> In November 2015 60 emails and phone calls called for her to be expelled. The emails went to the dean of the law school, and to the head of the student body with links to the video.
What kind of evil person does this? Is there anything these monsters can be prosecuted for? At least the people who made the movies had a motive in greed. The people who sent these emails wouldn't even gain anything. They are clearly nothing but malicious, bigoted and evil.
That part made me sick to my stomach. I’m glad these women received some financial redress, but there’s nothing that will make up for their experience.
Before the internet people had so much more room to make mistakes. It’s a tough time for young people to slip up.
I'm pretty sure they see what happens next as justice. Not that I agree with it but I imagine they feel pretty okay with the outcome given their moral beliefs.
I would take umbrage with this because I think most people would see a big distinction between 'a teen doing porn for easy cash' and 'a teen coerced into porn'. Those are miles apart in any basic value system. Though surely there are people who won't make the distinction ... I'd be pretty curious to see a data set on that one ...
Can you be more specific on why you think the people who sent emails are "evil" and deserve to be judged? And I'm talking about moral aspect here, not legal.
> They are clearly nothing but malicious, bigoted and evil.
Try to look at it this way. Jane Doe lived in a society (family, coworkers, friends) where she was respected and was considered to be good, ethical and honourable person. At the same time she wanted to play in porn. Maybe because she was just curious, or being filmed during sex was her secret fantasy (you know, it can be a big turn-on to imagine other people watch your sex), or she wanted some quick money, or something else. The problem was that playing in porn was unacceptable in her society. We don't know why they thought so, maybe their perception of sex was different from hers and they didn't like people to to it publicly, or they also had this fantasy of playing in porn but never had courage to actually do it, or something else. Whatever were the reasons of the society and of Jane, I don't judge them.
So Jane encountered this dilemma. She wants to keep the respect she has in the society, and she wants to play in porn -- two wishes are incompatible. Jane is smart, and she decides to play in porn making sure the society never finds out. It looks like a win-win sutuation for her. I hope, she realizes that there's a risk of being caught at this point.
People who film the porn promise Jane not to publish the videos online. And they break their promise. This is obviously a "bad", "evil" and immoral thing to do. I think we all agree that not keeping our promises is immoral.
Someone encounters Jane's video online, and assumes that the society Jane lives in is very likely to consider this immoral, and Jane has probably played in the video secretly. And this person has the choice: to report Jane and act in the society's interest, or not report Jane and act in her interest.
I don't think we should be concerned here with only Jane's interests, people around also have their wishes and feelings. If she's a teacher, her students parents may not want a porn actor to teach their children, and that's their preference which, I think, we should respect too. Her parents may be traditionalists and they may want to know if their daughter is doing something that they consider immoral. Jane is not the only person who has feelings here. So why shouldn't the person email Jane's friends and parents and tell them that she's lying to them?
--
You might notice that I'm writing this comment from an account I just created. When I did this I also had a choice similar to Jane's.
Most of the people around me now are strongly liberal. And when we discuss something related to women, sex and slut shaming, it's not very favorable to express anything except sorrow for women and judgement for anyone who caused them trouble. But I have many other thoughts on this subject (like the ones I expressed above about Jane), and I'm afraid my friends will not like this. So I did the same choice Jane did, I decided to do what I want secretly and anonymously.
And if somebody finds out my real name and decides to inform people I know about this terrible sexist pig they invite to parties and spend time with, I won't judge that person. They're just acting in other people's interests, not mine.
"Can you be more specific on why you think the people who sent emails are "evil" and deserve to be judged" Sure. they did something to harm another person without any real benefit to society. I know you argue that "her students parents may not want a porn actor to teach their children" but of course there is no actual harm of a porn actor teaching children. Parents only object to the idea that a porn actor is teaching their children, which might never be known if the emails were not sent. What if you were a teacher and also liked to engage in S&M. Someone takes a picture of you through your bedroom window and sends it to your school. Do you think parents want some teacher with a weird kink teaching their kids? Would you feel ok about losing your job in such a situation?
So if a murderer teaches children (never murdering them) or a fraudster, or a stripper, then that’s okay if no one knows? People avoid them for a good reason.
