What appears to be New York's first lawsuit under a new porn revenge law was filed last week by an associate professor of public health at CUNY against a former boyfriend and a group of anonymous people who allegedly used Tumblr to distribute pornographic images of her, reports Motherboard .
While New York State law currently protects people when they take and share sexually explicit images without their knowledge, that does not apply when images are shared voluntarily. The state Senate approved a bill that would criminalize the latter also in March, but is still waiting for the state Assembly to consider it. However, New York City approved its own measure in November, which went into effect in February. It makes the non-consensual exchange of photos or intimate videos a misdemeanor, and criminals can face up to a year in prison and a $ 1000 fine.
The complaint was filed by Dr. Spring Chenoa Cooper, who says that her ex, Ryan Broems, harassed her for weeks after they separated in November. According to the complaint, the two had previously discussed their "inclination to masturbate to online revenge pornography" and that after their separation, he continued to harass her with invasive questions about her sex life and demanding explicit photos. When she blocked her text messages and Snapchat account, she received a message from a Tumblr user called Calidaddy26, whom she told The New York Post that she believed was her ex – that she threatened him with "publish it in my whore" "expose the blog" if she did not accept "be my personal webslut". Supposedly, the user loaded multiple intimate images of her, which she shared exclusively with Broems, on Tumblr.
Although he was granted a Temporary Protection Order against Broems from the New York County Family Court, the complaint states that the harassment continued on Twitter. "When Dr. Cooper blocked a Twitter account that he was using to contact her, he would simply create another, each time, Dr. Cooper would block the account." After a threat on Facebook that similarly threatened to post more explicit images, Cooper presented a police report and eight more images available exclusively for Broems were uploaded to Tumblr. After Broems was arrested in February, the complaint alleges that he or someone under his direction created more Tumblr pages with explicit images of Cooper, including a screenshot of his school's CUNY page.
In addition to Broems and Calidaddy26, he names the users of Tumblr Inriskwetrust and John Does 1-100, claiming that they shared the images on Tumblr. The complaint is important beyond being the first law of the City of New York: it tries to create real consequences for the users who retweeted and shared the images.
The incident also demonstrates some deep-rooted flaws within social networks such as Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter, and their ability to stop ongoing harassment and revenge. While a Tumblr spokesperson told Motherboard that the company is committed to enforcing its Terms of Service, and that non-consensual images are prohibited, Cooper states in the complaint that it has been forced to pass several hours a day to locate and request that the images be deleted, and that Tumblr can take "days or weeks" to remove the content. In his lawsuit, Cooper says that Broems inflicted serious emotional distress and attempted to damage his reputation and career, causing "economic damages" and seeking punitive damages.