Revenge porn (Global)

Revenge Porn 🌍



Location: Global
Definition: Nonconsensual disclosure of private, sexually graphic, images of an individual
Keywords: Global – Revenge – Pornography – Sexuality – Privacy – Intimacy – Gender – Race – Internet – Cyberinformality – Violence

Author: Julia Schur
Affiliation: Legal Fellow at the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (USA), Attorney at Law, Massachusetts; IP Litigation Associate, New York, U.S.A.

By Julia Schur, Legal Fellow at the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (USA), Attorney at Law, Massachusetts; IP Litigation Associate, New York, U.S.A.

Revenge porn comprises the nonconsensual disclosure of private, sexually graphic, images of an individual (Franks and Citron 2014). Revenge porn is a recent term, added to the Merriam Webster and Oxford English Dictionaries by 2016 (Maddocks 2018). It is commonly used to describe a vengeful ex-partner leaking private images of a sexual nature without the consent of the person depicted in the images. It is part of a wider set of harmful acts such as the habitual abuse of images by intimate partners, rapists, and sex traffickers across mediums, including photographs, videos or synthetically made images (Franks and Citron 2014). Revenge porn can also colloquially refer to the actions of hackers who break into personal or corporate accounts, scammers who extort victims for money threatening the disclosure of actual, manufactured or even non-existent intimate images, as well as voyeurs who covertly capture images in private or public (such as 'upskirts' or ‘down-blouses’ images). In French the term is called vengeance pornographique, in Spanish pornovenganza, in Chinese seqing fuchou (色情复仇), and in Japanese ribenjiporuno (リベンジポルノ).

Revenge pornography is the popular term used for all forms of nonconsensual pornography (Franks and Citron 2014: 346). It implies the purposeful dissemination of private, sexually explicit images to humiliate or harm the victim, often as revenge. In 2013, Dr Mary Anne Franks coined the term nonconsensual pornography, an alternative term to revenge porn (Maddocks 2018: 348). Nonconsensual pornography includes private, sexually graphic images and videos of an individual disclosed without consent and for no legitimate purpose (Franks 2017: 1251-1258). It includes both images that were obtained without the person’s consent, as well as pictures which were obtained with consent but within a private or confidential relationship. This term puts consent at the center stage and focuses on intimate image abuse as a harm (Franks and Citron 2014: 345). The term refers to the exposure of the victim’s ‘sexual parts’ but can also include images depicting a victim performing sexual acts or having been ejaculated on, even without their sexual parts being visible (Cyber Civil Rights Initiative 2015).

Revenge pornography is a global issue affecting victims worldwide. It is rooted in sexism and racism and is a form of bigotry and sexual harassment (Citron 2014). While nonconsensual pornography is not a new phenomenon, its explosive growth is rooted in the technological innovations of digital photography, as well as the Internet, networked tools and mobile devices which have made it easier to share images (People v. Austin 2019). Networked tools have been diverted from their useful role in social communication and instead used to multiply and amplify their harmful effects. Broadly exposing intimate images subjects survivors of such acts to hatred, contempt and ridicule, impacting their health, safety, livelihoods, personal relationships and reputations (Goldberg Victims’ Rights Law Firm n.d.). Occurrences of revenge pornography can be traced to 1980 when Hustler, a porn magazine, published stolen nude images of women (Maddocks 2018: 347). By 2012, victims’ rights support groups had launched in Pakistan, India, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Studies have shown that 50 percent of American adults share sexual texts and 70 percent admitted to having received a nude photo (Goldberg Victims’ Rights Law Firm n.d.). As many as 3,000 websites feature revenge pornography (Goldberg Victims’ Rights Law Firm n.d.). Many of those sites are entirely dedicated to exposing the victim’s sexuality in an effort to humiliate, slut shame, threaten and harass the victim, with the comments section flooded with threatening messages. ‘Nonconsensual pornography does violence to essential social norms of trust at the core of social interaction’ (Waldman 2017). Victims of the nonconsensual disclosure of private images suffer significant emotional distress from the offender’s threats and actions. Perpetrators exploit intimacy and trust (Waldman 2017: 715).

To date, in the United States, there is no federal law addressing nonconsensual pornography. Forty-eight states, the District of Columbia and one US territory have some form of revenge pornography law in place (Cyber Civil Rights Initiative n.d. b). These laws are generally of limited effect, as they fail to categorize nonconsensual pornography as a felony, reflecting social attitudes that have yet to appreciate the significance of the harms caused by nonconsensual pornography and its often-irreversible nature. The US House of Representative has passed the SHIELD Act (Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security Act) as an amendment to the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021. The bipartisan measure would criminalize the unauthorized disclosure of private, sexually explicit visual imagery and offenders could be imprisoned for up to two years, including for the threat of distributing such images (Cyber Civil Rights Initiative 2016).