The image drawn in the story is far better than reality is. At least one of these “girls” was charged of theft and underage alcohol, with issued arrest warrants. You know the lack of morality doesn’t come alone, otherwise it would not be a big deal.
>Someone takes a picture of you through your bedroom window and sends it to your school
Having fun behind closed doors is normal. Doing that on camera for redistribution is not. If you were spied on, you’re a victim. If you shoot pro porn consciously, you’re blamed. Social reaction supports that de facto, that’s what this case is about. Is it that hard?
You can't really wield 'social reaction' like that.
In many western societies in 2020, for example, many people's learned reaction to loud puritanism is to casually wonder what skeletons are being so desperately hidden.
I'd be much more comfortable with my children's math teacher stripping or doing porn than being some puritanical moral crusader, just based on recent history.
No worries folks! It's just tradition around these parts to petition a university to expel an adult because a video leaked onto the internet of them having sex. They knew the risks!
It's tradition indeed. Did the adult attend the college's mandatory sexual-assault prevention program before engaging in sexual activity? Were they in compliance with the college's affirmative consent policy? Were they having sex with someone who was under the influence and therefore presumptively unable to give 'affirmative' consent? Plenty of ground for lots and lots of petitions!
> to report Jane and act in the society's interest, or not report Jane and act in her interest.
Why is it in society's interest (or rather someone's twisted representation of society) that Jane be reported? Has she killed/harmed anyone or did any damage?
> If she's a teacher, her students parents may not want a porn actor to teach their children
And some people (still) don't want to interact people of certain ethnicity, religion, disability, etc. Thankfully we have realised the stupidity of this and have laws to deal with it.
Also, if she's working, shouldn't she be judged by her performance at work, and not what happens outside?
> Her parents may be traditionalists
So what? How does this give them the right to know what's going on, and why do you consider it to be someone's moral duty to disclose it?
> So why shouldn't the person email Jane's friends and parents and tell them that she's lying to them?
Because she's lying to harm anyone or gain anything from it; nobody is getting hurt by the lie. She's "lying" because society still attaches some stupid stigma around pornography and she doesn't want the fallout on her career/relationships when people like you catch wind of this.
>Thankfully we have realised the stupidity of this and have laws to deal with it.
Why don’t they sue their colleges and parents then? Maybe there is still no law for this even on a horizon and you’re stretching things a little further than they are.
>nobody is getting hurt by the lie. She's "lying" because society still attaches some stupid stigma around pornography and she doesn't want the fallout on her career/relationships
One of them said something like “I don’t want anyone to find out since I love my bf”. In a first world country. Idk to laugh or to cry. Maybe some people deserve a society and relationships they try to build as a punishment, but not everyone.
> Why is it in society's interest (or rather someone's twisted representation of society) that Jane be reported? Has she killed/harmed anyone or did any damage?
Sorry for not making this explicit enough. What I meant by "society's interests" is interests of each individual who is related to Jane. I assume that if we approached, say, Jane's parents and asked them whether they would want to know that their daughter is doing porn, in case she is, they would say yes. This makes knowing it one of her parents' interests. The same applies to other people, like Jane's friends and colleagues.
Killing and injuring people is not the only way to harm them. Not letting people get what they want is also harm to their interests.
So reporting Jane is in the interests of those people, who want to know about it.
> And some people (still) don't want to interact people of certain ethnicity, religion, disability, etc. Thankfully we have realised the stupidity of this and have laws to deal with it.
All the characteristics you list here are the ones which people do not choose, but are born with. This is what makes it immoral to differentiate people based on these characteristics. (I'm not sure if religion should be on this list. Religion is something you could hypothetically choose, but at the same time most people don't get to choose it, they are taught from the childhood that they'll burn in hell for having doubts in it.)
But there are other characteristics like person's ideological preferences and views (this is close to religion, if you ask me) which we still can use to differentiate people, and decide whether we want to interact with them and work with them. For example, I think it's perfectly fine not to want to talk to someone if that person is sexist or racist. Being a porn performer is one of such things -- people voluntarily choose to do this, and it also tells something about their views.
