Legal moves to hold perpetrators to account
A revenge porn website can be described as a platform for scorned lovers to post non-consensual nude photographs of their exes online, and get away with it. A more accurate description is that it is a hidey hole for spineless trolls who get a thrill out of actively exploiting the vulnerable.
The consequences of revenge porn have been catastrophic for the victims who, predictably, are mostly female. Women have been stalked, bullied, humiliated, isolated, lost their jobs, forced to relocate and change their surname. Some have even committed suicide. A group of women in the US have decided to file a class action lawsuit against one of the many revenge porn websites, Texxxan.com, and web hosting company GoDaddy. According to Jezebel, the suit “seeks to prosecute for invasion of privacy and mental anguish, claiming the site shared intimate photos of them submitted without their consent.”
It is almost unsurprising that misogynists have found yet another one-click-ego-fix to exact vengeance. However, if the act of revenge isn’t bad enough, the sites rake in profits from advertisers and demand money from women who ask to have their images removed. Hollie Toups, one of the 23 women who have signed onto the legal suit, has told BetaBeat that after discovering photos of herself online, she emailed the website’s owner to request they be taken down. Toups says, “They replied and said they would be happy to remove the pictures for me if I would enter my credit card information. I went from being depressed and embarrassed to being really pissed off.”
There is a deep-rooted inability to acknowledge that those posting these pictures need to be held accountable. It’s just too easy to blame the woman.
For example, one commentator states in regards to taking nude pictures, “If you do it, assume it will get out there. You are consenting by posing for the photo in the first place. That’s beyond obvious and it makes no difference if you’re posing in a bar, in a park or in a bedroom. That is the consent, period.”
Another says, “Don’t want to show your bits to the world? Keep your clothes on. It’s that simple.”
And: “Any woman stupid enough to allow anyone to take nude pics deserves to have them online. I dated a woman a while back who was the revenge type. I talked her into letting me take some pics of her in the nude. When I broke up with her and she went all crazy and would not leave me alone I had to post them on the internet to force her to leave me alone. It worked.”
This is the same twisted logic that claims a woman wearing a low-cut top “has it coming.” It echoes the sentiment that if a woman is intoxicated or goes home with a man – or heaven forbid, both – she “deserves it” or is “a prick tease.” XOjane.com writer S. E. Smith says:
In the case of private material turned public, the issue should be…cut-and-dried; someone sent data with the expectation that it would be private. And when that information is made public for purposes of humiliation, shaming, or anything else, we should be able to agree that’s not okay. Yet, a lot of people want to blame the people who send the data in the first place, arguing that they should be more careful. Because clearly the responsibility here should lie with people who think they are in a trusting relationship, not with their partners or friends. I don’t buy this argument. It falls in line with all the other things women are told to do in order to prevent assault, abuse and harassment, putting the responsibility on victims rather than the perpetrators of crimes and abuses. As long as the focus is on telling women how to ‘avoid’ becoming victims, rather than on telling people how to avoid abusing women, this is going to be a losing battle.
How have they not been shut down yet? Surely there exists a law to protect people from having their intimate photos posted online? Apparently not. It goes without saying that the victim-blaming attitude expressed above is not helping the cause. But the few women who have braved the legal system have encountered barrier after barrier:
- After reporting it to police, women are frequently told it is “on the internet and therefore out of their jurisdiction.”
- The legal fees can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars which most cannot afford. One woman whose ex-partner uploaded photographs of the two having sex told Nerve.com, “It would cost me no less than $10,000 just to have the search result moved to page three of Google.” Not even removed; just shifted a few pages.
- Victims have been told that since they were 18 when the photographs were taken, it is “technically legal.” They are also informed that because the images have been sent to someone else, they are “technically” the property of the person in possession of them.
- According to Jezebel, site owners claim they are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, “which states that websites are not liable for content submitted by users, [meaning] they feel free to continue to publish photos even after the women themselves ask for removal.”
- Many revenge porn victims are forced into remaining anonymous due to cyber bullying, humiliation and the possibility of exes posting even more pictures online. This makes it harder for victims to sue.
The lawsuit shows change is brewing. Another victim (who has chosen to remain anonymous) has started an online petition to make revenge porn illegal. The same woman has also created a website for victims, Women Against Revenge Porn, an information hub for those affected to share their experience and seek justice. As well, lawyers are coming forward to offer their services to revenge porn victims – for free.
Lawyer for Toups, John S. Morgan, intends to not only sue the revenge porn site and host GoDaddy, but every single one of Texxxan.com’s paid subscription members. Morgan told the Houston Chronicle, “I’m going after the revenge porn industry. Those sickos who post private information of women without their knowledge. The only way to destroy this industry is to go after the people who fund it.” In a later interview he says, “The reality of it is at some level this issue of revenge porn has to become a public discussion and a legislative discussion and it raises issues of corporate responsibility.”
Revenge porn is a gross invasion of privacy, a breach of trust, and profits from the anguish and humiliation of others. It’s time these cowards were held accountable.
Jane Hollier is a freelance writer.
See also: ‘Bed of Shame: what kind of men do this to women?’ Melinda Tankard Reist, MTR blog
‘The Upskirting of Anne Hathaway’, Nicole Jameson, MTR blog
January 31st, 2013 at 6:07 pm
Unbelievable that this kind of behaviour isn’t yet punishable by law! How can it NOT be a crime to publish nude photos of someone without their consent?? Freaking crazy! Governments need to pass law on this asap.
February 1st, 2013 at 6:56 am
Revenge porn is a very effective way men enact their male power over women and reduce all women to men’s pornified dehumanised sexual service stations.
Make no mistake revenge porn is male hatred/male contempt for women. Reason why governments including the UK government do not recognise ‘revenge porn sites’ are pandemic male sexual harassment/male intimidation of women, is because men are not the ones having naked photos of themselves being posted on-line and the mens’ addresses; workplaces; telephone numbers and email addresses posted. Governments continue to be male dominated and ‘revenge porn’ doesn’t contain mass numbers of women posting naked images of ex male partners/images taken of naked men who didn’t know they were being photographed. So issue of pandemic revenge porn is ‘trivial because men are not the ones being sexually harassed/intimidated.
One male claimed he ‘talked her into letting me take some pics of her in the nude.’ Male means he coerced/threatened female to remove her clothes for his sexual titilation/sexual pleasure, because he knew once he had these photos he could use them to blackmail/threaten her if she broke up sexual relationship. Which is precisely what this woman-hating misogynistic male did.
Men consider their privacy to be sacrosanct which is why men constantly claim ‘my privacy has been violated’ but women have no rights of privacy because men believe women are mens’ public property and once a male has taken photo of his girl friend/wife/female partner this photo becomes all mens’ public property.
Well done to the women who are fighting back against pandemic male hatred/male contempt for women and excellent news that a male lawyer is engaged in suing porn site GoDaddy.
The same excuses/justifications continue to made by male owned corporate internet sites whenever adult women attempt to have images male pornographers/male sexual predators took of them as a female child and male(s) were raping/sadistically sexually torturing them. There are innumerable images of female children being subjected to sadistic male sexual violence and the adult female survivors are denied the right of having these degrading images removed from the internet.
February 2nd, 2013 at 10:39 pm
So much for so called “Privacy Laws”. Attorney-Generals should be focussing on cyber sexual bullying, not just protecting the privacy of paedophiles, high level political tax evaders and terrorists.
February 11th, 2013 at 4:46 am
Suing the subscribers of the revenge porn site is spot on!
Lawyers should go after GoDaddy’s deep pockets too.
Go law suit!