Discussion Extensive online networks of men stalking and recording women & girls
Discussion Extensive online networks of men stalking and recording women & girls
I wanted to discuss online communities for candid content, an issue I’ve grown increasingly concerned about but don’t know how to address. I apologise in advance for the long post and if this forum is not the correct space for this discussion.
Some of you might already know what ‘candid’ content is, but here's a quick definition if you’re unfamiliar: candid content refers to images and videos taken of girls and women, usually in public, without their consent or knowledge. This content is always sexual in nature and you may also know it by the terms ‘upskirt’, ‘creepshot’, and ‘peeping’. This type of media has always been an issue on the internet, particularly on Reddit, which previously hosted the communities ‘jailbait’ and ‘creepshots’ for sharing non-consensual images and videos of women and underaged girls.
These were small-scale communities dispersed across the internet which were eventually banned after news outlets began reporting on them, so most of the time, you could avoid this content if you did not specifically seek it out. But this issue is considerably worse now. I discovered the extent of these networks a year ago on Reddit, when I read a post from a woman claiming that users on the website ‘AnonIB’ were repeatedly sharing revenge porn of her accompanied by all of her personal details (social media profiles, full name, address, phone number, place of employment, etc.). She explained that she found the website after receiving numerous degrading messages from strangers, including one who shared a link to the thread which contained the content. This post was several years old and received little attention, concluding with the author describing her struggles to remove this content and ultimately giving up after multiple reports to local law enforcement lead nowhere.
Because I had an ex-boyfriend who had threatened to share revenge porn of me before and I was paranoid, I decided to check this forum. It had a similar layout to 4chan, as each poster was anonymous and each thread belonged to a category/board, which was a list of countries (including Australia, the UK, France, and Germany) and US states. Selecting a category would take you to hundreds of threads dedicated to specific women in that region which the site users were actively stalking. I found a post about a girl I went to school with, where her full name and social media handle were shared after requests from members for more ‘info’. This was clearly a popular site among men across the globe and it had no restrictions on posting - revenge porn and candid content of women and girls was shared openly throughout the site. Some men were familiar with the victims and shared or requested content of their own female relatives, (ex-)girlfriends, coworkers, and friends. Other men had posted pictures of (fully clothed) random girls taken from Instagram or Facebook and requested users to create AI porn or share the victim’s sexual content and/or private information.
I reported the website online and contacted several women posted on the site to let them know as well so they could specifically request content deletion of revenge porn. The site has been taken down now and I forgot about it until recently, when I discovered the same content, and worse, being shared and solicited on Tumblr and X (Twitter). On both platforms, massive communities exist for this content and it receives significant attention, with posts garnering hundreds or thousands of likes and being shared across countless accounts who are selling their own candid content. The content is unmoderated on both sites and it's difficult to get posts removed even when you report them. Tumblr might remove a post after multiple reports, but the accounts responsible typically aren’t banned and most of their content is allowed to stay up. X similarly refuses to properly moderate illegal content or even respond to reports.
I’ve tried to inform my female friends and close acquaintances of these communities but it’s been difficult to convey the scale of this issue. I also understand that some women prefer to remain ignorant about it since there isn’t anything they can do, so I generally avoid discussing this topic because I don’t want to cause unnecessary distress. I'm honestly on the verge of giving up and accepting that nothing can be done about this, but I really don’t want to. It infuriates me that men have formed such large communities for the sole purpose of degrading and terrorising women and teenage girls, and they face no consequences for it. Some of these men even boast about how women are completely unaware of this content and many don’t even realise they are being stalked and filmed, which they perceive as ‘encouragement’ to perform and record more extreme acts because they believe they won’t be caught. They crack jokes about any victim who does realise what is happening and enjoy the discomfort they cause, knowing that many girls would be afraid to confront a creep filming them. These men literally get off to the fact that women have no knowledge of these communities.
So what can be done since online platforms refuse to moderate this content? I’m honestly unsure, though I think it is important to spread awareness because of the sheer scale of these communities and the risks they produce (a lot of these men describe detailed rape fantasies and share private information of women and girls, which seriously endangers the victims). I’ve encountered hurdles even when attempting to share this information with other women online since these discussions also attract men who want to gain access to such content, which makes me reluctant to offer details even though there’s a better chance of removal if these posts are mass-reported. I understand there isn’t much actionable advice anyone can provide me, but I wanted to inform other women of these communities & also hear your thoughts, since this isn’t a topic I can openly discuss with most people.
