HOW does it feel to see your pictures crop up all over the internet, on everything from dating scams to escort sites?
Jess Davies knows all too well.
A decade has passed since she uploaded glamour pictures to a membership-only site, yet she is haunted by those images every day.
Her pictures have been stolen, used in scams, uploaded to porn sites and even traded “like Pokemon cards”, all without her consent.
She has had messages from people all over the world, vile suggestive comments from men about what they would like to do to her, as well as nasty remarks about her looks.
During the pandemic, membership to OnlyFans, the UK’s most popular subscription site, has skyrocketed as more and more people turn to it to make money.
Celebs from rapper Cardi B to Love Island’s Megan Barton Hanson rake in a fortune from the service, which involves uploading personal pictures for members who pay a monthly subscription fee.
But Jess, who investigates the issue of pictures being stolen online for a BBC Three documentary, When Nudes Are Stolen, is worried.
Jess says: “With so many people signing up for subscriptions sites now, especially in lockdown to earn extra money, I worry what’s going to happen in 10 years’ time. Are we going to see a mental health fall-out from it?
“The reality is, these sites are not contained. Hundreds of thousands of these images are traded, sold and shared on the internet and these women have no idea, as I didn’t.”
Jess’s figure has always got her attention, not all of it positive.
At just 12 years old, when her boobs suddenly developed and grew to 30F, she was called a “sl**.”
When a teenage boy she liked at school begged for a naughty picture of her, she obliged with a near-topless shot and was mortified when that picture was circulated, even reaching her own grandmother.
From glamour model to scraping and shame
At 18, she got into glamour modelling, travelling the world and having a ball.
As part of making a name for herself, Jess was encouraged by her agency to start posting pictures to a membership-only website, similar to OnlyFans, in which people pay a monthly subscription to view the images.
Jess, from Cardiff, says: “You think it’s secure but the scariest thing is you probably won’t even know if your pictures are being stolen.
“People use what’s called ‘scrapers’ which scrape all your content in a minute. Then it’s repackaged and sold or even distributed for free.”
Celebrities including Layer Cake actress Sienna Miller have also fallen victim to having their intimate pictures stolen.
Jess became aware of her images being used in “catfish” scams 10 years ago when friends started contacting her to say they had seen her pictures elsewhere. Then the messages from men came pouring in from all over the world.
“Dumb wh**e.”
“I wish you had taken your knickers off and opened up your legs.”
“I think you’re a lost cause.”
But Jess says many victims of internet image theft feel such shame, they don’t speak out about the problem.
“Over the years, I’ve had awful comments," she says.
“A lot of women who post such pictures think they deserve whatever comes with it. Just because you put topless or nude pictures out there, on what you thought was a secure site, doesn’t mean you can be spoken about like that.”
Understandably, such a barrage of abuse can wreak havoc on someone’s mental health.
'I feel I've ruined my life'
In the programme, Jess meets image rights campaigner Megan Sims, from Limerick, Ireland, who led a campaign to make revenge porn a criminal offence in her country.
Megan says she had suicidal thoughts after explicit photos of her were shared on Facebook groups and she received hundreds of messages calling her a “sl*t” and a “wh**e.”
Jess, who hasn’t been in a relationship for a long time, says: “When someone treats you like an object, you can’t help but internalise that. It’s a struggle to tell yourself you are worthy of being treated as a human.
“Sometimes I feel like I’ve ruined my life. No one’s going to go out with me. Imagine if I do meet someone, what are their parents going to think? What about potential employers? It’s something that hangs over me. Am I ever going to move on from this?”
Jess learns she is a prime target for catfish, who use fake pictures on the internet to scam people out of money, because she shows all parts of her life on social media, from the everyday pictures on Instagram to her old glamour model pictures. Together, a catfish can make it look like they are the real person.
But tracking her own pictures down is a constant, often fruitless, task.
She says: “It’s an almost daily battle.
“I report them, it might get taken down and then the next day there’s a new one."
Sinister world of 'e-Whoring'
During her investigation, she uncovers an even murkier world than catfishing: e-whoring.
This is when several pictures of one person are packaged up and traded on forums for cash, Amazon vouchers or even items that can be used in online games.
A former e-whorer called Aku, who lives in New York, revealed he had started trading pictures at just 13 years old, making around $700 (£560) a week.
Jess explains: “Instead of paying a subscription to the women, people go on these forums to buy stolen pictures instead. It’s so disgusting, trading these girls like Pokemon cards.
"People then impersonate the women in these packs of photos to extract money out of unsuspecting victims.
“It’s dehumanising. It really made me think about how people see women as objects.
“Aku doesn’t do it anymore, he’s moved on. But all the women whose pictures he has traded, which they will probably never find, they can’t move on.
"It can ruin people’s families and relationships. I’m lucky I have a supportive family but the fact I’m still single shows it has had an effect on me.”
What can you do if you are a victim of catfishing or e-whoring?
In the UK, “revenge porn
If this has happened to you, you can go to the police.
The offence is punishable with a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment.
If you see your image is being used on a website without your consent, the first step is to report it to the webmaster of that site.
Most social media sites have a function where you can report content immediately.
To see whether her own pictures are being traded on these forums, Jess posed as a buyer, posting one picture of herself and asking if anyone had more.
Within 15 minutes, an e-whorer offered her a package for a $15 (£10) Amazon voucher.
Jess says: “It’s shocking that even in these days, with all our conversations about how we treat women, things haven’t changed in 10 years. In fact, I think it’s got worse because it’s become normalised.
“Why is it we don’t even feel sorry for the women involved? It’s seen as fair game. But if you uploaded a pic of you and your child to Instagram and it was traded like that, or you saw this going on in the street, people would be horrified.”
For Jess, and for the thousands of other women who fall victim to image theft every year, there is no real solution.
She says: “I’ve gone on this journey through the film and I realise that it’s other people’s judgments and society in the wrong, not the women who choose to take pictures of themselves with their clothes off.
“We’ll never get a lid on it, the internet is too far-reaching. All I can hope is that society’s attitudes will change in the way we objectify women and that, in the future, those women won’t be made to feel they have done something wrong by taking those pictures.”
When Nudes Are Stolen is on iPlayer from today, Wednesday April 7th. It will also air on BBC One tonight at 10.45pm.
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