Revenge porn
Revenge porn is the distribution of sexually explicit images or videos of individuals without their consent.[1] The material may have been made by a partner in an intimate relationship with the knowledge and consent of the subject at the time, or it may have been made without their knowledge. The subject may have experienced sexual violence during the recording of the material, in some cases facilitated by narcotics such as date rape drugs which also cause a reduced sense of pain and involvement in the sexual act, dissociative effects and amnesia. The possession of the material may be used by the perpetrators to blackmail the subjects into performing other sexual acts, to coerce them into continuing a relationship or to punish them for ending one, to silence them, to damage their reputation, and/or for financial gain. In the wake of civil lawsuits and the increasing numbers of reported incidents, legislation has been passed in a number of countries and jurisdictions to outlaw the practice, though approaches have varied and been changed over the years. The practice has also been described as a form of psychological abuse and domestic violence, as well as a form of sexual abuse.[2]
Revenge porn most commonly refers to the uploading of sexually explicit material to the Internet to humiliate and intimidate a subject who has broken off a relationship.[1][3] The term is also often misused to describe non-revenge scenarios, including nonconsensual pornography distributed by hackers or by individuals seeking profit or notoriety[4][5] (more properly referred to by the terms non-consensual intimate imagery, NCII, or image-based sexual abuse, IBSA). The images are usually accompanied by sufficient information to identify the pictured individual (a process known as doxing), typically names and locations, and can include risqué comments, links to social media profiles, home addresses, and workplaces.[6][7] In some cases victims are exposed to workplace discrimination, cyber-stalking or physical attack. Some companies search the Internet for potential sources of bad publicity, resulting in many victims of revenge porn losing their jobs and finding themselves effectively unhirable.[8] Some academics argue that the term "revenge porn" should not be used, and instead that it should be referred to as "image-based sexual abuse."[9]
Jurisdictions which have passed laws against revenge porn include Canada,[10] Germany, Italy, Israel, Singapore,[11] Spain,[12] the United Kingdom, 48/50 states of the United States—plus Washington, D.C.,[13][14] the U.S. military[15][16] and U.S. territories including Puerto Rico and Guam.[17][18] Australia has also passed a law at the Commonwealth level that commenced on 1 September 2018.[19][20] The Australian states and territories of South Australia,[21][22] Victoria,[23] New South Wales,[24] the Australian Capital Territory,[25] the Northern Territory,[26] Queensland,[27] Western Australia,[28] and Tasmania,[29] have complementary state level laws that criminalize this behaviour. Furthermore, Australia also has a civil penalties scheme.[30]
In recent years the rise of computer image and video generation technology has raised concerns about the rise of deepfake revenge pornography. As of 2023 in the U.S. states of New York, Virginia, and California, it is illegal to disseminate pornographic images created using image generation technology without the consent of subjects depicted in the image.[31][32]
Background[edit]
In the 1980s, Hustler magazine began a monthly feature of reader-submitted images of naked women called "Beaver Hunt".[33] Beaver Hunt photographs were often accompanied by details about the woman, like her hobbies, her sexual fantasies, and sometimes her name.[33] Not all of the women featured in Beaver Hunt submitted their own images and several women sued the magazine for publishing their photographs without their permission, or without verifying information on forged consent forms.[34]
Two decades later, Italian researcher Sergio Messina identified "realcore pornography", a new genre consisting of images and videos of ex-girlfriends distributed through Usenet groups.[35] In 2008, amateur porn aggregator XTube began receiving complaints that pornographic content had been posted without subjects' consent. Several sites began staging consensual pornography to resemble revenge porn, as well as hosting "authentic" user-submitted content.[35][36]
Revenge porn began garnering international media attention when Hunter Moore launched the website IsAnyoneUp in 2010.[37] The site featured user-submitted images,[37] and was one of the first sites to adopt the model initiated by Beaver Hunt: IsAnyoneUp often included identifying information, such as the subjects' names, employers, addresses and links to social networking profiles.[37] Activist Charlotte Laws was the first person to speak out against Moore and one of the first people to publicly support revenge porn victims. This prompted backlash from some of Moore's devotees, who stalked Laws and sent her death threats.[38] Laws became known around the world as the "Erin Brockovich of revenge porn"[39] and she was one of the first activists to meet with legislators in an effort to get laws passed against revenge porn.[40]
