My Story As A Revenge Porn Survivor — Privacy: The Price We Pay For Technology
There are monsters in this world.
I never imagined that I could become the victim of non-consensual pornography. Everything was like a bad dream which I can’t wake up from. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, I was contacted by a friend informing me there was a video of me on Pornhub. I was in shock and disbelief, I thought he must have been mistaken. But as I clicked on the link my friend sent me, my life was forever changed.
It was as if someone had stabbed me with a knife, my blood all of a sudden went cold, and for a few seconds, I was completely paralyzed. There I was, in my most vulnerable moment, being violated by strangers online all over the world, staring back at me from the ice-cold screen. Humiliation, devastation, and anger rushed through my body, all I wanted to do was to escape and disappear. So I went to the roof of my building, climbed over the fence, and was getting ready to jump. But as I started to think about my family and friends, I eventually gave up on the idea of killing myself. I survived, barely.
The video was taken many years ago without my knowledge and without my consent. The monster who took that video is someone I dated, someone I once trusted. I had no idea he secretly filmed me until I saw the video on the porn site. The evidence is solid and clear, he has committed 2 separate crimes against me: filming me without my consent, and distributing the video without my consent. I have never felt more ashamed and alone in my entire life, it felt like I was betrayed by the whole world. I didn’t know how to talk to people about what I was going through, I was terrified of being judged or being slut-shamed. I couldn’t even tell my parents about it, because I was so ashamed of what happened.
I wish I could say non-consensual pornography is uncommon in our society, and all of us victims can seek justice easily; I wish I could say cyber crimes such as this doesn’t extend to our real life, and I really wish I could say non-consensual pornography doesn’t kill people, but I can’t.
The internet has changed our lives drastically in only a few decades, it has reinvented the way we socialize and interact with each other. Walls were broken, bridges were built, geographical boundaries were erased, magical things happen on the internet every day. As the generation that grew up with the internet, I took the convenience provided by technology for granted. It wasn’t until the moment when I saw myself on Pornhub had I truly started to consider: what did we have to give up in exchange for convenience?
In the case of non-consensual pornography, there’s no doubt that we should hold the individual perpetrators accountable. But as I conduct my research on this matter, I discovered that this issue is in fact much more complicated. Before the age of the internet and smartphones, the cost to create and distribute non-consensual pornography was significantly higher — from setting up the equipment to finding ways to distribute the illegal contents, it requires a certain level of professionalism, back then the barrier of entry to commit such crimes were high. Nowadays even a reckless teenager could have the power to completely destroy someone’s life just by clicking a few buttons on their phone. I am terrified to discover how easy it is for criminals to get access to supposedly the most private part of our lives. Any of our electronic devices with recording functions could be easily hacked: phone, laptop, smart speakers like Alexa, home surveillance camera, smart appliances — these are the devices we install at our home or put in our pockets. There are also criminals installing hidden cameras in public bathrooms and hotel rooms. Not to mention the creepy strangers who like to snap photos under women’s skirts. On the other hand, the rise of social media and video sharing platforms made it extremely easy to distribute content. A Video illegally filmed in a public bathroom in Thailand could be instantly uploaded online and travel to anywhere in the world. While the internet has blurred the lines of the international border, jurisdiction does have its border. For most international victims, justice isn’t even an option. This is the horrendous reality we live in. The exploitation of privacy and public humiliation is becoming a norm, and it’s more destructive than we think.
It’s a common misconception that non-consensual pornography is only a “women’s issue”. While it is true that currently, the majority of victims are indeed women, there is also a significant increase of male/LGBTQ victims lately. A male friend told me that he was once secretly filmed when he was showering. In fact, even someone as powerful as Jeff Bezos couldn’t avoid being blackmailed to expose his private revealing photos. In his own statement, he wrote “if in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?” What happened to Jeff Bezos is a reminder to all of us that such abuse can happen to absolutely anyone, regardless of gender, race or social status.
There is darkness in our humanity, conflicts and destruction have accompanied us throughout history. But undeniably there is also goodness and light in us. The ultimate question we need to answer in the age of rapid technological development is this: did technology bring out the worst of us? When we click on something, we are directly interacting with our devices, somehow we forget about the real lives behind the 1s and 0s. It’s so easy to be insensitive, but it is difficult for us to be mindful and compassionate if all we see is the lifeless screen.
As technology evolves, digital abuse is also on the rise. Non-consensual pornography is only the tip of the iceberg — cyberbullying, impersonation, identity theft, slandering, fake news, hate speech….All of these are becoming more and more destructive thanks to the power of the internet. Modern technology such as social media is an extremely powerful tool, and when such power is being abused, it has devastating consequences. When terrorist organizations like ISIS used social media to spread their extremist ideology and recruited members globally, digital abuse became a deadly weapon. When false information and fake news dominate our screen, society gets torn apart and democracy is at stake.