> Also, if she's working, shouldn't she be judged by her performance at work, and not what happens outside?
Indeed she should.
If things happening at and outside her work are two completely unrelated areas, then I completely agree with you. For example, this is the case if she works, say, as a programmer. But I don't think the same applies for teachers. Teachers do not only teach children math, they also take part in children's upbringing -- students spend a lot of time around their teachers (especially if it's a boarding school) and they absorb many things they hear and see. And many parents may not agree with teachers attitudes to certain things, and they may not to expose their children to these attitudes.
Also, students do not live isolated from the outside world. They use internet, they talk to one another, and they may find out that their teacher does porn. So no, things happening outside of work do matter for a teacher.
> So what? How does this give them the right to know what's going on [...]?
It doesn't give them right, but it makes them want to know if the teacher is doing porn. They don't need anyone to give them right to receive an anonymous email.
> [...] why do you consider it to be someone's moral duty to disclose it?
I never said I do.
> Because she's lying to harm anyone or gain anything from it; nobody is getting hurt by the lie. She's "lying" because society still attaches some stupid stigma around pornography and she doesn't want the fallout on her career/relationships when people like you catch wind of this.
About the harm, see the first paragraphs.
I get your perspective on this. You think that the stigma people attach to porn is "stupid", therefore the people who do that are stupid too and their interests and feelings do not matter.
To me, it looks like you're trying to dismiss other opinions only because they are different from yours or because they are bad according to your ideology. More or less like members of one religion "prove" other religions wrong by refering to the scriptures of their own religion.
Being interested in something makes it “of interest” to you.
For something to be “in your interest” we mean “for your health and well-being.” In this case, there is no reason that a person’s involvement in porn is of any interest to the children and parents involved. In fact making them aware of the fact is acting against their interests by directly harming them.
If you consider that people with different tastes to yours are a hazard to children, where is the line? Is a teacher allowed to moonlight as a bartender?
OED will disagree with your remark. It says that one of the meanings of the word "interest" is "the advantage or benefit of a person or group" (see example sentences and synonyms), which is kind of what I meant by "in your interest".
Anyway, in my first comment I specified very clearly what I meant by "interest" of a person -- it was whatever the person wants. And it's very easy to find out what's in the person's interest, you just need to ask them what they want.
> In fact making them aware of the fact is acting against their interests by directly harming them.
Looks like you suggest a sweet lie instead of a bitter truth. I prefer the bitter truth.
> If you consider that people with different tastes to yours are a hazard to children, where is the line?
Again, you pretend to misinterpret what I said to make it easier to criticize.
The tastes I consider harmful to my children (future children, I should add; I don't have any yet) are not exactly equal to the tastes which are different from mine. There are plenty of things which I don't enjoy, but which I'd like my children to appreciate better. And vice versa, there are things I kind of like, but I'd want my children to be less susceptible to them.
And my point wasn't whether porn performers should teach in schools or not, it wasn't about my preferences. What I said is that some parents may prefer not to let porn performers teach their children, and we should respect their preference.
Obviously these women were victimised, but this is a completely separate issue from those 'sending emails' as those who were doing that would have been completely unaware of the mitigating circumstances and therefore operating under the assumption said women were simply 'making porn'.
You're essentially insinuating that it's 'evil' to consider that 'doing porn' is possibly inconsistent with the values of an institution of higher learning or some other org.. I hate to break it to you but such super liberal ideals are not normative, and you don't really have a right to condemn any group which concludes that 'porn' is unbecoming of someone within their own organisation.
I suggest if said 'emailers' were aware of the mitigating circumstances, they'd feel differently about it; they couldn't have known they were moralising on actual victims.
Sending emails (and any other reaction to public availability of the videos) was what actually did the lasting harm.
If you did harm then being motivated by your morality or religion doesn't justify what you did. It just explains why you did wrong and why you behaved evil.
Nope. Public relation to this did it. Sending emails did nothing, just like a person who calls the police doesn’t imprison or even judge a potential suspect.
> If you did harm then being motivated by your morality or religion doesn't justify what you did.
All morality results in harm. Good does harm to evil - that's the point. Now what is good and what is evil? It's different from people to people, culture to culture. Not only that, it changes with time.
