We're guessing everyone reading this has at some point ... benefited from the Internet's massive and well-documented porn collection, which dwarfs the closet of that creepy kid we knew in high school. (But thank you for the Penthouses, creepy kid!) Everyone loves Internet porn. Except, of course, if that porn is of you and was put there without your consent -- like by an ex or a hacker. The fact that there are "revenge porn" websites specifically devoted to posting people's nudes against their will is terrifying, and if you find yourself as one of their victims, what can you do to stop it?
Even though there are now laws to stop revenge porn and some websites have posted a zero-tolerance policy, the answer is still "not much." And that's because ...
#5. There's No Technology For Preventing Revenge Porn From Being Uploaded
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Let's say every porn site in the world has a Grinch heart-boner moment and decides, "Fuck it, we're not letting people upload revenge porn ever again." How would they even be able to tell? The sad truth is that until we live in a Minority Report society where we can catch criminals before they are able to upload other people's nudes, there is no way to stop it from happening. The chances of a technology being created that could filter out revenge porn from friendly, run-of-the-mill pictures of genitals and boobies aren't very good, unless bald kids with psychic powers are born within the next decade.
Kenny McLeish/iStock/Getty Images
And they're absolute perverts.
And, no, "Just don't take nude pictures of yourself!" isn't a solution, wise guy. The fact that people share intimate photos with loved ones isn't the problem here -- if you'd deny a Marine stationed overseas the chance to wank to his or her boo, you objectively hate freedom. The real problem is that even when it comes to the grossest of the gross the Internet has to offer, there's just no way to stop it from being uploaded. In fact, about 50,000 child porn pictures are shared every single fucking day because we sadly only have a very limited way of tracking it and taking it down. Illegal images can only be detected after they're already online and only if law enforcement already has an image to match it with; otherwise they wouldn't know what to search for.
The only hope we have of preventing revenge porn from being uploaded is to make the punishment so severe it hinders people from being tempted to do it in the first place. Of course, that still wouldn't stop people from seeking it out, because ...
#4. America Has A Cultural Fascination With Voyeurism
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So, we can't stop revenge porn from being uploaded in the first place, but surely we can let people know that it's not cool to look at it, right? Just ask Jennifer Lawrence how that works out.
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Fact: At least a few of you can't look her in the eye without feeling guilty anymore.
The truth is, there will always be people willing to look, because the Internet at large is obsessed with voyeurism, turning even innocent things into X-rated breeding grounds. If you don't believe us, type "rule 34" into Google (THIS IS A JOKE, PLEASE DON'T).
What's the first thing that springs to mind when you think about Chatroulette, the site that lets you video chat with a random stranger online? If your first thought wasn't "dicks galore," then you obviously haven't been on the Internet long. In fact, it's gotten so out of hand that Andrey Ternovskiy, Chatroulette's creator who started the site with only the best PG-rated intentions, had to step in and add a button to report perverts. He admits he is embarrassed about how his site has become synonymous with schlong shows and said he wants a "clean site." Which sounds incredibly naive of him, but to be fair, he was just a kid when he created the site.
via peoples.ru
His business card just says "Oh God, I didn't know. I didn't know."
What's truly amazing is that, despite no advertising being done on Ternovskiy's part, Chatroulette nearly exploded overnight, going from 500 daily visitors to 50,000 in just a month. We were inexplicably drawn to its innovativeness, then jumped at the chance to turn it into voyeur porn. Even more disturbing is that the dick-exposers of Chatroulette apparently aren't under some delusion that everyone loves a fat guy's tiny dong -- they actually enjoy knowing they are inflicting their salami swords on non-consenting eyes.
And if you think the trend of latching onto something and turning it into voyeur porn was a fluke with Chatroulette, prepare to be disappointed: It happened again. The PlayStation 4 has many exciting, new features associated with its built-in camera, one of them being the PlayStation Playroom, which had the intended use of recording gamers as they play while being watched by a small robot for some reason. Guess how people used it instead.
kotaku.com
They could at least have the decency to pass the poor robot a beer.
Naturally, it didn't take long until some asshat turned the Playroom into revenge porn, undressing his unconscious wife for anyone who happened to be watching their livestream to see. Of course, this news story took off like a wildfire, becoming an even bigger story than the Playroom itself. The outcry that followed brought even more attention to revenge porn, which brings us to ...
#3. Even If The Sites Are Shut Down, The Victims Are Still Screwed
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Hey, remember when Beyonce made this face at the Super Bowl?
via latintimes.com
The face worn later that night by many a Niners fan.
Of course you do, specifically because she tried to have her lawyers take those pictures down, causing the media and public to only want to view and circulate them more. Hell, we're doing it right now. Once someone tries to avert attention from something, a little thing called the Streisand effect comes into play -- trying to have something removed after the fact only draws more attention to it, especially if you're famous, and especially if it's on the Internet.
With revenge porn, the problem becomes even worse, because the sites are actually going out of their way to create a Streisand effect and cash in on it. For instance, the creator of revenge porn website Ugotposted.com, Kevin Bollaert, didn't just post nude images and videos of women sent in by ex-lovers, he also included their real names, Facebook pages, and sometimes even their home addresses. When the women tried to have their images removed, he would oblige, but only after charging them a fee of $350, because that's the type of stand-up guy he is.
ABC 10 News
Now everyone knows his address, too.
Another webmaster who is intimately familiar with this effect is Craig Brittain, creator of the revenge porn site IsAnybodyDown.com, which also extorted women. After being arrested and exposed as an absolute jerk, Brittain felt like his privacy was being invaded and sent Google takedown notices for the sites that published images of his face. Like this one:
Colorado Springs Police Department
Man, the gritty Eddie Munster reboot sucked.
Unfortunately, the fact that both these guys have been charged with crimes provides little reparation or comfort to the victims who already had their lives ruined. Once the offending images or videos are online, the damage has been done, and deleting the sites doesn't mean they're gone forever -- as we all know, the Internet never forgets. Of course, this is assuming you even manage to get the asshole convicted in the first place ...
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