Digital abuse is something we often discuss, but yet to find a truly viable solution to contain. As a victim of non-consensual pornography, the ongoing uphill battle to seek justice reminds me of the great challenge we face currently. I reached out to all the non-profit organizations I could find specializing in non-consensual pornography or sex crime, only one responded. And after a few standard exchanges, the only organization I had been in contact with stopped responding. With the perpetrator fled outside of the country, there was very little the police could do. For about six months, I was all alone on the journey to seek justice. Many nights I woke up from nightmares screaming and crying, feeling hopeless and helpless, wondering if I could ever continue with my life.
Even with all the obstacles I have faced, I realize I’m still in a privileged position compared with most victims in similar circumstances. With the help of a lawyer friend, I eventually established contact with a law firm willing to take my case on a pro bono basis. I’m beyond grateful for all the kindness I received. I’m one of the lucky few. Too many victims, especially international victims couldn’t have the resources, the ability, or the information to help them seek justice. So they have no choice but to suffer in silence, while the perpetrators get away unpunished. While I was struggling with depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, the monster who committed such horrendous crimes to me (and several other women) was traveling, fishing, drinking, surfing and laughing.
It took me a very long time to process the fact that I’m a non-consensual pornography victim, it is deeply traumatizing and humiliating to go through such events. The pain was almost unbearable in the first few days, I kept asking myself: What have I done in life to deserve such things? Why me? And now in retrospect I realized: this is my destiny, and now I must become part of the solution. This trauma became a turning point for me to reconsider some of the issues we face in society today. It challenged me to ask difficult questions and seek answers.
Why is this happening to so many people over and over again? And how do we end such abuse? As someone who has worked in both nonprofit and tech industries, I know nonprofit organizations can’t solve this problem alone. Digital abuse is an issue enabled and escalated by technology, and the only way to end it is through technology and innovation. Here is what gives us hope: we have the technology to fight it. AI tools show great promise in terms of fighting digital abuse, but this won’t be easy, we still have a long way ahead to make such technology more accessible to individuals, and prevent it from being abused by unauthorized third parties.
We live in such an interesting time when it is so easy for criminals to abuse the power of the internet to exploit our privacy, but it is so difficult for us to protect ourselves. In my case, the perpetrator only needed to press 2 buttons to completely destroy my life: the “film” and the “upload” button. And before I was informed by my friend about the video, I was absolutely blind about the situation. We need to be proactive when it comes to protecting our privacy and identity. The issue isn’t just about big tech companies know more about us than we do, it’s the fact that we are defenseless against what’s out there. This needs to change.
On a higher level, artificial intelligence development does have many ethical issues. Today, the AI we have developed are already a bit sexist and a bit racist. Facial recognition tools sometimes don’t recognize women and people of color’s faces accurately. In the foreseeable future, when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence, what will happen to us then? Will the Super AI be friendly and compassionate towards humans? We have to set the right foundation at an early stage of AI development to ensure our future can be safe. We can’t expect everything to happen naturally and leave our chances in the hands of a few powerful institutions. So it is essential to make the necessary shift from institutional-focused AI to human-centered AI.
All of these have led me to this point. I’m building a product that aims to achieve two goals: end digital abuse, and making AI more human-centered. In order to achieve these goals, our MVP is a facial recognition tool that can help people quickly identify potential infringing contents of themselves (such as non-consensual pornography and impersonation) online. What differentiates this from other facial recognition tools is this: for each individual, it will be protected by their own biometric information, which means only you can access the search result based on your facial information. This will prevent such tools from being abused by third parties and enable the machine learning model to become more accurate when it comes to recognizing that particular Individual’s face. As more people start to use this tool, it will also significantly decrease inaccuracy across the database based on race and gender. Moving forward, We are also looking to add more features such as blacklisting certain websites from hosting unauthorized contents. This is only the very first step of our journey.
Indeed, there are monsters in the world, but they will not terrorize us. I am determined to end digital abuse, but I can not do this alone. I choose to come forward with my story because I need your help, each and every one of you. Together, we can change the environment and make the internet a more friendly place for all. Join this revolution and stand with me. Stand with me for a better future!
#standwithme #Alecto #enddigitalabuse
Subscribe to our Medium account for updates.
Follow us on Instagram: @alectoai
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AiAlecto
Image Source: Mashable India, The University of Texas at Dallas, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
