Teen sues after nude selfie
A nude selfie of an American teen girl has turned her suicidal after the picture was shared around her classroom, a court has heard.
The 14-year-old girl says her 13-year-old classmate convinced her to take the selfie and send it to him in October via Snapchat, a service that automatically deletes messages seconds after they’re seen, according to reports in the New York Post.
The girl – from Brooklyn Prospect Charter School in Windsor Terrace – sent the picture but Snapchat alerted her that the boy had kept a copy of her picture.
She begged him to delete it immediately. Although he promised that the picture was deleted, he had taken another screen shot of the illicit image, the court papers say.
He then “distributed the picture widely,” she alleges in a Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit filed against the boy and his parents.
The girl is identified in the suit only as “Jane Doe.”
She “was informed by friends and strangers alike that they had seen the picture posted publicly on Instagram, received it in text messages, and on Facebook chats,” the lawsuit says.
She soon deleted all her social media accounts, including Facebook and Instagram, but the picture, in which half of her face and “her distinctive hair” are visible, became so widely distributed her parents found out.
Jane Doe became depressed and suicidal and “was constantly distraught by the reality of others having seen her nude body.”
Also, she “was worried each school day because she feared other students had negative opinions of her due to the dissemination of the picture,” the suit says.
The girl accuses the boy of “extreme and outrageous conduct,” and seeks an injunction to have him stop spreading the picture. She also wants the names of those he sent it to, as well as more than $50,000 damages.
The mother of the accused boy said she wasn’t aware of the lawsuit.
“As a parent, I deeply understand the sensitive nature of this matter which my family and I are taking great care to address privately,” she said in a statement to The Post.