If you'd like to read more about AnonIB and similar communities:
Inside AnonIB, Where Hacking Is a Sport and Women’s Bodies Are the Prize (Slate)
Someone Is Trying to Revive the Infamous Revenge Porn Site Anon-IB (VICE)
1
Hi all,
I wanted to discuss online communities for candid content, an issue I’ve grown increasingly concerned about but don’t know how to address. I apologise in advance for the long post and if this forum is not the correct space for this discussion.
Some of you might already know what ‘candid’ content is, but here's a quick definition if you’re unfamiliar: candid content refers to images and videos taken of girls and women, usually in public, without their consent or knowledge. This content is always sexual in nature and you may also know it by the terms ‘upskirt’, ‘creepshot’, and ‘peeping’. This type of media has always been an issue on the internet, particularly on Reddit, which previously hosted the communities ‘jailbait’ and ‘creepshots’ for sharing non-consensual images and videos of women and underaged girls.
These were small-scale communities dispersed across the internet which were eventually banned after news outlets began reporting on them, so most of the time, you could avoid this content if you did not specifically seek it out. But this issue is considerably worse now. I discovered the extent of these networks a year ago on Reddit, when I read a post from a woman claiming that users on the website ‘AnonIB’ were repeatedly sharing revenge porn of her accompanied by all of her personal details (social media profiles, full name, address, phone number, place of employment, etc.). She explained that she found the website after receiving numerous degrading messages from strangers, including one who shared a link to the thread which contained the content. This post was several years old and received little attention, concluding with the author describing her struggles to remove this content and ultimately giving up after multiple reports to local law enforcement lead nowhere.
Because I had an ex-boyfriend who had threatened to share revenge porn of me before and I was paranoid, I decided to check this forum. It had a similar layout to 4chan, as each poster was anonymous and each thread belonged to a category/board, which was a list of countries (including Australia, the UK, France, and Germany) and US states. Selecting a category would take you to hundreds of threads dedicated to specific women in that region which the site users were actively stalking. I found a post about a girl I went to school with, where her full name and social media handle were shared after requests from members for more ‘info’. This was clearly a popular site among men across the globe and it had no restrictions on posting - revenge porn and candid content of women and girls was shared openly throughout the site. Some men were familiar with the victims and shared or requested content of their own female relatives, (ex-)girlfriends, coworkers, and friends. Other men had posted pictures of (fully clothed) random girls taken from Instagram or Facebook and requested users to create AI porn or share the victim’s sexual content and/or private information.
I reported the website online and contacted several women posted on the site to let them know as well so they could specifically request content deletion of revenge porn. The site has been taken down now and I forgot about it until recently, when I discovered the same content, and worse, being shared and solicited on Tumblr and X (Twitter). On both platforms, massive communities exist for this content and it receives significant attention, with posts garnering hundreds or thousands of likes and being shared across countless accounts who are selling their own candid content. The content is unmoderated on both sites and it's difficult to get posts removed even when you report them. Tumblr might remove a post after multiple reports, but the accounts responsible typically aren’t banned and most of their content is allowed to stay up. X similarly refuses to properly moderate illegal content or even respond to reports.
I’ve tried to inform my female friends and close acquaintances of these communities but it’s been difficult to convey the scale of this issue. I also understand that some women prefer to remain ignorant about it since there isn’t anything they can do, so I generally avoid discussing this topic because I don’t want to cause unnecessary distress. I'm honestly on the verge of giving up and accepting that nothing can be done about this, but I really don’t want to. It infuriates me that men have formed such large communities for the sole purpose of degrading and terrorising women and teenage girls, and they face no consequences for it. Some of these men even boast about how women are completely unaware of this content and many don’t even realise they are being stalked and filmed, which they perceive as ‘encouragement’ to perform and record more extreme acts because they believe they won’t be caught. They crack jokes about any victim who does realise what is happening and enjoy the discomfort they cause, knowing that many girls would be afraid to confront a creep filming them. These men literally get off to the fact that women have no knowledge of these communities.
So what can be done since online platforms refuse to moderate this content? I’m honestly unsure, though I think it is important to spread awareness because of the sheer scale of these communities and the risks they produce (a lot of these men describe detailed rape fantasies and share private information of women and girls, which seriously endangers the victims). I’ve encountered hurdles even when attempting to share this information with other women online since these discussions also attract men who want to gain access to such content, which makes me reluctant to offer details even though there’s a better chance of removal if these posts are mass-reported. I understand there isn’t much actionable advice anyone can provide me, but I wanted to inform other women of these communities & also hear your thoughts, since this isn’t a topic I can openly discuss with most people.
If you'd like to read more about AnonIB and similar communities:
Inside AnonIB, Where Hacking Is a Sport and Women’s Bodies Are the Prize (Slate)
Someone Is Trying to Revive the Infamous Revenge Porn Site Anon-IB (VICE)