “It’s needed, because it’s really upsetting and can really affect people mentally and physically.

“I think it’s really good that they are putting in a law that protects individuals, because these kinds of pictures shouldn’t be happening and unfortunately they are.”

Madeleine had her first experience with cyberflashing after giving a man she met on Tinder her Snapchat details.

She said: “Maybe I was naïve, but I didn’t think anything of it.”

The first image she received was a picture of his genitals.

Madeleine recalls: “I really panicked as I opened it in a lecture – it was just the worst thing. I was just so embarrassed.”

After that, she blocked him and deleted Tinder.

Whenever someone new asks her for her Snapchat details now she refuses.

She said: “I don’t want it to happen again.”

A study from 2020 shows three-quarters of girls aged 12-18 have been sent unsolicited explicit images by boys or men, an experience 21-year-old Laura, another University of Sheffield student, shares.

When she was 15, she received an explicit picture of her friend’s boyfriend while in college.

She said: “I was in shock and messaged him asking why he had sent that. He replied that he had accidentally sent it to me instead of his girlfriend.

“Later it surfaced that he found me attractive and mentioned that to my friend, so I don’t think the photo was actually meant for my friend at all.”

Other offences included in the Online Safety Bill include sending or posting a message that conveys a threat of serious harm; sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm.

Additionally, the Bill requires that platforms protect users from scam adverts and that commercial pornography sites carry out age checks on people trying to access their content.

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