Absolutely not. Helping others is a moral action and results in no harm (when done properly).
> Good does harm to evil - that's the point.
No. The point of mortality is to prevent harm done by evil and prevent proliferation or even existance of evil. Harming evil is just a tool to deter it. Not particularly effective tool strategically.
> Now what is good and what is evil? It's different from people to people, culture to culture. Not only that, it changes with time.
Also tools used by good and evil change with time. Even some tools switch sides.
Shaming prostitutes was probably effective tool of good when your village of 100 people was threatened by spread of incurable, untreatable, debilitating sexually transmitted disease. Shaming nowadays is mostly a tool of evil bigotery.
It might not be normative in parts of the world (even the western world) but I still have the right to hold that view and to condemn those who emailed to try destroy the woman's career as immoral (evil is a terrible term).
Regardless of your disagreement with my view I have the right to hold it. And based on recent history I'd bet I'm on the right side of history here.
You definitely have the right to have your view of her behaviour, but I think you probably have to respect that others see it differently.
Also you're probably not on the rights side of history.
I think we are becoming more tolerant of things that people do in their personal lives, but I don't think we're going to see porn normalised.
The easiest way for attractive young women (or men?) to make money is porn, and I don't suggest that any of us want our 18 year olds taking on that hobby to pay for whatever.
While most people would be 'more forgiving' I don't think for a second that most people would support their kids doing porn for cash.
Just because there's movement in some areas we may see as 'progress' doesn't mean that the needle keeps moving that way, nor does it imply things are black and white.
We're just starting to understand the social implications of young people doing porn for a few dollars at age 18 and having it follow them for the rest of our lives, I think we may start to develop a more nuanced view as time goes on.
Maybe the emailers wanted to maintain the reputation of the law school? I mean, if a law school becomes known for graduating porn actresses (even if both ex and amateur), it's reputation could diminish somewhat. Isn't there something in the law about lawyers needing to be of solid integrity (decent upstanding citizens)? Taking money to have sex with stragers while agreeing to be filmed could be seen as a demonstration of poor morals by many.
My wife fell victim to this before we met. I'm curious how we'd go about filing a case against the website. I send a message to the FBI a few years ago and never heard anything.
That's terrible, I hope you two have been able to heal. I'd suggest trying to contact the lawyers for the plaintiffs to see if your wife has a case as well. This article [1] mentions that this is the lead lawyer: https://sanfordheisler.com/team/ed-chapin/
We moved to a new area and just tried to move on. Honestly I feel bad for not pursuing it more aggressively. This post has rekindled my desire to go after the bastard that tricked her. Thanks for sharing the links.
Battling Against Demeaning and Abusive Selfie Sharing (BADASS) has a lot of experience helping people get the content legally taken down from hosting sites. https://badassarmy.org
I feel bad for your wife, hope she was able to get over it. When something like this happens it must be really hard and humiliating fight. Im really glad for how the situation turned around in this case; however, this is a drop in the ocean. This happens a lot more frequently. Lots of women are primed to think this is just a normal behaviour, it’s sickening to even think about the details how this is orchestrated.
There is a pro-bono organization called SIMP (Statutory Implications for Male Predators) dedicated to taking on these cases specifically where young women have been tricked into working in pornography without proper instruction and disclosure about how these productions will be disseminated and what the full consequences may be for themselves and their loved ones. I consider these people monsters of the worst sort, and I hope they all are crushed under the weight of the law at least as heavily as the cretins behind GDP. My deepest condolences to you and your wife, and good luck.
I am sure you can find enough people in the world who would voluntarily do this without coercion. Getting people drunk in another city/state (?) and coercing them to do something else is rape territory, and I hope everyone involved faces criminal justice for that
It's strange that the site is still up? I'm not visiting but, but how can there be civil and criminal charges and the site is still up...
> Getting people drunk in another city/state (?) and coercing them to do something else is rape territory
The "other state" part would make it human trafficking too. Being transported to a different city might also be enough, it depends on how the laws are worded.
