“Please delete it after you’ve seen it”, she texted her boyfriend.
He did not, and it has been four years and I still assist this survivor of non-consensual pornography (NCP) in removing close to a hundred links to her video every month. Having changed eight cities in that time frame, she still tries to find her safe place, albeit not on the internet. In a bid to have the most effective deterrence against NCP, policymakers around the world seem to have overlooked what victims really want. Is it just a two-year long prison sentence for the offender or also the ability to have those pictures and videos removed from the internet?
The non-consensual distribution of intimate pictures of women which has been happening for decades, even before the era of PornHub, has become mainstream in the last few years. Especially during COVID-19 induced lockdowns, as people stayed home but also online, women were also more vulnerable to tech-abuse. Helplines across the world posted alarming statistics of increase in NCP related complaints during lockdowns, for example 22% year on year increase in the UK. This can be partly credited to online becoming the default mode of communication during lockdowns. For many people, it also meant the default mode of sexual intimacy and subsequently increased self creation of sexual content. Additionally, online dating sites also witnessed over 70% increase in usage during the lockdowns which also directly points to increased risk of exposure to threats from strangers online.
There may be many ways in which intimate pornographic content may surface in the first place, like consensual recording of sexual activity, sexting, hidden voyeuristic camera recordings, morphed fake images and videos, etc. In some cases, even smartphones may be hacked to steal such intimate images, followed by extortion. Some of these acts themselves are consensual, however, what they often result into are the same consequences but with disproportionate impact on women. In fact, Cyber Civil Rights Initiative reports that over 90% of the victims of NCP are women and close to 98% of all pornography features women. Even though men statistically share more nude pictures than women, women face increased social and cultural retribution for doing so. Most societies also fix blame on the woman and her clicking an intimate image rather the man and his non-consensual distribution.
Through my personal experience of working with over hundred victims of NCP between April and August this year, I have to submit that despite almost 50% offenders getting caught, almost none of the victims have had all of their images and videos removed from the Internet. The reason is not the old-fashioned saying “What goes online, stays online” but a cocktail of systemic failure in providing sufficient rights of content takedown to victims and impunity to internet companies.
What might come as a shock to readers is that there is absolutely no law or policy that streamlines the takedown of NCP from online platforms. It is absolutely unrealistic to expect that law enforcement would have the bandwidth to engage in content takedown, in addition to the investigation and prosecution of these cases. Therefore, victims would resort to seeking professional help from lawyers (who are seldom within reach and affordable) or other institutions which also don’t have a lot to work with. As a practitioner in this field for over seven years, I am still forced to use copyright laws to request content takedown from pornography websites, message boards etc. because there aren’t any other effective measures. In some cases, like a few states in the United States for example, a victim can approach the court to get platform specific orders which become even more complex to enforce because of multiple jurisdictions being involved. Undoubtedly, countries all over the world have enacted laws over the years to have heightened punishments for NCP but none has enacted a law to allow immediate content removals. While some companies voluntarily offer a mechanism for victims to report and request takedown of NCP by way of providing their government issued photo identity cards, there is no mandate for them to do so in addition to the immunity for even their complacency.
This problem can be solved by giving victims the ability to apply for content removal in cases of NCP. A simple carve out exception in laws that provide immunity to internet companies can be made, fixing liability if they don’t action non-consensual pornography takedown requests. On the other end, a performa or format for requesting such takedown shall be made mandatory which the victims can directly use to request such removal. This immediate mode of redressal is also warranted by the practicality of how NCP spreads. In many cases, if the content is taken down as soon as the victim becomes aware of its posting, the widespread reach can be prevented; in some cases, the content entirely removed from the internet as well. Through the pandemic, this problem of NCP has been pushed onto the center stage, still, without the real plight of victims being argued for. Policymakers around the world must understand that punishments alone will not serve justice to victims when the real re-victimisation continues even after prison sentences end.
This entry received 3rd prize in an op-ed competition by Bridging GAP (Gender and Policy), a student group at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy which aims to enhance awareness of the importance of gender among public policy students.
Photo credit: Volkan Olmez