The case of the Facebook group "My Wife" from a legal point of view Through privacy, platforms responsibility, and consent

"I was informed about the existence of a Facebook group of 32,000 people where members exchange intimate photos of their wives to explicitly comment on their appearance and give voice to their sexual fantasies": three days ago Carolina Capria (also known as @LhaScrittoUnaFemmina), came across a difficult story to tell, but one that urgently needed to be revealed. The story is very simple, yet no less disturbing. "Mia moglie" (My wife) is the name of the group, decorated with red hearts. A seemingly harmless, innocent name, nothing like what it hides inside: photos of women who perhaps, precisely because of their role as wives, bound by social and sacred ties, felt safe. Instead, they were fed to tens of thousands of men. Let’s take a closer look at the situation, including its legal aspects, of these kinds of groups, sadly very common, and try to understand what tools we have available.

The Facebook group "Mia moglie": legal implications and privacy violations

The "Mia moglie" group was created in January 2019, but there are many similar cases that can also be found on Telegram. When the platform fails to recognize illegal actions taking place, are there crimes that can be referred to? Shedding light on the matter is lawyer Natascia Sarra: "In cases of sharing sexual photos or videos without the consent of the person portrayed, if the uploader is the creator of the content or has taken it from the portrayed person, they are liable for the crime of Unlawful dissemination of sexually explicit images or videos under Article 612 ter of the Italian Penal Code, commonly known as Revenge porn, punishable by one to six years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to €15,000. If the images were voluntarily sent by the portrayed person for private use, their publication or dissemination without consent is still punishable under Article 612 ter, but it requires that the intent of the publication is to harm the person involved. Where this crime cannot be established, there may still be a violation of Article 167 of the Privacy Code, which provides for the crime of Unlawful processing of data, extending to non-sexually explicit content. However, this offense also requires that the author acted with the intent to profit from the publication or to harm the portrayed person. Defamation can also apply if the unlawfully shared content without consent damages the honor and reputation of the person".

Consent makes the difference

But what is the nature of the content shared in this group? These are not sexually explicit images, but rather scenes of everyday life: a wife cooking, a photo at the beach, or sometimes simple reposts of the wife’s personal social media posts. Sociologist and anthropologist René Girard explains that "desire is always mimetic. Man desires what his model, his rival, desires. Desire is not autonomous but based on another desire." The pleasure, the "conquest," here arises from the sharing of one’s object with rivals who can comment on it. It arises from the forbidden, from control. Many of them don’t even use anonymous accounts, they show their faces: "She’s mine, I do what I want with her and I’m not afraid to show it." That’s the dynamic emerging in the group. Even if the images may seem harmless, they are no longer so once the element of consent is missing. "Our legislation on Privacy rightly places consent at the center, so even the unauthorized sharing of non-sexually explicit images constitutes an offense because it violates the fundamental right to privacy of one’s actions and relationships," clarifies Sarra.

The thin line between public and private

As mentioned earlier, Sarra clarifies that the line between public and private is represented by the consent of the person portrayed, which is crucial. In 2004, the Privacy Code was introduced into Italian law, regulating in detail all different cases concerning the processing and dissemination of personal data such as images. The right to the secrecy of correspondence (now understood in a broader sense to cover all forms of communication between people) and the inviolability of what happens, for example, within our homes, has always been protected in our system as a general principle, as it is guaranteed by our Constitution.

Platform responsibility and reporting

And what about the responsibility of the platforms? Despite having guidelines in place, platforms like Facebook often fail to promptly remove such content. What are the legal responsibilities in these cases? Is it possible to sue the platform for negligence? "The problem in the digital context is that, despite lawmakers’ efforts, it is still a world with few strict and uniform rules across countries, where monitoring is extremely difficult. And perhaps there is little real interest from platforms in being subjected to stricter rules, because the lack of effective age checks allows, for example, uncontrolled access to social media like TikTok or Instagram even by children below the required age. The issue of digital platform liability for crimes or illegal activities committed by users has been widely debated lately: until recently, it was only possible to act against individual users for crimes committed on social networks (mainly defamation cases), while increasingly, there are calls for holding platform operators accountable for failing to monitor, delays, or inertia in removing content that violates community standards," explains the lawyer. But there is some hope: "Finally, in 2023, the Milan Civil Court ordered Meta to pay damages to a company operating in the gaming sector for not promptly removing defamatory posts published on pages created by a user. This was a groundbreaking ruling that opened the way to affirming the principle of platform liability in managing social networks. Clearly, the platform is not directly liable for the crime committed by the user, but for having contributed to worsening its consequences due to delays in removing content it knew was defamatory."

Protective tools for victims

Despite the lack of trust, the reporting tool has proven effective, and the Postal Police in Rome finally shut down the group. This also happened thanks to the enormous media coverage of the case, but what can we do when we feel alone against the problem? Natascia Sarra shares her expert advice: "In this case, the actions to take for protection are three: 1) A report to the Postal Police, which is responsible for intervening, investigating, and collecting evidence of online crimes; 2) A report to the national Privacy Authority via protocollo@gpdp.it; 3) A report to the platform to request removal of the content or closure of the page, as happened with this group. These actions can all be taken simultaneously."