With more and more women speaking out about revenge porn, federal governments are looking to take action to criminalize the practice.
Revenge porn is the concept of a jilted ex taking nudes sent in confidence and posting them online or sending them to a porn site. “Revenge porn king” Hunter Moore runs a website just for this purpose, and publishes the nudes without the subjects’ consent, alongside links to their social media profiles, real name, address, and sometimes workplaces. The victims (generally female) face consequences such as shaming, repercussions at work, constant fear, and simply losing time due to talking to the police and filing complaints. One woman wrote an article about her experience with revenge porn in the Guardian, describing throwing up, having people she knew look at the pictures, being talked down to by the police, shame, embarrassment, receiving unsolicited obscene pictures from strangers online, and waking up in the middle of the night to check her social media pages and Google her name to see if the pictures spread. She also attempted suicide and was being treated by a therapist for PTSD symptoms. Another woman had to change her name to attempt to escape the harassment. Revenge porn can also lead to strangers stalking and harassing the woman online.
In the past, there wasn’t a lot that victims could do, and generally the police didn’t understand the online world. A common thread to the personal stories is the police telling victims to call them when something actually happens – ie, nothing can be done until the victim gets hurt.
It’s a uniquely 21st century problem and one that is undoubtedly gendered, as the vast, vast majority are jilted ex-boyfriends posting nude photos of their girlfriends for revenge. Moore has posted photos of men in the past, but the repercussions are not the same (especially since he has posted pictures of male celebrities, who have a bit more leverage in fighting back).
The common rejoinder to stories of revenge porn is, “Well, don’t take nude photos of yourself.” The photos didn’t get out because a woman took them – the photos got out because a vindictive ex-partner decided to punish her. Blaming the victim and telling the woman what not to do is restrictive and doesn’t treat the problem. The problem is (by and large) men punishing women by using their sexuality. If the woman didn’t take nudes, they’d find some other punishment.
Threats and punishments perpetrated online are difficult, mostly because on the whole, legislation hasn’t caught up with the newfangled world of the Internet. Threats made online aren’t taken seriously until there are real world consequences. Take Brianna Wu, a game developer with a psychotic stalker who has made videos about how he’s going to kill her and says he got into a car accident en route to her house. Nothing remotely effective has been done to help her. She just has to endure the abuse.
Slowly, activists are making clear the need to fight back against revenge porn and they’re starting to succeed. In June, Google announced that they would honour requests to remove images posted without the subject’s consent from Google search results.
Amit Singhal, SVP of Google Search, said in a blog post, “Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web. But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims—predominantly women. So going forward, we’ll honor requests from people to remove nude or sexually explicit images shared without their consent from Google Search results.”
California became the first state with a revenge porn law, and many others quickly followed. As of the end of July, 26 states have some sort of revenge porn law of varying degrees, while 13 others have laws pending. Canada is a bit farther behind in legislation though. One proposed bill would criminalize distributing intimate images without the subjects’ consent, but critics say this could penalize sexting teenagers. Some critics argue that revenge porn cases are a civil matter, not a criminal one. However, the wheels of the law are slow but turning.
End Revenge Porn, an organization for activists to fight against revenge porn, lays out the anatomy of an effective revenge porn law, based in particular on the law in Illinois.
First, the law shouldn’t cite a specific motivation. Some laws require the perpetrator to intend to cause emotional distress, but the outcome is the same no matter the motive.
Some laws only include images taken by someone else, but should include selfies.
A law should have a strong punishment, including prison, fines, and restitution to the victim.
The law should include images that don’t explicitly show nudity. For example, victims can still be harmed by images of them performing sex acts, even if their bodies aren’t exposed.
Some laws only target the perpetrator, while the Illinois law includes consequences for people who share the image if they have could reasonably be expected to know the image was shared without consent.
A law should be “narrowly tailored” in order not to infringe on other rights. For example, exceptions to the law should include if the picture depicts a law being broken or if it’s being distributed as part of a lawful criminal investigation.
An effective law will take into account “doxxing” or the release of a victim’s personal information for the purpose of harassment.
