A Facebook controversy between a 26-year-old student and her former romantic partner–her college dean,1 highly publicized sex videos taken by a celebrity physician of his sexual acts with different famous intimate partners in May 2009,2 news reports about teenage girls and women being blackmailed by past, present and prospective boyfriends and husbands with threats of, or actual publication of their intimate sex videos and/or nude photographs3 — these are only some of the known incidents which indicate that there is a rising incidence of revenge porn perpetrated as technology driven violence against women (VAW)4 by their intimate partners.5 Regrettably, the Internet has become a breeding ground for diverse forms of violence against women, in the form of pornography, sexist games and breaches of privacy, as it fosters an anonymous atmosphere where persons may gain access and publish virtually any type of material with relative impunity.6
According to a 2013 report published by the World Health Organization, almost 35% of all women have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence.7 In his 2006 Report on VAW, the United Nations Secretary-General stated, ‘More inquiry is also needed about the use of technology, such as computers and cell phones, in developing and expanding forms of violence. Evolving and emerging forms of violence need to be named so that they can be recognized and better addressed."8 To date, despite indisputable proof evidencing an alarming increase in violations involving technology, there has been scant concern and solutions accorded to technology-related forms of VAW by states, intergovernmental institutions and other persons concerned about VAW.9
Technology driven VAW is defined as violence against women that is done, aided, or worsened by the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and in online fora. Because of ICTs' characterisctics of anonymity, automation, facility of action at a distance, affordability and propagation, technology related VAW has resulted to the incursion against womens' right to privacy, bodily integrity, self-determination, freedom of expression, and freedom of association or assembly.10 ICT has transformed the manner by which VAW is being committed, has magnified its consequences and effects on the victims, and affected even how perpetrators are to be held accountable and prosecuted.11 Technology driven VAW promotes and encourages misogyny and discrimination. As an emerging form of VAW, particular attention must be paid to prevent its being a hindrance to women's ability and right12 to take full advantage of the all the benefits to individual development afforded by ICTs.13
Revenge porn is one of the most prevalent technology driven VAW presently being perpetrated by intimate partners. It has been reported that the social networking site Facebook alone already has suspected 54, 000 potential cases of revenge porn, leading to the dismissal of at least 14, 000 user accounts worldwide.14 The first websites completely dedicated to revenge pornography began emerging in 2008.15 Like a particularly virulent disease, thousands of websites like Anon-IB, Is Anyone Up?,and My-Ex.Com began to crop up and to rapidly gain popularity. In these revenge porn websites, former intimate partners uploaded pornographic photos or videos of their sexual acts with their ex-lovers, taken or received by them during the course of the relationship, without the women's knowledge and consent. Causing further damage to the victims of this type of technology driven VAW, these uploaders would engage in ‘doxing’ – the colloquial term for the posting of the full name, address, contact numbers, social media accounts, email addresses and other personal details of the women on the porn website, which may incite other persons to proffer sexual demands upon the victims.16
Revenge Pornography
To gain a better understanding of this relatively new phenomenon in VAW, we must explore what is revenge pornography.