In February 2015, the social media site and online bulletin board Reddit announced a change to its privacy policy to ban the posting of sexually explicit content without the consent of those depicted. The announcement was made after a company meeting at which the issue of "illicit pornography—pictures and video—was a burning one".[41] In March 2015, Twitter followed suit with new rules to address the posting of unauthorized content and specifically revenge porn. Starting March 11 of that year, Twitter stated it would immediately remove "any 'link to a photograph, video, or digital image of you in a state of nudity or engaged in any act of sexual conduct' that has been posted without consent."[42] According to a Washington Post article, the changes were in response to growing concerns "that [Twitter] has not done enough to prevent bad behavior on its site."[43]
In June 2015, Google announced it would remove links to revenge porn on request.[44] Microsoft followed suit in July.[45] Both have placed forms on-line for victims to complete.[46][47] Together the two organizations account for nearly 90% of the internet search market in the U.S.[48]
The term "revenge porn" is controversial because those who share images without permission may be motivated by profit, notoriety, entertainment, or other goals besides revenge; and because not all visual depictions of nudity or sexual activity are pornographic.[49]
Advocacy[edit]
The website endrevengeporn.org was founded by Holly Jacobs, a revenge porn victim, to campaign for the criminalization of revenge porn, which it considered a form of sexual abuse.[50][51] Jacobs also founded the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), a nonprofit organization that seeks to challenge cyber harassment. Danielle Citron, known for her discourse on cyber harassment as a civil rights issue, the vice-president of the CCRI.[52][53] Mary Anne Franks, CCRI's president and Legislative & Tech Policy Director, has been heavily involved with legislative and policy efforts to combat revenge porn.[54][52] Dr. Laura Hilly and Kira Allmann of the Oxford Human Rights Hub have characterized revenge porn as a kind of gendered hate speech designed to silence women. An article of theirs argues that this stifling of free expression is often ignored in debates over revenge porn.[55] Dr. Charlotte Laws, often called "the Erin Brockovich of revenge porn", was a CCRI board member until 2016. She is perhaps the first victims' advocate and one of the first to meet with elected officials in an effort to get legislation passed against nonconsensual pornography.[56]
Katie Hill, U.S. representative for California, announced in late 2019 she would advocate against revenge porn.[57]
While not solely focused on revenge porn, the non-profit organization Without My Consent provided legal resources related to it and lobbies to protect the privacy and free speech rights of online harassment victims.[58] In 2019,Without My Consent ceased operating and transferred to CCRI all of the comprehensive resources it had developed to aid victims of online abuse.[59] Since 2012, there has also been a website Women Against Revenge Porn, calling itself "not an organization or a business", which has been cited as an advocacy group for people exposed in revenge porn.[60] In late 2014, Elisa D'Amico and David Bateman, partners at the law firm K&L Gates, launched the Cyber Civil Rights Legal Project (CCRLP), a project offering free legal help to victims of revenge porn.[61][62]
To better facilitate the introduction of relevant legislation, some anti-revenge porn activists have called upon others in their community to use gender-neutral language more often when discussing the issue.[63] The term "revenge porn" itself has also come under fire. The CCRI for instance prefers the term "nonconsensual pornography".[64] In analogy with "child sexual abuse images" being the preferred term for child pornography, McGlynn and Rackley proposed "image-based sexual abuse".[65] Along with journalist Sarah Jeong, they have argued that it is harmful to associate revenge porn with pornography which revolves around consent. Jeong also considers it a mistake for activists to focus on revenge porn itself as the main problem, rather than the underlying culture which leads to its subjects being socially ostracized.[66]
In the Australian Capital Territory, an electronic petition was started in March 2017 that called upon the A.C.T. Legislative Assembly to consider criminalizing the non-consensual disclosure of sexual images and videos.[67] The A.C.T Legislative Assembly consequently passed the Crimes (Intimate Image Abuse) Amendment Act (2017) (ACT)[25] that criminalised the distribution, or threatened distribution, of intimate photos and videos on 16 August 2017.[68]
In other media[edit]
The novel The Drowning Pool (1950) by Ross Macdonald, part of the series starring fictional detective Lew Archer, features a subplot of a woman trying to stop distribution of a sexual film taken without her knowledge.[213]
In 2021, the BBC film Zara McDermott: Revenge Porn came out, in which Zara McDermott recalled the experience of having her nude photos leaked as a teenager.[214]