Revenge porn

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Revenge porn is the distribution of sexually explicit images or videos of individuals without their consent,^[1] with the punitive intention to create public humiliation or character assassination out of revenge against the victim. The material may have been made by an ex-partner from an intimate relationship with the knowledge and consent of the subject at the time, or it may have been made without their knowledge. The subject may have experienced sexual violence during the recording of the material, in some cases facilitated by psychoactive chemicals such as date rape drugs which also cause a reduced sense of pain and involvement in the sexual act, dissociative effects and amnesia.

The possession of the material may be used by the perpetrators to blackmail the subjects into performing other sexual acts, to coerce them into continuing a relationship or to punish them for ending one, to silence them, to damage their reputation, and/or for financial gain. In the wake of civil lawsuits and the increasing numbers of reported incidents, legislation has been passed in a number of countries and jurisdictions to outlaw the practice, though approaches have varied and been changed over the years. The practice has also been described as a form of psychological abuse and domestic violence, as well as a form of sexual abuse.^[2]

Revenge porn most commonly refers to the uploading of sexually explicit material to the Internet to humiliate and intimidate a subject who has broken off a relationship.^[1][3] The term is also often misused to describe non-revenge scenarios, including nonconsensual pornography distributed by hackers or by individuals seeking profit or notoriety^[4][5] (more properly referred to by the terms non-consensual intimate imagery, NCII, or image-based sexual abuse, IBSA). The images are usually accompanied by sufficient information to identify the target individual (a process known as doxing), typically names and locations, and can include risque comments, links to social media profiles, home addresses, and workplaces.^[6][7] In some cases victims are exposed to workplace discrimination, cyber-stalking or physical attack. Some companies search the Internet for potential sources of bad publicity, resulting in many victims of revenge porn losing their jobs and finding themselves effectively unhirable.^[8] Some academics argue that the term "revenge porn" should not be used, and instead that it should be referred to as "image-based sexual abuse."^[9]

Jurisdictions which have passed laws against revenge porn include Canada,^[10] Germany, Italy, Israel, Singapore,^[11] Spain,^[12] the United Kingdom, 49 out of 50 states of the United States, Washington, D.C.,^[13][14] the U.S. military^[15][16] and U.S. overseas territories including Puerto Rico and Guam.^[17][18] Australia has also passed a law at the Commonwealth level that commenced on 1 September 2018.^[19][20] The Australian states and territories of South Australia,^[21][22] Victoria,^[23] New South Wales,^[24] the Australian Capital Territory,^[25] the Northern Territory,^[26] Queensland,^[27] Western Australia,^[28] and Tasmania,^[29] have complementary state level laws that criminalize this behaviour. Furthermore, Australia also has a civil penalties scheme.^[30]

In recent years the rise of computer-generated imagery and synthetic media technology has raised concerns about the rise of revenge porn made using deepfake pornography techniques. As of 2023 in the U.S. states of New York, Virginia, and California, it is illegal to disseminate pornographic images created using image generation technology without the consent of subjects depicted in the image.^[31][32]