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An Image Site Is Victimizing Countless Women and Little Can Be Done (vice.com)

Allison Tierney, reporting for Vice: An international anonymous photo-sharing site where people post explicit photos without consent is playing host to the victimization of countless women. In the Canadian section of Anon-IB alone, there are currently over a hundred threads -- often organized by region, city, or calling out for nudes of a specific woman to be posted publicly. "Hamilton hoes," "Nanaimo Thread!," and "Markham wins" are some titles of Canadian threads. (Language used on the site equates the word "win" with sexually explicit photos of women.) Many major Canadian cities are represented on the site, and some threads even focus on women from specific schools. While it's a crime to share an "intimate image" of a person without their consent in Canada, sites that host this kind of activity don't necessarily fall under this. "[In terms of organizing content], is it criminal? No. Is it illegal? No," Toronto-based lawyer Jordan Donich, of Donich Law, told VICE. "It's a newer version of an older problem -- sites like these have been around for a long time." Anon-IB is not a new site; its current domain was registered to a "private person" in 2015 and ends in an ".ru." However, the site was initially up several years before 2015, going offline briefly in 2014.

19 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. Don't pose nude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    does that help?

    1. Re:Don't pose nude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      don't blame victims.

      does that help?

    2. Re:Don't pose nude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is it really victim blaming if the cold-hearted truth and reality of the situation is this will continue to exist and the "victim" shares their personal pictures with the wrong type of person freely?

    3. Re:Don't pose nude by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      you can do both you realise?

      It's like leaving your door unlocked in a rough neighborhood, then getting robbed.

      You are still a victim, and the robber still deserves the full punishment of the law. but just because you put yourself in a POTENTIAL situation, doesn't mean that someone exploiting it is without blame.

      Fuck that site.

    4. Re:Don't pose nude by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Many of the photos were taken without permission. Even if permission were given to take a picture, that should not automatically include permission to distribute it. In some cases, the photos were copied by technicians from laptops or phones that were being serviced.

      You may feel that women "deserve" abuse if they are not sufficiently chaste, but you may feel different if it is your GF, sister, or daughter.

      The failure of the law to deal with this issue invites vigilante action. In my neighborhood a young man posted explicit pictures of his ex-girlfriend, and was hospitalized after a severe beating by an unknown assailant. His GF's four older brothers denied involvement.

    5. Re:Don't pose nude by gfxguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not about victim blaming, it's about prevention - you can make yourself NOT be a victim if you're not comfortable with the world seeing you nude by NOT POSING NUDE. That doesn't mean the people that violate your trust aren't guilty (of at least violating your trust, if not something illegal).

      Hey, if I leave my car unlocked and someone steals something inside it, the scumbag who stole my stuff is still guilty - but I could have limited my chances of being a victim if I'd have locked my doors. It's an unfortunate side of society that we need to expend resources keeping people from violating our rights, but it is the way it is.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    6. Re:Don't pose nude by Luthair · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Nice straw man - I don't think the AC"s point is that they "deserve" it, rather that its largely avoidable. When I cross the road, regardless of whether I have the right of way I'm watching traffic because I'd rather be whole than exercise my right.

    7. Re:Don't pose nude by I75BJC · · Score: 1, Insightful

      In your illustrations doesn't quite fit. A robbery of a home with an unlocked door is "entering" illegally. A robbery of a home with a locked door is "breaking and entering" illegally. The penalty for "entering" is less than "breaking and entering", which it should be. Failure to protect your stuff behind the door brings partial culpability. People who have/share/send pictures of any sort always run the risk of having their pictures shared without their approval. Lock the door and don't send pictures that you don't want shared.

  2. Re:Stop going after the site by Kiuas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Indeed. It's not illegal to post nude pictures of someone (in most western countries), however at least here in Finland there exists case law which has deemed quite clearly that publishing such photos without the consent of the person in them is a violation of privacy. It doesn't matter that you agreed to be photographed, or even took and sent the pictures yourself, that does not grant the receiver the right to redistribute them.

    The site is not violating the law, but the people who are posting pictures without permission are.

    --
    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
  3. Re:also, little can be done by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Even if people didn't take the photos themselves, there have always been people trying to point cameras at beaches or up skirts and then masturbate over them. I guess you can argue "don't wear those clothes if you don't want to risk this happening" but most people prefer a society where women don't have to wear burkas just to avoid becoming part of some internet porn site.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  4. Re:Thanks Vice... by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm probably crazy, but I think maybe the world would be a better place if the response was, "That girl was an enthusistic partner, shame the guy turned out to be an asshole".

