The effect of revenge porn can be devastating for the
victims as well as family members and friends. The CPS explain that in many
cases, the images are often joined by personal information including links to
the victims social media accounts and details of their home and work which mean
their whole life is out for the public to see. In other cases the victims have
been fired from their jobs or expelled from school, receiving online abuse and
being harassed is also common with many being propositioned by strangers
because of the behaviour that was seen in the videos or photos. Many victims
suffer from mental and emotional trauma which can harm their reputations
severely, it has also been found that even those who speak out about revenge
porn have been targeted. There seems to be a negative reaction towards those
whose images are published even though they are the victims and should be
treated with sympathy. As the internet develops we are able to track down
people on social media a lot quicker, we can find people on facebook within
seconds, learn their age, date of birth, job and home. Therefore victims can be
tracked from school to school and job to job, seemingly unable to get away from
this traumatic event.
“my privacy, my intimacy, my body have been completely
violated. The pictures were taken and shared with trust.”
These are the words of a 22 year old who was the victim of
revenge porn, she found out that naked photos of her had been released; she had
taken them for an art project. They were posted online and she then received
abuse and even some rape threats from members of the public.
Once the images and videos have been uploaded via the
internet, a Google search of the victims name will bring up these images. Even
if they have been deleted from the original source, it is extremely difficult
to retrieve all the images once they have been uploaded as they may have been
saved by other people or uploaded onto a number of different websites. This may
cause a number of issues for the victim when they go on to apply for jobs,
future employers may search their name in order to find out more about them and
be faced with a number of explicit images which may deter them from giving the
victim a job. There are a number of websites which are dedicated to the
publishing of revenge porn, these sites also allow comments which can contain
insults about the victim, if the victim ends up discovering these comments,
this could damage their self esteem and lead to depression. There have been
cases of victims resorting to suicide as they believe this is their only way
out of the situation, other have been stalked, assaulted or even killed as a
result. It is clear that revenge porn is an incredibly serious offence, however
as it is relatively new in terms of a criminal offence, some people don’t see
it as a ‘proper crime.’ This shows the amount of work which needs to be done in
order to stop other potential victims from having to go through the traumatic
experience.