Frequently, victims have had to use other laws to protect themselves, including laws which address domestic violence, stalking and cyber-stalking, doxing, unlawful surveillance, sexual assault, harassment, hacking, tort of breach of confidentiality, and copyright law (Cyber Civil Rights Initiative n.d. a). Nonconsensual pornography is often a gendered crime which targets women, girls and sexual minorities more frequently than men and boys (Citron 2019: 1870-1913). ’Individuals who identify as sexual minorities are more likely than heterosexual individuals to experience threats of, or actual, nonconsensual pornography (Citron 2019: 1920). Black non-Hispanic individuals, indigenous and disabled respondents and those who fall in the mid-to-low household income category are particularly vulnerable (Maddocks 2018: 37). ‘Research indicates that three per cent of Americans who use the internet have had someone threaten to post their nude photos, while two per cent have had someone do it. Those numbers jump considerably (to 15 per cent and seven per cent, respectively) among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals’ (Citron 2019: 1870 at 1920). Nevertheless, men and boys are also victims of nonconsensual pornography.

More recently, synthetic media has been used for revenge pornography. Synthetic media includes low- and high-quality Photoshop edits turning images, a majority of which are images of women, into sexual nude images depicting identifiable persons (Citron and Chesney 2019: 1788). It also includes the machine-learning technologies used to create ‘deep fake’ sex videos—where people’s faces and voices are inserted into pornography. The end results are increasingly difficult to debunk (Citron and Chesney 2019: 1788).

Even though synthetic sex videos do not depict the featured individuals’ actual genitals, breasts, buttocks, and anuses, these images seize people’s sexual and intimate identities. Much like nonconsensual pornography, deep fake sex videos exercise dominion over people’s sexuality, displaying it to others without consent (Citron and Chesney 2019: 1772). They try to reduce individuals to sexual objects creating a sexual identity not of the individual’s own making and publicising it without consent.

References

Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. No date a. Related Laws. https://www.cybercivilrights.org/related-laws/

Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. 2016. Welcomes Passage of SHIELD Act as Amendment to Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021, https://www.cybercivilrights.org/5014-2/

Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. No date b. 48 States + DC + One Territory Now Have Revenge Porn Laws. https://www.cybercivilrights.org/revenge-porn-laws/

D. K. Citron. 2014. ‘”Revenge Porn”’ Should be a Crime in U.S’. CNN. 16 January, https://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/29/opinion/citron-revenge-porn/index.html

D. K. Citron. 2019. ‘Sexual Privacy’. Yale Law Journal, 128: 1870-1960. https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=9339&context=ylj

R. Chesney and D. K. Citron. 2019. ‘Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge for Privacy, Democracy and National Security’. California Law Review, 107: 1753-1820. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3213954

C.A. Goldberg Victims’ Rights Law Firm, Revenge Porn and Internet Privacy. https://www.cagoldberglaw.com/revenge-porn-and-internet-privacy/#1558405409607-ae142862-279d

Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. 2015. Infographic: The Anatomy of an Effective Revenge Porn Law 23 January. https://www.cybercivilrights.org/anatomy-effective-revenge-porn-law

M. A. Franks. 2017. ‘“Revenge Porn” Reform: A View from the Front Lines’. Florida Law Review, 69: 1251-1337. http://www.floridalawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/3-Franks.pdf

Citron, D. K. and M. A. Franks. 2014. ‘Criminalizing Revenge Porn’. Wake Forest Law Review, 49: 345-383. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2368946

People v. Austin. 2019. IL 123910, at para 19. (asserting that nonconsensual pornography offenses are “a unique crime fueled by technology”). https://www.illinoiscourts.gov/Resources/a9fc53e6-f934-48cb-86ac-54ff2eb8dde2/123910.pdf

S. Maddocks. 2018. ‘From Non-consensual Pornography to Image-based Sexual Abuse: Charting the Course of a Problem with Many Names’. Australian Feminist Studies, 33 no. 97: 345-361. DOI: 10.1080/08164649.2018.1542592

E. Waldman. 2017. ‘A Breach of Trust: Fighting “Revenge Porn”’. Iowa Law Review, 102: 709-733. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2698722

Revenge porn (Global)

Recommended readings

References