Who’s Affected By Revenge Porn?
A first-of-its kind study finds that 2 percent of study respondents have had someone release sexual images of them without their consent, or threaten to
It’s not just celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence dealing with the horrible (and often illegal) phenomenon of having nude or nearly nude images posted of them online without their consent. As many as 10.4 million Americans may have either been victim to “revenge porn” or threatened with it, according to a new report from Data & Society and the Center for Innovative Public Health Research.
The survey featured interviews from over 3,000 American internet users aged 15 and up across the country. Approximately 3 percent had received threats from others to post nude or nearly nude photos of them online without their consent and roughly 2 percent of those surveyed had someone follow through on this threat. Women — particularly young women under 29 — and people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual were most commonly victimized this way.
“Nonconsensual pornography can have a devastating and lasting impact on victims, so it’s vital that we understand how common this is and who is affected,” report author Amanda Lenhart said in a press release. “Even if images are never actually posted publicly, perpetrators may use threats to post such images as a method of controlling or intimidating victims.”
In an email exchange with Vocativ, she said she believes it’s possible this report undercounts the number of victims, since it relies on survey respondents knowing that their images have been shared.
“If no one tells you it’s there, you may not know,” she said. “[But] so much of revenge porn is about getting something from or controlling the victim — and in order to do that, you need to tell them — whether that’s the ex-partner who is trying to control someone through threats or posting of the images or videos, or the hacker who steals images from the cloud and then attempts to charge the victim for their removal, or in some cases, requests more explicit material.”
The latter example is a more specific form of cyber sextortion in which blackmail is the endgame. It’s the kind of revenge porn that has led to suicide, like in the 2012 case of 15-year-old Amanda Todd, who had been harassed by an online stalker who used a screengrab of her flashing the camera to manipulate her for years. According to a Brookings Institution report published earlier this year, these victims tend to be minors.
At present, 34 states plus D.C. have passed some form of legislation to define and criminalize this form of cyber harassment. While a federal bill seeking to ban sexually explicit images of a person being shared with “reckless disregard for the person’s lack of consent to the distribution,” has been introduced, it is controversial in its language and will likely face significant barriers. For instance, some interpretations of the bill as it is written, without a standard for malicious intent, could allow prosecutors to target journalists or parents posting naked baby pictures.
Within the private sector, some tech companies (many of which faced criticism for not being proactive enough in responding to reports of revenge porn) are now working to address the problem in light of widespread public awareness of the issue. Last year, Microsoft added a webform to help victims report and request takedown when they found revenge porn of themselves posted on any of the company’s platforms. Reddit (finally) banned these kinds of images from being posted around the same time. Another website dedicated to providing resources to victims, law enforcement officials, legislators, and advocates launched last year involved 50 major tech companies.