It is undisputed that taking a picture or video of your nude body or yourself engaged in sexual acts or intercourse, or granting permission to another person to electronically record such event are not pornographic activities. However, the act of sharing these private images to strangers or third parties, without the consent of all the participants thereto, is pornographic as it mutates the previously private image into a form of public sexual entertainment.17 Revenge pornography has been defined as the sharing of private, sexual materials, either photos or videos, of another person without their consent and with the purpose of causing embarrassment or distress.18 As stated earlier, these pictures or videos may be captioned with the personal information of the woman,such as their full name, address, workplace, telephone numbers, and links to their social media profiles. The term ‘revenge porn’ includes online and offline availability of the said images and media, and to those which have been shared digitally, or by uploading on the internet, passing through text and e-mail, or even exhibiting the pornograpic pictures and videos to another person other than the victim.19 The nomenclatures ‘revenge porn’, ‘non-consensual sexting’, ‘involuntary porn’ and ‘non-consensual pornography’20 all pertain to the distribution or sale of sexually explicit or intimate pictures or videos without the consent of the subject. It is immaterial whether the woman had willingly taken (through ‘selfies’) and/or shared the said videos or pictures to her intimate partner prior to their distribution or publication as all that is necessary is that she has not consented to their distribution. Other situations of revenge porn occur when images have been photo-shopped or fixed by superimposing the face or identity of a victim onto an existing pornographic picture, or when private and hidden intimate photos and videos were hacked and pilfered from the woman’s computer or mobile device, or when naked or or semi-naked photographs or videos were taken while the woman is asleep, or semi-unconscious, brought about by inebriation from drugs or alcohol, and/or during a sexual attack upon her. These images and/or videos are then shared among her contemporaries or shared to the general public online.21
While named ‘revenge porn,’ this type of VAW is not always driven by the perpetrators' thirst for vengeance or for their desire to humiliate or blackmail their former partners into following their wishes, or to extort money from the victims. Some offenders do it for monetary gain online, others just want to achieve notoriety or status, while some just do it as a ‘hobby’ or pastime.22
Using the term ‘revenge pornography’ is itself rife with issues as some experts aver that it does not acknowledge the gendered nature of this VAW. As stated by DeKeseredy, how we name revenge pornography has implications on how the public understand the phenomenon and how we respond to it. The importance of not ignoring the profound rape myths inherent to revenge pornography and the related patriarchal sense of male ownership of the women in the images should likewise be highlighted.23
For this reason, some prefer to use the more expansive term ‘nonconsensual pornography’ when referring to this type of VAW.24 As defined, nonconsensual pornography refers to sexually explicit images disclosed without consent and for no legitimate purpose.25 This covers any image or video taken through concealed equipment, those willinglyexchanged within an intimate-partner relationship, stolen photos, and tapings of sexual assaults. These media may be employed by abusers, using the threat of publication, to blackmail their partners to keep them from leaving the relationship, or into engaging in forced sexual acts, or to extort money, or to stop them from complaining about the abuse to the authorities.26
Revenge pornography is a a sub-classification of cyber-harassment/ cyber-stalking, and may likewise be considered as a form of sexual assault or ‘cyber rape’.27 It causes victims problems such as lifelong mental health consequences, wrecked lives, broken relationships, and social isolation. 28
Intimate Partners as Perpetrators of Revenge Pornography
Revenge pornography is most commonly defined as the online publication of private or sexually explicit pictures or videos of an individual without permission for the purpose of defaming the victim.29 Many times, the images are often recorded and consensually entrusted to by one person to another individual within an intimate relationship.30 These are then uploaded to revenge pornography internet sites by disgruntled intimate partners without the victims' consent or knowledge.31 However, in some incidents of revenge pornography, the victim might not even be cognizant that her image is being digitally recorded in the first place. 32
As earlier stated in this paper, the term ‘revenge porn’ does not really adequately describe all the facets of this type of technology driven VAW, as some perpetrators may not actually be moved by revenge,33 and instead do it for reasons such as coercion, blackmail, fun, sexual gratification, social status or monetary gain. Certainly, for those who purchase images on dedicated revenge pornography sites(such as reddit, 4Chan or 8Chan), or for those who maintain these online platforms, revenge is not a motivation at all. The perpetrator may likewise have published the explicit images to intimidate, mute, or exercise power and control over the victim of domestic and sexual violence.34 This is a global problem which likewise constitutes interpersonal violence.35
The Effects of Revenge Pornography on the Victim
It goes without saying that revenge pornography has numerous pernicious effects on the victims. Aside from serious mental health problems, victims have to deal with lasting personal and psychological consequences, as the specter of the publicized photographs or videos may hound them for the rest of their lives. One study shows that 49 percent of victims reported that they were subjected to cyber-harassment and cyber-stalking by online users who had viewed their revenge pornography, while 80 to 93 percent of victims experienced serious emotional distress thereafter.36 Some victims were threatened with sexual assault.37 The victims felt anger, guilt, paranoia, depression, and some thought of committing suicide.38 Some victims have indeed committed suicide.39
