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How To End The Scourge Of 'Revenge Porn'

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What would you do if one day, your friends started texting and emailing you, telling you that they saw naked pictures of you all over the internet — pictures you thought were secure and private. What would you do? That's the question that Danish journalist Emma Holten had to face.

"I woke up one morning to find that my email and Facebook had been hacked, and that naked photos of me had been posted online. This has been called 'revenge porn,' but that implies that it's just one person out to destroy your life. I never found out who hacked me, but I do know that thousands of others viewed the images, commented on them, shared further information about me, the names of my siblings, my parents, where I worked. Non-consensual pornography is a devastating experience, but it was made so much harder knowing how many people were involved — messages came from all over the world. I wish that I could say that the abuse ended that day, that week or that month. But years later, I'm still being harassed!"

Put simply, so-called revenge porn is when someone posts nude or compromising photos online without permission. It happened to actress Jennifer Lawrence when someone hacked into her Apple iCloud account. But she had the money, and the lawyers, to fight back.

More often, victims have little recourse and endure years of harassment. But that could be changing. In the past month, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit have all introduced new rules barring the posting and distribution of revenge porn. This week, Vermont came a step closer to making revenge porn a felony. 16 other states have already passed similar laws.

But they're all playing a giant game of catch up. Case in point, Jennifer Lawrence's pictures are still out there.

Guest

Mitch Matorin, attorney in Wellesley. He focuses on intellectual property, computer law and defamation cases. He's represented numerous clients dealing with "revenge porn" cases.

This segment aired on March 19, 2015.

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