(no disrespect intended to the victims in this story when I say this)
This is a cautionary tale in the world we live in today: Once something is recorded, it could be anywhere. Even without willful intent on the part of the owner, phones get lost or stolen, old hardware gets sold on ebay, cloud accounts get compromised, etc.
These videos weren’t “leaked”, they weren’t found on someone’s old phone.
The people who shot the video LIED to the participants in order to coerce participation. They paid other people to lie to them as well in order to create a more complete deception. Then they posted the videos in exactly the way they said they would not do.
They also provided drugs and alcohol to the participants before offering paperwork.
This is fraud, pure and simple, thus the monetary reward. And your comment here comes across as patronizing at best. You read an article about criminal behavior and then blamed the victims of the crimes.
“Have fun”? These are desperate people desperately trying to negotiate a contract so they can survive. This is not some kids having sexy time.
You make many good points, but aren’t being charitable to OP.
No one has disputed this was fraud, and a vile one besides.
And if OP intended to suggest equivalence between i) careless but informedly consenting teens having fun and ii) victims of fraud, that would be incorrect.
Telling people to be careful, however, is not blaming the victim. I don’t have kids, but this is advice I expect to give them.
Any photo, any video that is shared/stored on a device you don't own, will almost certainly end up eventually being shared outside the originally intended circles.
It doesn't even matter if the person or company you're dealing with fully intends to keep their word. The nature of all data is it leaks over time.
My comments were not about the people in this story directly. I am certainly not blaming them for what happened.
My point is, if you don't control the source of the recording (whatever it may be), you can't control what happens to it. With how easy it is to share any data these days, it could go places you don't want it to very quickly.
"Have fun" was a general comment for people. Look at all the political fallout that has happened to various people over pictures from decades ago that have resurfaced, for one example.
Honestly, I don’t think you need to defend your comment any further to appease anyone who would be potentially offended by reading it. “Do not knowingly film your sexual encounter(s)” period. It’s a general cautionary statement and should be treated as such.
Exactly. Even if what they told the girls was 100% true -- the videos would be on DVDs only distributed in Australia and New Zealand, there is little reason to think those scenes on a DVD wouldn't end up online on a streaming porn site.
The most disturbing part of this is the doxing of the girls after the fact and that they shorted them on payment after doing their scenes. Changing the terms of the shoot once they arrived actually has happened a lot in porn over the years.
There is no free lunch in life -- you don't make $3000-$5000 for filming something that will never see the light of day.
It sucks that the girls fell for their con, but there was an extreme amount of naivety on their part that allowed them to be conned in the first place.
> implies a naivete that we should trust others - to do only what they say they will, with things that are precious to us.
We trust strangers all the time. For example when driving, because we expect dangerous people to be sufficiently de-incentived from driving. Or when doing groceries, because we expect companies not to poison us. Or when riding in a stranger's car, even though they could rob and/or harm.
We actually exhibit a low level of trust, given the extreme safety measures we build into our cars and the segregation of our highway corridors. 'Trusting strangers' would look like cars without airbags, and the removal of speed limits in residential areas.
We do not trust food companies not to poison us. We require an accounting of every ingredient that goes into every piece of food we eat, and companies are held accountable to that list. If you think we trust food companies, read about the reaction to Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle)
> Or when riding in a stranger's car, even though they could rob and/or harm.
Isn't that the running joke? That harm does happen, and somehow we still roll the dice and use those services.
I'm just surprised that we trust pharma companies as much as we do.
Why the anger? The GP was not blaming the victim but giving a warning. Whether it be through scumbag criminals or a lost device, content recorded and uploaded digitally can often never be deleted.
They were sick individuals that exploited these women. Individuals like that will never go away so we need to be vigilant through enforcement of laws and education of the public.
The best way to avoid fraud is to become smarter oneself. It is not that hard to detect once you learned some survival skills. Sorry, but criticising someone as disrespectful for helping people to learn survival skills sounds damaging. A little like not telling your children about sex and condoms because you don't want them to have sex.
Shit will happen. Better be prepared, and better help others prepare. Stop criticizing people who try to help.
PS: He also didn't say that it isn't fraud. He said that besides fraud there are a lot of other ways a video you made could be used in other ways than you intended.
