Monitoring Multimedia Issues

On the heals of Weinergate, we now have a new sexting scandal involving, of all folks, an Amish man in Milroy, Indiana.

The accused, William Yoder, drives a horse and buggy and lives in the traditional and strictly disciplined Amish community. On Tuesday, he was arrested by undercover police officers for sending over 600 lewd text messages to a 12 year old girl. Her father was said to be livid and who could blame him? He told the local television station, "It is just unbelievable."

The 21-year-old Amish man admitted to police that he did send the messages. He was promptly charged with four counts of soliciting a minor. He further went on to say that he sent random messages and when the girl responded, he continued to send them to her.

The Amish typically shun any technology but reportedly many Milroy residents have seen the Amish carrying cellphones. You can read the full article here.

My question is this, why do men do that? Is there any gratification in sexting? It is not just the United States that is plagued with these scandals. In New Delhi, police arrested a man accused of sending erotic messages to Bollywood actresses via their mobile phones. Mumbai police have dubbed him the 'serial-caller' and said this is his second offense. He was set free on bail and parole the last time. Will these guys ever learn? You can read that article here.

In May of this year, the U.S. Congress issued a 17-page report titled, "Text and Multimedia Messaging: Emerging Issues for Congress." In the report there are several interesting statistics such as:

"The first text messages were sent during 1992 and 1993, although commercially, text messaging

was not widely offered or used until 2000." It's hard to believe that in the past eleven years, text messaging has transformed into sexting.

Perhaps the most interesting find in the reading of this Congressional report is that "No legislative activity has been taken in the 112th Congress. In the 111th Congress, several bills were introduced..."

It would appear that this Congress is doing very little to protect anyone from the texting or sexting issues. Then again, with one Congressman directly involved in his own scandal, you have to wonder.

You can read the full Congressional report here.

Source:

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/28299705/detail.html

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/man-held-for-sending-lewd-messages-to-top-actresses/45971-3.html