Revenge porn

Kaine Agary

A few months ago I wrote about social media and the fact that we all need to be mindful about our activities on social media. I also talked about some teenagers in the USA who were facing jail time, criminal records and stigma as registered sex offenders because they had shared naked photos of another teenage girl. The girl had sent the photos to one of the boys whom she liked and he had passed them on to his friends who passed them on to their friends and so on.

People are often lulled into a fragile comfort because of the seeming anonymity that the Internet can provide. But we all know that you are never really anonymous on the Internet. You will quickly find that out the day that you commit an offence using the Internet. The instantaneous nature of the new offerings in technology, while useful to modern living have raised a few challenges especially for young people who are wont to act on impulse.

A few weeks ago, social media was abuzz about private celebrity nude photos that had been obtained illegally and leaked to the public. The likes of actress Gabrielle Union were said to be affected. I did not pay too much attention to that story, but this past week, when leaked nude photos of sultry, Ugandan songstress, Desire Luzinda, made international news headlines and discussions on platforms like the BBC, I decided that I would write on the subject again so that we remind ourselves and the young people that we know that while social media tools can be useful for business and entertainment, they can also pose danger to not just our reputations, but our freedom as well.

If this is the first time that you are hearing of ‘revenge porn’, it essentially is the publication of nude photos of an individual without their consent.

In 1983, Vanessa Williams made history as the first African-American woman to be crowned Miss America. Her reign was cut short. She gave up the Crown when Penthouse magazine bought and published photographs of her and another woman in nude poses. The photographs were taken when she was 19 years old, by a photographer named Tom Chiapel who Williams had worked for as an assistant. Williams claimed that she never signed a release form and was under the impression that those photos had been destroyed because Chiapel got the women to pose for the photographs, telling that he was working on something experimental. She was young and naive, and she believed him. The following year, she became Miss America and Chiapel saw his money-making opportunity. He approached Hugh Hefner (Playboy magazine) with the photographs and Hefner turned down the offer to publish them because according to him, they were unauthorised and he did not want to cause Williams any embarrassment. Penthouse magazine was not as considerate. When the photos got to them, they saw the dollar signs and put aside any concerns about the reputation of the young Williams and legal action arising from the manner in which the photographs were obtained. It was a good gamble for them because the issue in which the nude photos were published earned Penthouse a windfall of about $14 million. Williams filed a lawsuit against the magazine, which she eventually dropped deciding to put the past behind her and move on with her life.

Vanessa Williams moved on from that situation and managed to have a successful entertainment career after that. But the times have changed. It was almost 10 months after Williams was crowned that Chiapel’s photos surfaced. And although the world heard about it, not all of us got to see the photos. And if Penthouse was as honourable as Playboy in this case, we might never have seen those photos.

So, back to Desire Luzinda in Uganda. Luzinda has gone into hiding not because of the embarrassment of having her nude photos exposed to the world by a bitter ex-boyfriend, who happens to be a Nigerian, Frank Emuobor, but because the Minister for Ethics in Uganda has called for her arrest. The Anti-Pornography Act in Uganda in section 13 states that, “A person shall not produce, traffic in, publish, broadcast, procure, import, export, sell, or abet any form of pornography.” By being a willing subject in those photographs, Luzinda has run afoul of the Act and faces up to 10 years’ imprisonment. The Act provides that, “A person who produces or participates in the production of, or traffics in, publishes, broadcasts, procures, imports, exports or in any way abets pornography contrary to (the Act) commits an offence and is liable, on conviction, to a fine not exceeding 500 currency points or imprisonment not exceeding 10 years or both.”

So why is Luzinda being discussed in international news? Well, the whole idea of punishing the victim is not sitting well with those concerned about the rights and status of women across the world.

I know that people like to push the envelope these days, be wild and crazy, and I have seen a few interesting photos on Facebook. I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade but just to remind us all to weigh our actions against the consequences. While aiming for a good time you may just earn yourself a hard time.