    Most of us have sex. Most of us appreciate a willing, enthusiastic partner we feel we can trust. Why do so many look down on the woman with cum on her face instead of the dick that put it there?

  5. Re:Thanks Vice... by thewolfkin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    a dark corner of the web nobody would have cared about.

    a dark corner of the web YOU didn't care about because you weren't on it. The women who found themselves on it probably cared.. hence this article.

    --
    Just another second banana
  6. Re:Thanks Vice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So? Why would that kind of normal behaviour be punished by having that kind of picture made public? Oh I forgot, girls are not allowed to enjoy sex in your perverted little mind (that or you are projecting really hard).

  7. No, that's stupid. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not locking your doors at all is a FAR FUCKING CRY from not having a 13th lock on the door. You commit the fallacy of excluded middle.

    Some measures are reasonable. There will always be some gray area but that doesn't excuse anyone from failing to take REASONABLE precautions to prevent something bad from happening.

    When people do stupid things, they should feel ashamed of them, so that they learn from them, and do smart things in the future.

    And this in no way mitigates the guilt of a perpetrator. The common reaction of "their lack of preparation doesn't justify the crime" is a flawed counter-argument, because it doesn't counter the argument being made. It counters a different argument (that the perp should be let go) which is NOT BEING MADE.

  8. Wrong analogy by s.petry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Perhaps you should investigate the difference between Criminal and Civil actions. Lets see if we can reason through this, using money since you hinted at it.

    A better analogy (IMHO) would be that you and your roommate have a jug and each of you drops money into the jug. One day you come home from work and see a note that your roommate hates you, and moved out while you were at work. You happen to notice that the jug you both put money into is no longer full, and is at roughly half.

    Did your roommate commit a crime? If you related this factually: A police officer and DA would tell you no, that you could not prosecute and that there was no criminal action. You could however take them to civil court if you feel that they took more than their fair share and try to get the difference in what you feel was rightly yours versus theirs.

    You voluntarily shared your money in the same pile as theirs. The outcome you got was probably not what you wanted, but without your actions the outcome would not have been possible.

    Now if a person feels wronged and wants to sue the person uploading the pictures, I'm fine with that. Making a voluntary exchange criminal because someone changes their mind after the fact, not fine. We are all accountable for our actions and any repercussions that arise from our actions. The better our choices the safer and better the outcomes tend to be.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  9. "Victimization" by argStyopa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Really?

    We need to decide as a society if women are delicate snowflakes that constantly need protection and whose inviolability is paramount. In this world, we

    Or, women are just PEOPLE. A picture of them is no different than say a picture of a man... you know, also a PERSON. *Nobody* in their right might would assert that a clothed picture of a man would ever be "victimizing" them. So why are women particularly vulnerable?

    Even an upskirt shot with undies is simply showing a piece of her body with clothing. How is that intrinsically different than their foot with a sock, or a shoulder with a sleeve over it?

    Unless, of course, you're asserting that the vagina and breast are somehow magically special and require special treatment?

    You cannot insist simultaneously that women are "special" when you want them to be, but demand that they be treated "like everyone else" when you want them to be.

    Well, you CAN demand it - but you're simply a hypocrite.

    PS thanks for the site suggestion. Will be reviewing and doing disgusting things while doing it, because "victims" turn me on. If they were just people that didn't give a shit? Not so much.

    --
    -Styopa
  10. Re:also, little can be done by Nutria · · Score: 3, Insightful

    maintaining plausible deniability - allowing everyone to pretend it wasn't happening.

    +1

    It was about 30 years ago when I realized that a little hypocrisy is needed for society to function well.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  11. Re:Locks. by gfxguy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's sad, but true, that a huge percentage of the population would be criminals of opportunity if we made it easier. However, there are a lot of actual criminals that look specifically for those opportunities. So yes, locks keep out a lot of criminals who only commit "easy" crimes, which is actually most of them.

    --
    Stupid sexy Flanders.
  12. Re:Thanks Vice... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is a whole universe between "enjoying sex consensually" and "being the town whore". And yes, I do speak of experience as a polyamorous guy.

    Right in other words, there's some arbitrary threshold in your mind of "too much sex". Obviously you're on the right side of it despite claiming to be a polyamorous guy. But if some woman has just a bit too much sex, you bring out the insults, presumably because you can't bear the idea of (a) someone having more sex than you and (b) that person NOT having sex with you.

    Sucks to be you, bro!

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.