A letter to our supporters:
The Cyber Civil Rights Initiative is thrilled to have played a leading role in this week’s breaking developments on the issue of nonconsensual pornography. You know an issue is at the cutting edge of change when John Oliver features it. It was a delight for several of us to work with producers on Last Week Tonight’s feature about nonconsensual porn.
When we started the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative’s campaign to end “revenge porn,” we faced a seemingly impossible task. People told us we’d never get legislators on board; as of today, nearly half of all states have passed laws criminalizing this conduct and we are working with Congress on a federal bill. People told us “revenge porn” website operators were safe from prosecution, but yet we’ve seen one after another arrested and their sites darkened. People told us we’d never be able to convince tech companies to take action, and now one powerful company after another has announced policies banning nonconsensual pornography.
We are overjoyed to say that, after months of collaboration and dialogue, we can now add Google to that list. Google has announced a drastic change to its search policy: In the coming weeks, Google will honor requests to remove sexually explicit images that were published without consent.
“Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web,” Amit Signhal, Senior Vice President of Google Search said in a blogpost today. “But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims—predominantly women. So going forward, we’ll honor requests from people to remove nude or sexually explicit images shared without their consent from Google Search results. This is a narrow and limited policy, similar to how we treat removal requests for other highly sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers and signatures, that may surface in our search results.”
We are proud to see that our work to help current victims and to prevent future victims has had such an impact. The momentum is extraordinary, and we hope it will continue. We couldn’t have accomplished what we have so far or continued to fight against online abuse without your encouragement and support. Please consider donating to our cause to help us keep up the good fight.
So sincerely yours,
Holly, Mary Anne, Charlotte, Christina, Carrie, Annmarie, Anisha, Christa, & Natalie
Board of Directors & Volunteers, Cyber Civil Rights Initiative