In their work ‘Revenge Pornography: Mental Health Implications and Related Legislation,’40 psychologists Mudasir Kamal and William Newman stated that that being victimized by revenge pornography ‘can result in lifelong mental health consequences for victims, damaged relationships, and social isolation.’ 41 It has been said that the long-term negative consequences of revenge pornography upon victims are akin to those suffered by victims of child pornography. Like the child victims, the victims of revenge pornography felt humiliation, powerlessness, and permanence associated with these crimes. Victims feel depression, withdrawal, low self-esteem, and feelings of worthlessness and they fight lifelong battles to find and maintain their integrity.42
In addition, victims relate that the effects of revenge pornography had spilled over onto the other areas of their lives. Some young victims were dismissed and forced to change schools43 as a consequence of the publication of their nude photographs. 44 Some victims lost their jobs while others found it hard to secure future employment, as many employers now conduct online searches to screen their job applicants.45
Women as Targeted Victims of Revenge Pornography
Catharine MacKinnon avers that pornography is the subordination of women .46 While this paper makes no asseverations that only women are victimized by revenge pornography, many studies do indicate that women and girls are particularly targeted for technology driven VAW such as revenge pornography, precisely as a consequence of their gender and the perpetrator’s motivation of ‘slut-shaming’ them.47 It is an inescapable fact that violence against women involving the use of technology is growing.48
At present, there is a dearth of empirical data on the actual incidents of online forms of sexual violence and harassment. As a consequence, the gender of victims and perpetrators, and the exact causes of revenge pornography remain undefined and unmeasured. However, some experts believe that technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) is a gendered phenomenon based on three factors:49
First, existing research supports the theory that even though women and girls are not the only victims of violence, they remain as the main targets of technology driven violence.50 To date, a very large majority of victims of revenge pornography are comprised of the women and girls victimized by their intimate partners.
Second, the impact of revenge porn is gendered, as women and girls are the ones who mostly experience adverse effects as traditional misconceptions and expectations surrounding ‘normal’ sexual behavior expected of women still prevail.51 In the Philippines, for example, there is a nil to zero incidence of reports of males or other genders aside from women being victimized by revenge pornography. Victim-blaming is entrenched in the cultural ideology that women are the keepers of morality in society, and they do this primarily by maintaining or at least appearing to maintain the female body pristine.52 On the other end of the gender spectrum, the myth prevails that the hard-wired male sexuality is stirred up and uncontrollably crazed by hormonal sexual desire by of the presence of women.53 It thus follows that it is presumed that the sexual conduct or act resulted as a consequence of the woman's fault or action, and the subsequent recording and publication of these explicit acts could not have happened without the woman's indispensable participation.
Third, it is acknowledged that an essential element in acts of sexual violence, such as revenge pornography, is gender hierarchisation ‘ a ‘historically constructed pattern of power relations between men and women and definitions of femininity and masculinity’.54 In an effort to manifest their love and care for their intimate partners as shown by the subordination of their wishes to the wills of the males, women are much more likely to be pressured to send nude photographs or to have their sexual acts recorded, and they are also much more likely to be victims of revenge pornography.55
Revenge Pornography in the Philippines
In the Philippines, news reports on technology-related VAW are increasing and these incidents are creating treacherous new waters which Filipinos must learn to transverse.56 There is no hard government data to indicate the extent of this type of technology driven VAW, and technology is often treated merely as one of the tools to commit the crime of VAW.57 The almost predictable common scenario, as propounded by the media, is that the victim (almost always a woman or girl) transmits private and explicit pictures and videos to her intimate partner; the couple break up; the vengeful lover uploads the explicit material on Internet sites; these photographs and videos travel indiscriminately all over through the social media sites; the victim is emotionally traumatized and her shame lasts for a significant period of time.58 Revenge pornography in the Philippines is the modern equivalent of tarring and feathering: in a predominantly Catholic country, to reveal and share one’s most private intimate moments with the world ranks very high on the embarrassment scale.59
As an example, the highly publicized videos of the sexual acts of a celebrity physician with various famous intimate partners exploded upon Philippine society in May 2009, was quickly shared online and later commercialized through the sale of DVD in markets, streets and sidewalks.60 One of the said doctor's intimate partners, a known female actor, claimed that the videos of her were taken without her knowledge and consent. She thus filed a criminal complaint for violation of the Violence Against Women and Children Act against the erstwhile doctor. However, the doctor was acquitted of the criminal charges as the prosecution could not prove that the said doctor was the one who uploaded the explicit videos on the United States based internet site, thus causing the damage wrought upon the victim.
