American singer Victoria Justice is not happy that someone (she blames a hacker) has leaked swimsuit photos of her onto the internet.
I’ve never heard of Victoria Justice, which may mean that the 20-year-old singer isn’t targeting my particular demographic, but she’s clearly famous enough to make headlines when she claims that the photos published of her were stolen by a hacker.
Media who covered the story described the leaked photos as “semi-racy… but nothing of the R-rated variety, showing Victoria fully clothed but in a bathing suit”.
Clearly, however, Justice – who has her own show on Nickelodeon called “Victorious” – was not amused and is seeking, err, justice.
Hacking & stealing is NOT COOL. #RespectPeoplesPersonalProperty #Karma
— Victoria Justice (@VictoriaJustice) April 12, 2013
Hacking & stealing is NOT COOL. #RespectPeoplesPersonalProperty #Karma
And she’s right, of course, hacking into someone’s private accounts and stealing photos is *not* cool. And it’s even less cool for websites to take the stolen images and to publish them on the net.
And yet it seems to keep on happening, and the websites appear to get away with it scot-free.
For instance, we’ve seen “news” websites publishing intimate snaps of Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis, Christina Aguilera, and many other celebrities in the past without any apparent consequences.
Although hackers can receive harsh penalties for accessing celebrity accounts and stealing photos, we don’t hear anything about the gossip websites that willingly went public with the stolen material.
. @oceanup I would never post a picture of myself like that. I'm not taking this lightly & I will find out who stole my private property.
— Victoria Justice (@VictoriaJustice) April 12, 2013
So I was at least pleased to see Victoria Justice take the magazine that published the snaps of her in her swimsuit to task via Twitter, and was pleased to hear that the magazine subsequently removed the pics from their site.
Image of Victoria Justice courtesy of jake.auzzie/Flickr (Creative Commons)
