One Woman's Dangerous War Against the Most Hated Man on the Internet [View all]

[Brickbat]

Hard to snip. Read it. And despite the title and the excerpt, it's about more than revenge porn. Some women's heads were photoshopped onto nude models, but labeled with their names. Many photos are taken by women who don't even share them; the images are hacked out of their computers.

It's harrowing.

http://jezebel.com/one-womans-dangerous-war-against-the-most-hated-man-on-1469240835?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Many months earlier, I was drawn into the nasty world of revenge porn. Revenge porn (RP) is the online distribution of nude and topless photos without consent in an effort to humiliate and hurt their targets, mostly females. A picture is uploaded to a revenge porn website by an angry ex-boyfriend or a malicious hacker usually with identifying information about a woman, such as her full name, city, workplace, social media page, boss' email address and parent's phone number. Followers of the RP websites then may harass the victim, often forwarding the embarrassing photo to her family members, friends and business contacts. This can lead to a loss of economic and employment opportunities, and it can strain or end a woman's personal relationships. At least two women have killed themselves over revenge porn, and Cyber Civil Rights Initiative studies show that 47 percent of victims contemplate suicide.

In October 2011, my 24-year-old daughter Kayla was alone in her bedroom, emulating poses from fashion magazines. She snapped over 100 cute and sexy pictures in the mirror with her cell phone. One shot revealed her left breast. She never intended to show the pictures to anyone, but wanted to save them on her hard drive. She forwarded the entire lot from her cell phone to her email and then to her computer. Three months later on January 1, 2012, her email was hacked; and nine days after that, the photo revealing her left breast appeared on the notorious revenge porn website, Is Anyone Up? Kayla was an actress, but she was working part-time as a waitress when she got the distressing phone call.

"Kayla, I have to talk to you right now," Kayla's friend, Katie, was panic-stricken. "I'm at work in the middle of my shift. I can't talk," Kayla said

"This is really important," Katie replied. "You are…" Katie began hesitantly, knowing the news would devastate Kayla. "You are topless on a website. It is called isanyoneup.com."