Many believe that the publicity generated by this doctor-actress brouhaha had a positive result as it directly resulted in the Philippine Congress passing Republic Act 9995 (Anti-Photo and Video Voyeurism Act of 2009) to curb the recording and dissemination of similar private and explicit material in the future.61 The Philippines was the first country in the world to pass a national law prohibiting non-consensual photo distribution.62 In a nutshell, the Anti-Photo and Video Voyeurism Act prohibits the following acts:
1. The nonconsensual taking of a photo or video of a person or group of persons engaged in a sexual act or any similar activity, or capturing an image of the private area of a person, under circumstances in which the said person has a reasonable expectation of privacy;63
2. The copying or reproduction of such photo or video recording of the sexual act;
3. The selling or distribution of such photo or video recording;
4. The publication or broadcasting, whether in print or broadcast media, or the showing of such sexual act or any similar activity through VCD/DVD, the internet, cellular phones, and other similar means or devices without the written consent of the persons featured.64
The second, third and fourth prohibitions will still apply even if the person or persons consented to the taking of the photo or recording of the sexual act.65 Thus, while there is currently no Philippine law that specifically penalizes revenge pornography as VAW,66 the mere act of uploading pictures and videos of this nature tot he Internet is already punishable by law. Moreover, those who sell these materials to the public may also be held criminally liable. A violation of the provisions of RA 9995 may entail a maximum penalty of 7-year incarceration and/or a fine up to P500, 000.67
Republic Act 9995 has been criticized as it does not explicitly recognize that the aforementioned acts can be a form of VAW. Furthermore voyeurism is defined as a crime on the basis of lack of consent, without specifying what ‘consent’ is in such instances which may lead to abusers evading prosecution and conviction.
The other law dealing with cybercrimes in the Philippines is the Cybercrime Prevention Act. This law requires the cooperation of service providers to preserve traffic data for six months to aid in investigation. This may assist law enforcers in prosecution perpetrators of revenge pornography. However, some provisions therein may also be detrimental to prosecution. Specifically, the sections whcih pertain to ‘cybersex’,68 does not define clearly the issue of consent, so that even a woman forced into cyber-pornography, and even those subjected to revenge pornography may also be criminalized along with the perpetrator for simply engaging in sex online.69 This may produce a chilling effect on victims.
