Last month, York university student Alex* discovered that her ex boyfriend had posted 21 nude photos of her on Facebook. She untagged and reported the photos, but they quickly found their way onto porn revenge website myex.com.
This already sounds grim enough, but Alex’s pictures were then shared on five different sites, including porn sites. In total they received around 30,000 views in two days. Worse yet, Alex started to feel physically threatened. ’I was hunted down [as] people shared my Facebook link and tracked my [York] sports timetable, they knew where I was all the time,’ she told Nouse – The University of York student paper. ‘It included all of my personal information, where I’m from, where I go on holidays, where I worked, my degree, my hobbies, absolutely everything they could think of.’ Alex even believes she was followed to a sports match in Sheffield.
Anyone who is familiar with Hunter Moore (America’s very own 'Revenge Porn King'), Dr Holly Jacobs (founder of endrevengeporn.org) or Charlotte Laws (the ‘Erin Brockovich of Revenge Porn’) will know that Revenge Porn is a scarily booming industry in America - and it looks like it’s coming to the UK. But there's also a burgeoning backlash movement developing.
In response to Alex's story, fellow York student Heather Robertson has started a change.org petition entitled Ban Revenge Porn UK calling for revenge porn to be made illegal in the UK. (It’s already illegal in New Jersey, California, Australia and Israel, but here there’s currently no legal incentive for owners of porn sites to take the pictures down, as whoever took the pictures owns the copyright.)
On the petition site, Heather explains how devastating revenge porn can be. ‘The abuse of trust, and public humiliation that is associated with acts of revenge porn is something that should be illegal… The more hits the page has, the higher up in a Google search it appears, sadly for some women this means that searching their name reveals the photos. Future employment, relationships, friendship and families are all affected by acts of revenge porn.’
This is nothing Alex doesn’t already know. ‘My closest friends have been beyond amazing but it has affected not only my family and friends but my confidence and trust in future relationships. It’s really up and down. I’ve considered changing my name and dropping out completely. I just can’t focus on my work, I’m having to switch to a part-time course… and bury my name.’
*Sign Heather's petition at Change.org. For more information visit banrevengeporn.com and @banrevengeporn. *
Follow Rebecca on Twitter @rebecca_hol
*Name changed
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.