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Being A Victim Of Revenge Porn Forced Me To Change My Name

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Re: Being A Victim Of Revenge Porn Forced Me To Change My Name

#21

Post by thenerdfiles »

thenerdfiles wrote: post #9
saalweachter wrote: post #4

A lot of crusaders get it backwards, trying to protect society from porn (or its cousin, prostitution). I would like to live in a society that was safe for porn.

I see the point here. Attempting to put legal dogs onto this type of issue does not at all cover the scope of how society's perception pans out. The fact that a legal system might punish someone does not in any way demotivate the behavior but merely makes it more intractable when it does happen. That someone is punished doesn't change the motivations behind the victim's name change, and other efforts. The question st…

Something of substance to take away from the above:

    Revenge porn is not porn.
Just because there's nudity, there's a woman, and it's a JPG on a website, that does not make it porn. Calling this hateful act "porn" is a misnomer, and throws a valid mode of both sexual and aesthetic as well as economic and political expression under the proverbial bus.

Re: Being A Victim Of Revenge Porn Forced Me To Change My Name

#22

Post by [deleted] »

johnchristopher wrote: post #20
thenerdfiles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the point here. Attempting to put legal dogs onto this type of issue does not at all cover the scope of how society's perception pans out. The fact that a legal system might punish someone does not in any way demotivate the behavior but merely makes it more intractable when it does happen. That someone is punished doesn't change the motivations behind the victim's name change, and other efforts. The question st…

> The question still stands, for companies or institutions of victims like this: Do we want to affiliate ourselves with someone who has a love life that cannot be respected[0], that is out of line with our organization's ethos? If you do not align with the victim in these 'revenge porn' cases then you reinforce the extortionist's position. Does that align with any organization's ethos ?

[deleted]

Re: Being A Victim Of Revenge Porn Forced Me To Change My Name

#23

Post by thenerdfiles »

johnchristopher wrote: post #20
thenerdfiles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the point here. Attempting to put legal dogs onto this type of issue does not at all cover the scope of how society's perception pans out. The fact that a legal system might punish someone does not in any way demotivate the behavior but merely makes it more intractable when it does happen. That someone is punished doesn't change the motivations behind the victim's name change, and other efforts. The question st…

> The question still stands, for companies or institutions of victims like this: Do we want to affiliate ourselves with someone who has a love life that cannot be respected[0], that is out of line with our organization's ethos? If you do not align with the victim in these 'revenge porn' cases then you reinforce the extortionist's position. Does that align with any organization's ethos ?

It's not clear to me that the extortionist has a "position" or that it goes without saying that any organization who does not sympathize is at the same point aligning with the "revenge" sentiment.

Incidents like this can happen without the "revenge" component. Bots and malware might do this.

The organization believes it has PR to manage.

Re: Being A Victim Of Revenge Porn Forced Me To Change My Name

#24

Post by andrewfong »

crag wrote: post #12
andrewfong wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright belongs to the photographer, not the subject. So if the ex took the photo, the victim is out of luck. Likeness rights are a bit weird and vary by state, but generally, they only apply to using a person's likeness to advertise or imply an endorsement of some product or service. That said, there are more privacy-centric laws in various states that might apply here. But those laws don't really draw clear lines…

"Copyright belongs to the photographer, not the subject. So if the ex took the photo, the victim is out of luck." Only if the subject gave permission (usually by signing a document) to the photographer. This is a very different situation. A jealous ex posting pictures he took of them all over the net. This girl had the right to expect those pictures to remain private. If he broke the law is debatable. But there's no…

> Only if the subject gave permission (usually by signing a document) to the photographer.

Permission from the subject is not required under U.S. copyright law. Unless there's some other agreement in place, it belongs to the photographer. From http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html:

"""The owner of the “work” is generally the photographer or, in certain situations, the employer of the photographer. Even if a person hires a photographer to take pictures of a wedding, for example, the photographer will own the copyright in the photographs unless the copyright in the photographs is transferred, in writing and signed by the copyright owner, to another person. The subject of the photograph generally has nothing to do with the ownership of the copyright in the photograph."""