America has this weird thing where pointing out that the victim wasn't completely robbed of their agency and made some dumb decisions == victim blaming. Especially in incidents related to sex.
To recap, someone commented that there's a lesson to be re-iterated here about sharing videos, and someone else got offended by that. It's weird to imagine a society where people get offended when presented with instructions for how not to fall victim to the same situation in the future.
The victims aren't being blamed. The legal system worked as intended. But if you don't want porno videos of you showing up on the internet, don't share any. No amount of laws or enforcement will make those videos go away now. Even middle schoolers are taught this in sex-ed.
You have to look at that in historical terms. Until very recently the vast majority of sexual exploitation cases where dismissed using a form of victim blaming, normally by pointing out the agency the victims still had but didn't use.
I'm not saying you're wrong but people are understandably hyper sensitive to those points as until very recently they would be used to dismiss victims. It'll take a period of time (atleast a decade, likely a generation) where victims are regularly listened to before that sensitivity starts to go away.
This effect is - in some ways I fear, almost inherent to tech.
The same reason you call someone an idiot if they click an ad that looks like an error message, login to their bank on mybank.com.sketchysite.info, respond to a Nigerian scam or open that .pdf.scr file attached to an email. This stuff seems dead flat basic to people who are exposed to scams regularly. We don't call the scammers idiots for making millions on ransomware, most of us just delete their messages without a second thought - instead we call their victims idiots for falling for it in ways that seem obvious to us. Heck, even in much of the general public these are used as punchlines on occasion. Victim blaming and just expecting people to recognize these things as sketchy seems to be quite common for these sorts of technical issues.
“I’m always paranoid when I meet new people that they have seen my video or [when I] meet new people [they] are going to say, ‘I know you.’”
That reminded me of a comment I saw in a discussion about being worried that someone would find out your real identity by noticing your profile on a fetish site --- and thus the correct response to that is "I know you watch porn."
I’ve always wondered about that stat. What does “watch porn” mean? 1x a year? 1x a month? 1x a week? I think people assume the rate is higher than it really is.
Now we’re not saying that size matters, but 2018 was an impressively big year for Pornhub and its users. Visits to Pornhub totaled 33.5 billion over the course of 2018, an increase of 5 billion visits over 2017. That equates to a daily average of 92 million visitors and at the time of this writing, Pornhub’s daily visits now exceed 100 million.
2018 saw Pornhub’s average visit duration grow by 14 seconds to 10 minutes and 13 seconds.
Unless I missed it, I didn’t see something as plain as “X million in the US watch porn at least 1x a week” or something like that, which is what I’m curious about.
They say "Once again, the United States continues to be the country with the highest daily traffic to Pornhub".
The give a graph of top 20 countries, which they say represent an aggregated 80% of their traffic.
The US is first, and take around 40-50% of that traffic.
Let's go with 40%. Of 80% that's ~ 32% of total.
They also say: "Pornhub’s daily visits now exceed 100 million".
This means 32% of 100M, so around 32M americans visit Pornhub alone each day.
And that's just one porn network. Along with Pornhub (which is however the most visited) there are also XVideos, XHamster, XNXX, Redtube in the list of Top 50 most popular websites.
Yeah, I’m curious about the distribution therein. It’s obviously not the same 32M every single day, though I’m sure there are people who indulge daily. Are 20% of them daily users? And 60% weekly? etc
Old survey, but the average used to be 3x a week: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/6709646/All-men-watch-... Looking at other surveys I'd say single men probably are 70% at least 3x a week, while being married or female are both going to reduce that amount. Although there are also questions about what qualifies as porn, like romance novels. If you have a loose definition of porn then I'd guess everybody in their 20's-30's is going to have seen some porn in the past year, although perhaps involuntarily.
If you can recognize the face of someone you met randomly from an ocean of porn online, I think it’s safe to say that person watches more frequently than once-a-anything.
These weren't randomly recognised: their contact details were published on another site, and the sociopaths who visit those sites then contacted their families, employers etc.
Because? Seeing US/non-US comments I think that is your local quirk.
