British presenter, television producer, writer and journalist Anna Richardson decided to test for herself the dark side of the selfie by uploading nudes of herself to a revenge porn site for a new Channel 4 documentary titled Revenge Porn.
Revenge Porn: Anna Richardson reveals the “alarming” dark side of 21st Century hatred (express.co.uk).
“The 44-year-old broadcaster explained the difficult decision to post her own photos online, leaving her open to hatred from strangers. ‘We wanted to get a live timeline, we couldn’t do it retrospectively,’ Anna explained, adding: ‘It was a very serious discussion.’ The programme makers wanted to show just how quickly revenge porn spreads online from the moment the images or graphic content is posted. … While perpetrators can be prosecuted for sharing the explicit images, it’s not illegal to host the images. In fact owners of the sites claim that it is a form of freedom of speech. Victims have sometimes had their addresses posted on these site and others have had many sexually violent comments aimed at them.”
And, of course, if you are on Twitter, Facebook et al., visit cam chatrooms (or even the still lingering but perhaps gasping their last breath picture sharing but text-only ones) or indeed visit sites, blogs or forums hosting user submitted amateur erotica content you’ll have likely come across the sort of female-targetted vitriol expressed.
While sympathetic to and defending the right of victims to take and send such, I am glad that Anne and the program did not overtly try to paint all who enjoy to view homemade erotica with the same digital-dirt brush either, although it could be read by some as being written as such on the faces of some of the law enforcement and I suspect anti-porn as much as anti-revenge porn campaigners interviewed. It was also very interesting how the motive propagating revenge porns popularity turned in the show from revenge—for those uploading at least—to ad revenue site earnings from those hosting which points as much a finger at laws of supply and demands as—as discussed in the show with perpetrators—the all-too-human but now all-too-easy and with a ready and waiting mob-rules audience desire for revenge after rejection.
You can catch the documentary here on Channel 4’s on demand service here (channel4.com) and is the topic of Claire-Bear’s always enlightening Chatzy this week.
Recent/related stories
- “Revenge porn”: New offence comes into force in the UK (Pick of the Week 21st October 2014, updated 13th April 2015)
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