Permission may matter for likeness rights, but as I mentioned earlier, that generally only applies in the context of advertising or implied endorsement.

> But there's no denying her ex is a first class punk.

Agreed, but it doesn't change the copyright analysis.

Re: Being A Victim Of Revenge Porn Forced Me To Change My Name

#25

Post by indrax »

robomartin wrote: post #13

I hope this doesn't come out wrong. She is a victim of a horrific crime. There is no doubt about that whatsoever. Anywhere else this guy would have been beaten to a pulp. If someone did this to my daughter...well, let's leave it there. Having said that, I have to wonder about the mental framework within which a girl thinks it might be a good idea to allow the taking of nude pictures and videos of herself. Please, som…

Nude pictures are fun. For all the reasons it's fun to take pictures at all, plus love and sex.

In a relationship that isn't really obviously screwed up, you have basic trust for the other person.

Part of that trust ought to include encryption, but that's another story.

I think that this situation is atypical. Leaked or lost personal photos might be available to the whole world, but most don't go viral linked to your name. So the 'normal' risk of a douchebag boyfriend is relatively low.

And why is it a risk at all? Why isn't it just safe and fun? What's the harm? Take this passage:

>My professional reputation? Tainted. My parents’ perception of me as their angelic baby girl? Blown to smithereens and then reassembled in the likeness of a leper. >I sobbed daily.

Where is the harm here? It is coming from her potential employees, colleagues, and sadly her parents. They're the ones with screwed up attitudes about sex. It's their fault, not her fault, because she did nothing wrong. I hope their views are not as harsh as she thinks. But even if she's imagining it those are the ideas we get from our culture.

I get that you're worried about it coming out wrong, but much of your post was similarly victim blaming. The actual solution to murderers in alleys is to send police into the alleys. Not restructure our lives to be tolerant of the constant risk of murder. We should not just cede power to evil because the alley is dark.

And this is not a physical attack, all the harm is in the views others take of the victim. Your judgement of her judgement is part of the harm that the attacker expected.

A betrayal of trust should be blamed on the betrayer, not the betrayed. Is there room for learning better who to trust? Sure. Should we expect people to act like they can't trust anyone they love, and add scorn because they were the ones who encountered trust-evoking douchebags? No.

Personal porn should be fun and safe and relatively inconsequential, for all the reasons that love and sex and photos are fun.

Re: Being A Victim Of Revenge Porn Forced Me To Change My Name

#26

Post by rpenm »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #17
droopyEyelids wrote: post #2

Man it's a horrible issue here. I'm glad they're making progress but worried about adding some more 1st amendment exemptions. I can imagine this turning into a tool the powerful use to suppress "damaging information" or something along those lines. Maybe so long as it stays restricted to uncensored pictures of nudity things will go well.

Yes, I wrote about this the last time this topic came up here. There is another guy who's life was destroyed by revenge porn, specifically the public sharing of private selfies. Even 2 years after the incident, Carlos Danger (Anthony Wiener) is still being rejected from jobs (by voters) as a result of his actions. http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/defending_hunter_moor... I don't see a reasonable way to shut dow…

"Public interest" usually distinguishes journalism from other media. Granted, this is a nebulous concept. But it is hard to make the case that revenge porn serves the public interest. It targets the powerless in order to dominate and dehumanize. Even state surveillance pretends to serve the public interest - Moore and his ilk make no such claim.

The Weiner case is an arguable comparison. The character/judgment of a political leader is usually considered a question of public interest. And voters didn't reject him for the images - he was the leading mayoral candidate for a time. Only the 2013 scandal made Weiner seem irredeemably dishonest.

If anything, Weiner benefited from the gender bias in these kinds of cases.

