Ananya Ranjit
In 2005, Reddit was launched with a mission to “bring community and belonging to everyone in the world”. Now reporting an average of about 50 million daily users, one can see that its mission statement resounds clearly through its platform. Users are encouraged to seek out their community by finding ‘subreddits’ that cater to their interests, which they can follow and share content with. Further, the platform has quite a laissez-faire moderation structure, wherein—apart from a few overarching policies that apply to all users—subreddits are largely allowed to govern themselves, with their own set of rules that are enforced by volunteer moderators, giving users a real sense of ownership over their communities.
It’s all hunky-dory. Until it isn’t.
The Secret World of Trading Nudes is an investigation into the dark underbelly of Reddit; a series of subreddits created with the sole intention of trading sexually explicit images and videos of women, many of which were taken and posted without their consent. Led by BBC reporter Monika Plaha, the latest episode of the Panorama documentary is a deep dive into the depraved world of collector culture—a term used by experts in online abuse to refer to the trade in nudes—that is sure to leave audiences stricken and concerned for the victims of these heinous crimes.
Plaha was led to these images after a tip-off from a friend whose picture was lifted from Instagram and posted to one of these groups. The photo was not explicit, but it was still accompanied by the kind of sexual and degrading language that was a key feature of these Reddit threads.
“The documentary introduces us to some of these women, whose lives turned upside down after pictures and videos of them were posted without their consent”
“There were thousands of photographs. A seemingly endless stream of naked or partially dressed women. Underneath, men were posting vicious commentary about the women, including rape threats”, she wrote, in a BBC article about the documentary.
To make matters worse, it was also found that members of this community, while themselves skulking behind a mask of anonymity, were also exposing the real-life identities—addresses, phone numbers and social media handles—of these women, which were then used to threaten and blackmail them.
The documentary introduces us to some of these women, whose lives turned upside down after pictures and videos of them were posted without their consent to this dark corner of the Web. Plaha even manages to unmask the identity of one man responsible for the creation of these groups, who went by the username ‘Zippomad’ (a reference to Zippo lighters) which helped to track him down.
Legislative Loopholes?
The group set up by ‘Zippomad’ was one that was dedicated exclusively to fetishising and degrading South Asian women. As moderator, his duty was to ensure that the community follow the rules of Reddit, which clearly state that “posting or threatening to post intimate or sexually-explicit media of someone without their consent” is not allowed. This particular rule also advises users against doxing— the practice of exposing a person’s real-life identity. But he did the exact opposite. Due to complaints, his subreddit was shut down multiple times, but each time he was able to create new versions that were filled with the same kind of material and had thousands of active users.
Unfortunately, it is the women posted to these groups who get the shorter end of the stick. Not only do they have to deal with a violation of their trust (usually by embittered ex-partners) and privacy, but they also have to grapple with the snail-paced legislation and uncertainty around these social media platforms. During the course of Plaha’s investigation, several women stated that they had to wait months before Reddit deleted their pictures, while others reported that the images were never taken down. Moreover, even after it is successfully taken off the site, there remains the constant fear of this material resurfacing, since it may already have been transmitted to thousands of users across the Internet.
All of this paints a rather revealing portrait of the kind of loopholes tech companies are yet to address in combating this illicit trade. Most social media platforms deal with this kind of trade in nudes in three possible ways: they report the user, delete the content in question, or take down the entire community itself. Their approach is rooted in damage control instead of prevention. A preventative approach to this kind of online abuse may start with stricter enforcement of content guidelines and bans, and will entail more conclusive steps taken to stop the upload of such explicit, non-consensual material in the first place.
“He wasn’t prosecuted because he told her that he didn’t mean to hurt or embarrass her”
Unfortunately, even UK law is unable to sub-in where the tech companies are lacking. To illustrate this effectively, the documentary introduces viewers to Georgie. When she was contacted by a stranger about her pictures, Georgie knew that it was her ex-boyfriend who posted them—he was the only one who would have had access to them. He even texted her, admitting that he was the one who had posted them, yet he wasn’t prosecuted because he told her that he didn’t mean to hurt or embarrass her.
This part of his admission proved to be a legal loophole. Existing legislation about revenge porn across the UK requires proof that the person sharing these photos is doing it to cause distress to the victim. Since he explicitly stated that it wasn’t his intention to do so, he got away unscathed. In fact, this gap in the law is another reason a lot of these online groups continue to thrive. Apart from the cases where posting nudes leads to doxxing, there are several users who don’t even want the victims to know that their pictures are being posted and thus evade prosecution.
At this point, I had to take a moment and pause the documentary because it was too much to take. Plaha’s holistic approach and in-depth investigation proved to be a glaring reminder of how unsafe the Internet really is for women, and how little is being done to change that. It’s a reminder I think everyone needs.
A Cultural Lens
As a South Asian woman, what really stuck with me after watching the documentary was the way it managed to provide a cultural perspective on the issue it addressed. One of the women posted to the subreddit created by ‘Zippomad’ was Ayesha (name changed to protect anonymity), a Pakistani girl who suspects that she was filmed by an ex-partner. After the video was uploaded, she faced a wave of harassment on social media that led her to retreat into herself and even attempt suicide.
It’s worth noting that a lot of the messages Ayesha received were ones that threatened to send the video to her parents, which is indicative of the kind of stigma attached to female sexuality within South Asian communities. These cultures are underpinned by strong notions of honour, and a woman who owns up to her sexual desires and takes charge of them is often considered to be bringing shame to her family. If then she is faced with such a situation, it can be quite isolating, having been conditioned not to discuss these issues.
“Women are dehumanised by men to gratify their own egos and reaffirm their own masculine status among other men.”
Watching this documentary was therefore a much-needed reminder about the kind of misogyny that continues to pervade the world. Women are dehumanised by men to gratify their own egos and reaffirm their own masculine status among other men. It is convenient to sit and sigh, or mock these men, but to see any real change it becomes pertinent, especially in conservative South Asian communities, to have open conversations regarding sexuality. So that women like Ayesha don’t feel pressured into taking life-altering steps, and can instead rely on their families to get them through such traumatising times.
Featured image courtesy of Nate Neelson on Unsplash. No changes were made to this image. Image licence found here.
