Hormigos case

Olvido Hormigos photographed by journalists at the Council town

Olvido Hormigos Carpio, PSOE's councilor in one town hall of Toledo's municipality (Los Yébenes), which is no more than 6500 inhabitants, went from being the talk of her town to national new, this September. A private short video of her masturbating was disclosed through Whatsapp as a virus along her town and its vicinity in almost one month, and then, uploaded on several websites, which led her to resign. 

After the news was known, several politicians from her party supported her in order to not resign, and next to the stir that came from the social networks (also where the hashtag #OlvidoNoDimitas on Twitter was created for the occasion) made her change the decision. Married and with two children, Olvido Hormigos had sent, according to her own declarations to the police, the “pornographic” video to her lover, but the disclosure of this video had had been done through the mayor’s email.

 One frame from a reportage of Antena 3 channel

The transcendence of this fact in September has been a turning point in the way in which the private lives of politicians are perceived. Some of the population is in favor of respecting their privacy, others believe that the politicians’ lives could be private when their lives do not interfere with their public agendas and others who think their privacy must be known by their voters. And although it is unclear if direct consequence, a month after the "Hormigos scandal", article 197 of the Penal Code was modified. 

The draft reform establishes punishment with one year in prison for distributing unauthorized recordings or intimate images obtained with the victim's consent but without permission to broadcast. So, it can be assumed that this gossip, become into news, has managed to change the law, what it's called “Hormigos reform”. 

Information Forensic police say it is "almost impossible" to delete the video track, so that the image and honor of the councilor would be damaged forever. Furthermore, it is characteristic of Spanish sociology phenomenon "gossip", so that in this case there were two unassailable factors. 

Therefore, the discussion would be to determine how much each individual should take care of his/her own image or how to disclose his/her personal details online. To what degree the privacy of a politician is part of its public profile. Here you have a quote of the owner of Microsoft:

Picture from flickr (Batmoo user) changed with a quote of Bill Gates