It has been recognized that laws which define and criminalize sexual violence on the basis of the lack of consent of the victims leads to the ‘re-victimization’ or secondary victimization of victims/survivors by forcing them to adduce evidence beyond any reasonable doubt that they did not give their consent to the abusive act.70 This taxing requirement, which entails testifying in Court, and thus reliving the traumatic events has been found to discourage many victims from reporting these crimes and filing complaints and/or pursuing the prosecution of the perpetrators of the violence. A major obstacle in pursuing prosecution of perpetrators of technology-related VAW committed through the internet is the law’s enforceability, 71 as tracking and identifying perpetrators is extremely difficult because of the anonymity and relative impunity afforded by the internet.72 Prosecution is further hampered by the perception of the public that law enforcement agencies are technologically incompetent to secure evidence which may identify the persons who uploaded the revenge pornography to the Internet. Litigation is a slow and costly procedure in the Philippines, and many victims simply give up or lack the resources to pursue their complain to its culmination. 73
Moreover, in spite of the laws, internet service providers still do not take responsibility and disavow any legal liability for any illegal or criminal activities done by the use of their services or facilities. No laws exist requiring providers to police or pre-screen their subscribers or to monitor how their services are used or what materials and content are coursed through their facilities. Telecommunications companies, Internet Service Providers and other service providers declare in in their terms and conditions of use that they are have no legal obligation to monitor or screen the users of their services. Much worse, the Internet sites hosting revenge pornography are not legally required to disclose who uploaded the explicit material, and they have no immediate obligation to take down the images/video clips when the victim requests their removal. Users have the responsibility to report offensive and illicit material, and only after these complaints are substantiated and proven will the provider take action to curb the said material.74 Finally, fears about prior restraint and infringement on the freedom of expression and communication of innocent users also hinder more stringent protection measures against revenge pornography.75
To date, no one has yet been successfully prosecuted for violating Republic Act 9995.76
The Philippine government was a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1980 and our government ratified it in 1981. In recognition of this international covenant, the 1987 Constitution has recognized the role of women in nation-building.77 In the year 2000, we were likewise signatories to the United Nations Millennium Summit where eight goals to address primary development issues in the world by 2015 was ratified. Specifically, Millennium Development Goal 3 (MDG3) thereof was adopted to promote gender equality and empower women. All forms of VAW, including technology driven VAW like revenge pornography, hinder the Philippines from meeting these MDGs. The Millennium Declaration78 has emphasized the urgency of making sure that the benefits of ICTs are accessible to all countries, sectors, economic groups and along gender lines.79
Conclusion
Revenge pornography is technology driven VAW in one of its harshest and most pernicious means. A lot of women have had to resort to unthinkable measures to cope with the bullying that commonly occurs when videos and photographs showing their private parts or intimate conduct are uploaded on the Internet.80 In the midst of the lack of available empirical data, and the acarcity of concrete measures undertaken by our governments to adress revenge pornography, the best and most effective measure to eliminating VAW, and particularly technology driven VAW such as revenge pornography, is prevention. The UN Human Rights Council has stated that, ‘The prevention approach is the more sustainable, focusing on change, whereas the State obligation to protect and punish remains relevant in combating violations.’81
Women have the primary duty of protecting themselves from revenge pornography and other forms of technology driven VAW. The most effective measure to prevent revenge porn from happening to women, is to prevent anybody from gaining access to intimate or explicit photographs or videos of themselves.82 It bears stressing, that there is never a valid reason for any woman to allow her private parts, her nude body to be photographed or to have any sexual or intimate act she has participated in be digitally recorded by any person. It does not matter that that the person requesting her to engage in such acts is a trusted and loved intimate partner. What is paramount is that women must protect their security, privacy and bodily integrity. Moreover, if women do agree to have themselves photographed an/or recorded in such an intimate way, they should make this choice fully cognizant and knowledgeable of all the possible consequences that may arise.
This should not be taken to mean that any negative effects resulting therefrom should be blamed on the woman because she initially gave her consent. The perpetrator of revenge pornography is and always will be responsible for his or her criminal conduct.
For their part, all users of social media sites should not view or share revenge pornography. What they should do is to immediately alert the Internet Service Provider, the social media site manager and concerned authorities about the technology driven VAW, and to extend all possible assistance to the victims.83
Internet service providers, telecommunications companies and other service providers must likewise take a more pro-active role in policing such pernicious conduct as revenge pornography. Recognizing their corporate social responsibility to respect, protect and provide remedies for abuse, these companies must become active actors to solve the problem of revenge pornography which is used as as a form of VAW.
Finally, the government, non-government organizations and educational institutions must cooperate to conduct information campaigns and training seminars so that all women are cognizant about their rights and remedies against technology driven VAW such as revenge pornography. Law enforcement authorities and frontliners for the five pillars of justice must also undergo stringent training so that they may properly deal with crimes such as these, and be knowledgeble and sensistive in dealing with the victims of revenge pornography.
The slut-shaming and the victim-blaming must stop immediately. The blame must finally be squarely and solely attributed to the real culprits in this type of technology driven VAW – the criminals who perpetrate revenge pornography.