Re: Being A Victim Of Revenge Porn Forced Me To Change My Name

#27

Post by lcedp »

The guy is a total dick of course, but more importantly what never stops to amaze me what kind of dicks are the "normal" people that surround us on the work and other places. So suppose nude pictures of my coworker/acquaintances/etc appear and everyone becomes aware of this - well I will see these pictures and it might certainly give me some giggles but I won't think anything bad about this person - what's wrong with naked body, anyway? and who haven't taken such pictures at some point? Those crowd people are far more scary then the asshole who shared it in the first place.

Re: Being A Victim Of Revenge Porn Forced Me To Change My Name

#28

Post by yummyfajitas »

rpenm wrote: post #26
yummyfajitas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I wrote about this the last time this topic came up here. There is another guy who's life was destroyed by revenge porn, specifically the public sharing of private selfies. Even 2 years after the incident, Carlos Danger (Anthony Wiener) is still being rejected from jobs (by voters) as a result of his actions. http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/defending_hunter_moor... I don't see a reasonable way to shut dow…

"Public interest" usually distinguishes journalism from other media. Granted, this is a nebulous concept. But it is hard to make the case that revenge porn serves the public interest. It targets the powerless in order to dominate and dehumanize. Even state surveillance pretends to serve the public interest - Moore and his ilk make no such claim. The Weiner case is an arguable comparison. The character/judgment of a p…

"Public interest" is a very nebulous concept.

For example, consider this news report which targets the powerless in order to dominate and dehumanize: http://valleywag.gawker.com/business-insider-ctos-is-your-ne...

Much like the report on Pax Dickinson, revenge porn is simply exposing the (completely legal) views and opinions of an individual typically employed in the private sector. And it's doing so in a way designed to cause others to dislike the individual being reporter on. Is the report on Pax Dickinson not journalism? (Hypothetically suppose the report was based on leaked emails rather than public tweets if you believe privacy plays a role.)

Appealing to the public interest really seems like reaching to me. And somehow, I suspect that the next Carlos Danger will argue that his nude selfies don't serve the public interest and should therefore be censored.

Re: Being A Victim Of Revenge Porn Forced Me To Change My Name

#30

Post by mistermann »

jakewu1982 wrote: post #14

This is not a black and white case. You need to read Ryan Seay's side of the story to get a better perspective of how things likely went down - http://jacobsvsseay.com

The essence of his side of the story is that the pictures and videos were here idea, and she enthusiastically produced them and sent them to her, and that their subsequent appearance on the internet was not his doing but the act of hackers who compromised his account and perhaps also obtained videos from Justin TV. He has enough evidence posted that it seems plausible and in my opinion that she's being a bit less than honest in her public persona about what actually happened, basically, that he coerced her into producing the content which he then distributed, when the reality may have been she's a bit of a wild girl in secret and would like to keep that aspect of her personality a secret.

An excerpt:

In closing, if I could impart any words to Ms. Jacobs, it would be the following… I’m sorry that someone did this to you, but it wasn’t me. It never was, isn’t and never will be me. At some point, you will have to accept that. Please don’t underestimate people’s ability to forgive. While it may not be possible for me to do so, people will understand if you reverse and tell the truth. From your constantly changing timeline and story, I’m concerned for you and I hope you’re talking to someone. It has been almost a half-decade since we last spoke, yet you seem to have crafted this detailed and elaborate construct in your head of what I have been doing all of these years. If this is sincerely what you believe and isn’t part of some elaborate and malicious plan, then I hope you get help; it’s frightening and sad to see. It can’t be me and I have absolutely no desire for it to be, but I hope you’re talking to someone. While I’m considerably angry with you and appalled by your actions, I don’t hate you. This is merely the beginning of our legal battle and it will assuredly get much worse from here, but in all matters besides these, I wish you well. We disagree on many matters and we will continue to disagree on many matters, but above all things, be honest, stay strong and please, don’t do anything stupid.

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