Feds take big step against revenge porn

Perhaps the scariest thing about revenge porn, besides the baser human instincts it represents, is how legally difficult it is to get non-consensual nude pictures offline.

Web site operators are typically protected from legal action under Internet legislation from the mid-’90s.

Photos often can’t be taken down under copyright law, because the victim doesn’t own them unless they’re selfies.

And while past victims have sought redress under harassment, stalking or privacy laws, that route can be expensive, litigious – and very lengthy.

But in an unprecedented settlement announced Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission indicated there might be another, heretofore unheard of way to get compromising private photos off the Internet: pursuing revenge pornographers for unfair business practices.

“I applaud the FTC,” said Charlotte Laws, a prominent anti-revenge porn activist. “It provides another tool for victims.”

The initial complaint, which the FTC apparently filed within the past four weeks, was against Colorado-based creep Craig Brittain, who ran the now-defunct isanybodydown.com from 2011 to 2013. (You may recognize that URL: It’s a rip-off of “Is Anyone Up,” the revenge porn site that Hunter Moore, the Internet’s “most hated man,” ran under the slogan “pure evil” until 2012.)

Like Is Anyone Up, Is Anybody Down operated under a pretty straightforward, shameless business model. Brittain (a) solicited women’s nude photos on Craigslist and/or from their jilted exes; (b) published the photos, often with the women’s names and phone numbers attached; and (c), cha-ching, charged women fees of $200 to $500 to take the photos down.

This is, thankfully, where the FTC comes in: Is Anybody Down was a business, the agency points out, so it falls under the commission’s regulatory domain. And since that business caused “substantial injury to consumers” — as in, every woman who encountered it — they were able to convince Brittain to settle, destroying all the images he had already and agreeing to never operate a revenge porn site again.

Of course, Brittain is just one guy, and Is Anybody Down is just one site. It remains to be seen if the FTC will take this approach to the revenge-porn industry more broadly. (The FTC declined to elaborate on its future plans to the Associated Press, and did not immediately return The Washington Post’s request for comment.) There is also a whole lot of revenge porn out there that has no financial or business motivations, and thus doesn’t fall into the FTC’s domain, notes Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at the University of Miami and the legislative policy director for the Cyber Civil Rights Institute. (Celebgate, and the threatened leak of Taylor Swift’s hacked nudes, immediately come to mind.)

“The FTC complaint and consent order is tremendously significant,” Franks said. “It is a statement by the federal government that disseminating sexually explicit images of a person without ‘affirmative express consent in writing’ is illegal.”

Still, she adds, it’s “of limited usefulness to victims. Once an image is released online, it is nearly impossible to remove it completely. … We know that the rise of ‘revenge porn’ won’t really stop until society expresses its unequivocal condemnation for this activity.”

Until then? Organizations like the CCRI are partnering with law firms to offer free assistance to victims, and pressuring state and federal legislatures to adopt laws that will provide criminal and civil penalties for non-consensual pornography.

They’re hoping that, given enough pressure and publicity, more federal agencies and officials will follow the FTC’s lead.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Everett
11 months later, Lake Stevens man charged in fatal Casino Road shooting

Malik Fulson is accused of shooting Joseph Haderlie to death in the parking lot at the Crystal Springs Apartments last April.

T.J. Peters testifies during the murder trial of Alan Dean at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Bothell cold case trial now in jury’s hands

In court this week, the ex-boyfriend of Melissa Lee denied any role in her death. The defendant, Alan Dean, didn’t testify.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Washington law will allow traffic cams on more city, county roads

The move, led by a Snohomish County Democrat, comes as roadway deaths in the state have hit historic highs.

Mrs. Hildenbrand runs through a spelling exercise with her first grade class on the classroom’s Boxlight interactive display board funded by a pervious tech levy on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 in Marysville, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lakewood School District’s new levy pitch: This time, it won’t raise taxes

After two levies failed, the district went back to the drawing board, with one levy that would increase taxes and another that would not.

Alex Hanson looks over sections of the Herald and sets the ink on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Black Press, publisher of Everett’s Daily Herald, is sold

The new owners include two Canadian private investment firms and a media company based in the southern United States.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.