Revenge porn, Facebook nude pilot scheme
NOELLE Martin has experienced first-hand the soul-crushing discovery of personal, sexually explicit images splashed across the internet.
But her defiant message to anyone considering hitting send on a “sext” is this: You do what you feel comfortable with and who is anyone else to judge?
And her response to a Facebook pilot scheme asking users to send the social media giant their nudes to proactively prevent their spread through its various platforms? Bring it on.
The law graduate was only 17 when an unknown person stole an innocent photograph off her Facebook account, digitally manipulated her face on to somebody else’s naked body and posted it on a pornographic website along with her full name.
That image was followed by another, and then another, every iteration more degrading than the previous and each one quickly proliferating across the web.
All the images were fakes but that hardly mattered when the only people who knew the truth were herself and the faceless, nameless perpetrator.
“Thinking about the people who might have seen these pictures was a massive thing that kept me up at night, pretty much for years,” Ms Martin said. “Speaking out two years ago, that was my decision to reclaim my name so that when people googled me they would understand what happened and that I’m not the person in those images.”
Since first telling her story Ms Martin has become a vocal campaigner for the introduction of penalties for image-based abuse, calling for the criminalisation of what happened to her.
She also believes those who share genuine intimate images without consent should face legal consequences.
After her harrowing experience one might expect Ms Martin to warn against ever exposing yourself to a similar ordeal. But self-regulation, she argues, is a slippery slope and a small step away from the kind of victim-blaming ideology that says women should avoid wearing mini-skirts if they don’t want to be raped.
“Sexting between consenting adults, that isn’t something that needs to change,” she said. “The behaviour that needs to change is the abuse of trust, the abuse of confidence and the abuse of consent.
“If you want to express your intimacy or sexuality and feel like you can trust the person you are sending the image to, you should be able to do that. That person is more than capable of keeping that photo in confidence.
“The thing is, once you start saying people have to change their behaviour and take responsibility, the people who are disproportionally affected are women.”
Ms Martin’s words come in the face of heightened awareness and fears of falling victim to “revenge porn” — the practice of making public explicit images shared in confidence, usually after a relationship sours.
The phenomenon has been made possible through the rapid rise of sexting, which is rampant among young people.
A University of Sydney survey conducted back in 2013 found more than half of the nearly 800 respondents aged 16 to 25 had sent a sexual image or video, most commonly in the context of an existing relationship.
Both males and females reported the most common motivating factor for sexting was to be “fun and flirty”. For a sext to be seen “as a sexy present” and “to feel sexy and confident” rounded out the top three reasons for women.
It is perfectly healthy when occurring between trustworthy and consenting adults, according to Curtin University School of Public Health senior research officer and lecturer Jacqui Hendriks.
“It can be a way of showing someone you are into the relationship and care about them, it can be a thrill and a tease and in some instances demonstrate you are committed to the other person because you are taking a risk,” she said.
Despite working within schools and possessing a front-row seat to the fallout that occurs when an individual’s trust is betrayed, Dr Hendriks said it was pointless trying to prevent young people from engaging in a practice that was already so widespread.
“It is more beneficial to focus on harm minimisation strategies, like making sure you aren’t identifiable in any of the pictures you send, so no faces or tattoos or uniform,” Dr Hendriks said.
“But also if you are sending intimate photos but not receiving any, you are creating a power imbalance. Receiving pictures in return is a protective mechanism and a sign of a healthy relationship.”
After a false start last week, Facebook has now launched an Australian trial allowing users to proactively send the company their nudes to guard against their future circulation on any of its platforms, which also include Instagram and Messenger.
Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant claims the pictures will be reviewed by a human employee and then hashed — stored as a digital fingerprint in a human un-readable format — before the original image is deleted.
The encryption scheme, which would not prevent images or video being uploaded to websites or sent through platforms not owned by Facebook, was met with scepticism by young adults approached at a Nedlands bar this week.
“I think there is a big difference between sending that very private photo to that one person that you trust and to a corporation, even if they say they are hashing it,” tour guide Cassie Van Lendt said.
Commerce student Maria Marouchtchak said the pilot was ill-timed coming so soon after revelations Facebook had allowed more than 310,000 Australians to have their personal data mined in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
She said she now hardly used Facebook and had never sent a sext, despite encountering pressure to do so, usually after receiving unsolicited nudes from men.
“I’ve been surrounded by social media since early high school and we have all heard about the consequences,” she said.
“You hear all these stories about what has happened to other girls and the slut-shaming, so I just haven’t put myself in that position.”
Dyllyn Castel has, and does, engage in sexting but said SnapChat — which automatically deletes photos or videos a few seconds after they are received — was much better suited to the practice than Facebook.
For student Gabby O’Brien, sexting was something to be considered only with a long-term boyfriend.
“But then I also wouldn’t like someone having that leverage on me in case something (negative) did happen between us,” she said.
She also feared some young people might view the Facebook scheme as a security blanket they wrongly believed would prevent their nudes from circulating anywhere.
Ms Martin said while it seemed counter-intuitive, she believed most people would not hesitate to supply Facebook with their nudes if they discovered they had already spread further than intended.
“The question is who do I trust more: Facebook, or the abuser?” she said. “I would be fine with going through the Facebook portal because there is nothing worse than playing the waiting game.
“No, it isn’t going to remove the images from the internet completely but at the very least it is something proactive you can do.”
The Office of the eSafety Commissioner, which is working closely with Facebook on its trial, said it had received more than 230 reports relating to image-based abuse since starting its own online portal to report incidents in October last year.
“Victims are not required to provide their location details, however of those who did, WA victims account for 12 per cent of reports,” a spokesperson said.
“Our research shows one in four Australian women aged 18-24 have experienced image-based abuse and women are also twice as likely to experience image-based abuse, compared with men.”
