Whether or not you\u2019re attuned to the ongoing dramas of the Kardashian krew, you\u2019ve likely heard by now that Rob Kardashian (brother to Kim; sock entrepreneur) spent much of his Wednesday posting a series of nude photos, presumably sent to him privately, by his ex-fianc\u00e9e and mother of his child, Blac Chyna (formerly Angela Renee White; model; makeup entrepreneur). Because the social media spree took place after he\u2019d discovered that Chyna had apparently cheated on him, Kardashian\u2019s act has been roundly deemed by celebrity gossip mongers like TMZ as \u201crevenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, celebrity attorney Lisa Bloom (daughter of famed civil rights lawyer Gloria Allred) confirmed this reading of the events when she announced Friday morning that she\u2019d be representing Chyna in court as she pursues a restraining order against her raging ex. Bloom \u2014 who helped actress Mischa Barton get a restraining order against an ex-boyfriend who was threatening to sell her sex tape \u2014 told The New York Daily News that what Kardashian did constituted \u201crevenge porn,\u201d\u00a0stating:\u00a0\u201cRevenge porn is illegal in CA and it certainly appears to me that Rob has violated this criminal law.\u201d<\/p>\n
California passed its revenge porn law\u00a0in 2013. Today,\u00a0more than half of U.S. states have similar laws. The very language with which we use to talk about \u201crevenge porn\u201d\u00a0reveals a lot about how we approach the issue, casting it in terms of personal drama rather than as a violation of personhood. Iowa-based Drake University\u00a0law professor Shontavia Johnson says the popular phrase is misleading. \u201cRevenge porn is really about privacy, about protecting our personal information and having a right to do that,\u201d she says. \u201cWe use the term ‘revenge porn,’ which makes it sound like it’s about the perpetrator, but it’s really about the privacy of the individual victim, and whether or not an unsuspecting victim can in some way stop this picture or video from being placed online.\u201d<\/p>\n
We use the term ‘revenge porn,’ which makes it sound like it’s about the perpetrator, but it’s really about the privacy of the individual victim.<\/p>\n
Legally, the term \u201crevenge porn\u201d refers to \u201cnonconsenual pornography,\u201d and laws have been implemented to prevent the distribution of this kind of sensitive material without the consent of the subject\u00a0or with the intent of humiliating the victim. Kardashian\u2019s influence and status \u2014 he has millions of Instagram and Twitter followers \u2014 will certainly strengthen the case against him, says Johnson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that he’s got millions of millions of followers really makes it worse,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cIt significantly impacts the reach and the visibility of those images. \u2026 A lot of these laws are designed to protect everybody\u201d who uses the platforms that have become a part of the Kardashian-Chyna drama.<\/p>\n
Instagram, where Kardashian originally posted the photos, has been notoriously stringent about its policies against nudity, and encourages users to report any \u201cinappropriate\u201d images. (\u201cWe have zero tolerance when it comes to sharing sexual content involving minors or threatening to post intimate images of others,\u201d warns the site.)\u00a0Kardashian\u2019s Instagram account was shut down after he posted the photos, which he subsequently reposted to Twitter. Those photos were later deleted too (it\u2019s unclear whether they were deleted by him or Twitter), but his account remained active.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne place was no longer a platform for him, so he moved on to the next platform,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cI think, frankly, a lot of that is indicative of where social media users are congregating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instagram\u2019s guidelines are so strict that they\u2019ve been heavily criticized by users, some of whom say that what gets to stay and what needs to go should be left to the users, who have different ideas about what constitutes \u201cinappropriate.\u201d Meanwhile, though Twitter\u2019s policies against abuse appear to mirror Instagram\u2019s, it\u2019s become apparent in recent years that the platform has trouble dealing with harrassment, making it both difficult to report abuse and \u2013 once a report has been made \u2013 to hold abusers accountable. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet companies like Twitter and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) may not have much at stake legally when it comes to removing revenge porn \u2014 they\u2019re protected by a law passed in 1996 called the Communications Decency Act, which, says Johnson, insulates internet service providers from civil liability or \u201cfrom being sued for the activities of their users.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re watching in real time as these social media platforms figure out what\u2019s best,\u201d says Johnson. So no matter what the ultimate legal ramifications of this case turn out to be for either Instagram or Twitter, the more inhospitable these sites become for victims of harassment, the more users they\u2019ll lose \u2013 which means companies still have an interest in formulating and implementing better policies, she says.<\/p>\n
Image credits: JB Lacroix, Prince Williams \/ Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whether or not you\u2019re attuned to the ongoing dramas of the Kardashian krew, you\u2019ve likely heard by now that Rob Kardashian (brother to Kim; sock entrepreneur) spent much of his Wednesday posting a series of nude photos, presumably sent to him privately, by his ex-fianc\u00e9e and mother of his child, Blac Chyna (formerly Angela Renee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}