A Mom Is Advocating For A New Law To Combat The Circulation Of Illicit Images Online After Her Teen Daughter’s Murderer Shared Graphic Photos On Social Media
In July of 2019, everything seemed to be coming together for Bianca Devins of Utica, New York. She had just graduated high school and, after overcoming battles with mental health, was excitedly thinking about her next steps in life.
“We all said, ‘Bianca’s back. That’s our girl.’ And there was this glow in her eyes when she talked about going to college and what she was going to do with her life,” recalled Frank Williams, her grandfather.
But then, on July 14, 2019, Bianca tragically lost her life at the hands of a friend.
The seventeen-year-old had attended a concert in New York City with a man she met on Instagram earlier that year, Brandon Clark. Then, he brutally killed her.
It was later revealed that Brandon meticulously researched and planned Bianca’s death. And while committing the heinous act, he videotaped it.
Finally, following Bianca’s death, Brandon also published images of her lifeless body on social media for not only Bianca’s family but the entire world to see.
“It’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking. It’s so exploitative of my daughter. I just thought of how embarrassed she would be; how heartbroken she would be,” Kim Devins said of the images in a 2021 interview with CBS.
According to Kim, the images were shared on platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Snapchat, and Discord.
Change.org; pictured above is Bianca
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And no matter how many users tried to report the pictures for violating community guidelines and standards, most received a response that the photos shockingly did not.
In turn, the Devins family has been forced to share their gut-wrenching story with the world and advocate for social media companies to abide by a new bill known as Bianca’s Law via a Change.org petition.
“There are no words to adequately describe the pain, anger, and feeling of loss our family is feeling after losing Bianca. And to then have our daughter’s death exploited and mocked on social media is a trauma no family should have to endure,” Kim wrote.
Bianca’s Law aims to preserve open and free speech on the internet while explicitly addressing the circulation of illicit content. The Law hopes to target Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act– which provides legal cover for social media companies to facilitate illicit content– via three prongs.
“A company purposefully acts to promote, solicit, or disseminate illegal content; a company has specific knowledge of content on its site that violates the law; and a company does not remove illegal content after it receives notice of a court ruling that the content violates the law.”
Bianca’s Law would also:
Require social media companies to uphold a public reporting system that allows users to flag illegal content on the service
Require companies to immediately disable and suspend the accounts of perpetrators live-posting murder and accounts impersonating that murderer
Require companies to have, use, and enforce a policy that stops the circulation of banned images
Require companies to provide a crisis response center to respond to parents of child victims in real-time
“Please sign this petition to show lawmakers that we will not tolerate the spread of violent and graphic images on the internet! We need laws enacted to force companies to protect citizens from the trauma and harassment Bianca’s family and friends endured for the past year,” Kim pleaded.
So far, the petition has garnered just under one hundred and sixty thousand signatures from people around the world.
“No family should have to undergo what Bianca’s family is experiencing,” wrote one petitioner, Cassandra Hargitt.
“I have a seventeen-year-old daughter and could not imagine what her family is going through. I pray that the family finds healing, and I pray this bill gets passed,” wrote another petitioner, Tierra Jones.
To learn more about Bianca’s Law and support its progression, you can visit the Change.org petition linked here.
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