Nobody discusses porn video content and actors themselves, except “bald guy from brazzers” and other folklore. Otherwise it is the same technology, much better and advanced than e.g. youtube freezing crapware show. Idk why someone should not discuss that. Because if you know that it means you watch porn?
Talking about video infrastructure that happens to be on a porn site, sure whatever.
But, lots of people are uncomfortable talking about sex at work. I'm just trying to do my job, I don't want to have to talk with you about whether I know who "bald guy from Brazzers" is, why I do or dont, which porn sites I go to etc. My sex life, porn consumption or lack thereof is none of my co-workers' business, and keeping your nose out of other people's is a good default. Especially if you have GLBTQ+ coworkers, you can easily ostracize them.
In my experience, once sex and porn start trickling into the conversation, conversations seem to devolve into fratboy territory. Just keep it away from me. I literally quit my last job because of the fratboy vibe, my boss asked me if my wife's pregnancy "made her horny" and that was the last straw.
I think there's a vast difference between discussing porn and discussing the technical details of porn websites. I'd never discuss the former at work but I have discussed the latter, albeit only with colleagues I know well and when it was directly relevant to technical problems we were discussing. Also not in communal areas.
And when part of your team's responsibility is fighting to keep pornography off your website? Snicker like a child when it inevitably comes up and go "so unprofessional!"? Or act like an adult?
I wonder with facial recognition and etc if it would be possible that all sorts of sites would get caught up in this sort of thing where previously they thought they could just do whatever with the video and it likely wouldn't be noticed?
"The contracts were filled with “dense and ambiguous language,” including one 140-word paragraph that Enright called “a grammatical labarynth.” The contract covers “photographs, pictures or portraits” and printed material. “It does not, however, mention GirlsDoPorn.com, nor the words ‘internet,’ ‘online,’ or ‘website,’” Enright wrote. “It is thus designed to obscure what will actually be done with the videos and to encourage continued reliance on defendants’ repeated representations, promises, and testimonials from hired ‘references.’”"
I’m just curious if they, barring other circumstances, broke their legal textual contracts as well. A contract that just says “we can do anything we want” would fit your description.
The contracts were copy/paste boilerplate bullshit. The women were told the recordings were for wealthy private collectors and would never be widely released. The women were often flown to other states, plied with alcohol, and then told they would only be flown home if they co-operated. These guys are barely a notch above kidnappers, rapists, and sex traffickers.
The stories have been around online for a while, but now they're convicted of this insidious garbage. Do not support GirlsDoPorn.
"launched in 2006 by New Zealander Michael Pratt and operated by Ruben Garcia and Matthew Wolfe. Filmed in homes, hotels and trailer parks"
"During the course of the civil trial, Pratt, Garcia and Wolfe were criminally indicted for sex trafficking, among other charges. Garcia and Wolfe are currently in federal custody. Pratt is a fugitive."
Disgusting criminal, manipulative behavior that harmed a lot of people.
My understanding is the girls are told that the videos will go in some wealthy dude's private collection or something like that. No one reads contracts.
And even if they do, contracts dont always represent the actual agreement being made [0]. As someone who does actually read contracts, most of the time they are generic contracts for the general thing you are agreeing to, and reflect none of the specific details (and sometimes contradict the specific details).
[0] Of course, absent compelling evidence to this effect, courts would look to the contract to determine what agreement was made, so if you care about the innacurate provisions, do not sign until they are corrected.
That seems to echo exactly what is stated in the article.
"They were promised that the footage would go straight to DVD for wealthy buyers in other countries, in particular Australia and New Zealand, where the defendants come from."
I don't understand the smugness in your reply. (Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, this is the internet after all.) But what is remarkable/condemnable about a human willing to do something relatively harmless yet embarrassing for money "if no one finds out"?
Contracts can be spoken as well as written, and spoken things can also legally be considered part of the contract even when there is a written contract.
Each woman was seeking 2 million from what I've found online. The judgement ended up being a payout of 12.7m sum and that's for splitting between 22 victims with their representation. I wonder how much each person walked away with after their attorneys were paid. I've not witnessed justice in my life but I like to think they will be happy with the judgement even though it's a lot lower than they sought.
