Fighting Back against Revenge Porn: A Legislative Solution
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Copyright 2016 by Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law Vol. 12, Issue 1 (2016)
Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy
Fighting Back Against Revenge Porn: A
Legislative Solution
Alex Jacobs
I. INTRODUCTION TO REVENGE PORN
Revenge porn involves the distribution of nude/sexually explicit photos and/or
videos of an individual without their consent.' This is not a new phenomenon. In the
1980s, Hustler, a pornographic magazine, solicited explicit images of nonprofessional
female 'models.' 2 Though procedures were in place to prevent the nonconsensual
publication of photographs,' at least one woman had her photograph published without her
consent in Hustler in the 1980s.4 Realcore pornography later became a pornographic genre
in Usenet groups (the precursor to modern day internet bulletin boards) where users shared
photographs and videos of ex-girlfriends, presumably without their subjects' consent.s
Today, revenge porn is typically associated with websites where persons' sexually
explicit photos are posted without the subjects' consent, oftentimes with links to the
subjects' social media profiles.6 By the beginning of the 2010s, Is ANYONE Up? became
the largest of such websites with over thirty million views per month in 2011.1 But it is
not only laypersons being victimized; in 2014, a multitude of celebrities' nude
photographs were stolen and published online.8
Current legal remedies are insufficient in protecting victims or punishing
purveyors. Enforcement is especially weak when the victim is not a celebrity. 9
Furthermore, statutes that could protect victims face challenges for being overbroad and
1 CYBER CIVIL RIGHTS INITIATIVE, http://www.cybercivilrights.org (last visited at Mar. 23, 2015).
2 Wood v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 736 F.2d 1084, 1086 (5th Cir. 1984).
3 Id. at 1086 (noting that Hustler's informal policy ... was to call the telephone number listed in the
consent form [submitted with the photograph] and ask whomever claimed to be the model nonleading
questions designed to elicit responses that would confirm information in the consent form. If no telephone
number was listed, Hustler would send a mailgram or telegram to the address shown for the model,
requesting that Hustler be called collect. If either the consent form itself or the responses during verification
caused Hustler to become suspicious, or if the model had developed doubts about appearing nude in print,
Hustler was supposed to place the model's entry into a Never to Run category.).
4 Id.
5 Alexa Tsoulis-Reay, A Brief History of Revenge Porn, N.Y. MAGAZINE (July 21, 2013),
http://nymag.com/news/features/sex/revenge-porn-2013-7/.
6 Danny Gold, The Man Who Makes Money Publishing Your Nude Pics, THE AWL (Nov. 10, 2011),
http://www.theawl.com/2011/1 1/the-man-who-makes-money-publishing-your-nude-pics.
7Id. (noting that the Is ANYONE UP? website also cleared over $13,000 per month.).
Alan Duke, FBI, Apple Investigate Nude Photo Leak Targeting Jennifer Lawrence, Others, CNN (Sept. 2,
2014), http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/01/showbiz/jennifer-lawrence-photos/.
9 Amanda Hess, A Former FBI Agent on Why It's So Hard to Prosecute Gamergate Trolls, SLATE (Oct. 17,
2014), http://www.slate.comiblogs/xxfactor/2014/10/17/gamergate-threats-why-it-s_sohard-to_
prosecute the-peoplejtargeting-zoe.html.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/nwjlsopo12&div=5&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Fighting Back against Revenge Porn: A Legislative Solution
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