No amount of money is going to help them deal with trauma and problems they are facing everyday. I see this more as punitive damage than actual compensation for the harm the company did
Attorney fees are typically (but not always) one-third, when working on contingency. Then they deduct "expenses" for working on the case (court filing fees, travel expenses, and so on). The 22 women would split whatever was left.
So, roughly, 4.5MM goes to the attorneys. That leaves 8.2MM split 22 ways.
The woman will likely get somewhere around $375,000 each.
Reading through comments I feel like being from completely another world. While an option is to simply stay silent, I struggle to understand how that plot ends up unquestioned by everyone except lawyers. Is it self-censoring in action? Because I feel self-censored.
I think you are saying that we should treat the accused as just that: innocent until proven guilty. Which is a very good policy. Especially since this industry sees a lot of attacks on the grounds of of "immorality"
But in this case we have moved beyond merely accused. We have a completed verdict in a real trail. And although the judicial system has flaws, in this case the weaker parties actually won against the more powerful. And in several instances too.
So I think it's reasonable people feel quite confident that the verdict was correct and that the good guys won here.
that's my take on it too. I didn't fully read through all the details, but I have to believe that courts did their due diligence and the women were legitimately coerced by the website.
And I've just realized that 'legitimately coerced' out of context sounds like an oxymoron.
If you don’t want a video of yourself in the Internet, don’t make a video. I always assume that any picture I take can leak to everyone anytime. How naive can you be? Someone pays you money to have sex with a stranger (prostitution in my mind) and take a video of it. And she really thought they wouldn’t sell the video?
This whole thing is idiotic. The lying producers are assholes. The women are idiots for trusting anything told to them in this context by complete strangers motivated only by money. In the words of Shakespeare, "all are punished".
>“These are millennial women who grew up with the internet – they knew the consequences of pornographic videos ending up online which is why they asked where the videos were going before they were lied to."
I'm not sure they did, really. That last sentence should end with "knew the consequences of pornographic videos ending up online which is why they wisely chose not to risk doing porn." Maybe college should teach mandatory classes on risk management.
>Her life, she says, is irrevocably changed, and her hopes of a legal career have been ended.
“I do not want a career as an attorney. My name is completely destroyed.”
I hope somebody explains to her this isn't necessarily true. There are places and firms in the country more sex-positive and/or forgiving where this won't destroy her life and she can still be an attorney. She also pretty much has a ready made career as an attorney focusing on sex-trafficking and similar fields.
I hope you don't have kids. 18 year olds do dumb things. They're legally adults but neurologically speaking that's questionable. My wife was still reeling from an abusive and sexually exploitative relationship and trying to survive when she was tricked into making porn under the guise of auditioning for an off-camera job. Glad to know you think she's an idiot. Class act there buddy.
There is a huge difference between a hidden cam and industrial-grade studio shooting. I don’t think gp meant or knew anything about your case. If it is dumb, subj is orders of magnitude dumber, to the extent that it seems simply unbelievable and suspicious. Also, you say “18 year olds do dumb things” and then shame gp for “thinking she's an idiot”. It seems you’re overreacting and taking it personal when it doesn’t even relate. We skeptics have a right of voice too.
>My wife was still reeling from an abusive and sexually exploitative relationship and trying to survive when she was tricked into making porn under the guise of auditioning for an off-camera job.
Of all the women who do porn, what proportion do you believe are doing it for similar reasons as your wife - last resort and survival, vs what proportion do you believe are doing it for the combination of fast/easy money + superficial fame + taboo thrills?
The former are sympathetic. The latter not so much.
It's almost like there are people who have developed an ability to trick people into doing things that they wouldn't normally do via some sort of plan of deception. But we know that can't possibly be true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick
> The women are idiots for trusting anything told to them in this context by complete strangers motivated only by money.
The vast majority of business decisions are between strangers motivated by money. We have a justice system to prevent fraud just like this. You seem to have a very simplistic view of society.
What kind of evil person does this? Is there anything these monsters can be prosecuted for? At least the people who made the movies had a motive in greed. The people who sent these emails wouldn't even gain anything. They are clearly nothing but malicious, bigoted and evil.