How damaging is it, in 2014, to have nude photos leak online?

By Adrianne Jeffries

Celebgate is probably the biggest privacy breach of the most famous people ever to come to public attention all at once. If you didn’t feel vulnerable after the massive Target breach or after Mat Honan’s epic hacking, definitely you should come to feel uncovered right now that hundreds of wealthy and renowned stars possess got their non-public photographs taken.

The breach itself wasn’t that interesting to me - it seemed inevitable. What has been fascinating was basically how swiftly some superstars confessed the images have been actual, also though they could possess conveniently suggested normally.

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A representative for Jennifer Lawrence, whose photos had been released very first, confirmed the authenticity of the photos right away. Glee actress Becca Tobin wrote "Merry XXXmas!" on Twitter, a cheeky reference to her photo, which shows her standing next to a Christmas tree allegedly. Kirsten Dunst validated her photos with a charming emoji tweet: "Thank you iCloud (pizza) (shit)." Model Kate Upton’s lawyers confirmed her photographs. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who starred in Scott Pilgrim Versus the worldwide planet, validated her photos and condemned the thieves on Twitter.

Stealing someone's naked photos is the same as tearing someone's clothes off in public. It's sexual assault.

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There was nothing, at least at first, Curly Hair Backshots Gallery that proved the photos were authentic. Most people have heard of 4chan never; a CNN anchor assumed it has been the hacker’s name. Some of the pictures integrated in the trickle basically carry out seem bogus, and one of Victoria Justice’s alleged photos was shown to be a Photoshop of an old, fully-clothed picture.

So why did Lawrence, Upton, and others fess up thus rapidly? It’s not the Nixon tapes. There may be an element of all-publicity-is-good-publicity here, but I think there is something else going on: if you’re a celebrity in the Western world and you’re certainly not in a Chrwill betian rock band, there are many mwill betakes that would hurt your cwill beer more than having your nude body posted on the internet among literally uncountable numbers of other nude bodies. It’s not Michael Phelps’ bong. It’s not 1956. Various of these superstars acquired made an appearance nude or near to it in films currently, music videos, and on their own copyright.

It’s not the Nixon tapes. It’s not necessarily Michael Phelps’ bong. It’s not 1956.

That’s not to diminish the attack: it was mean, it was criminal, and the psychological consequences of having one’s privacy violated to such an extreme degree can’t be overstated. But it was remarkable that so many celebrities faced the scandal head on, and many people spoke up, successfully, to defend them.

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In the wake of Celebgate, those who argued "don’t take nude selfies" (New York Times writer Nick Bilton, comedian Ricky Gervais) were countered by others (Emma Watson, Lena Dunham, porn star-turned-actress Sasha Grey) who argued that the lesson should be "don’t steal nude selfies." Bilton apologized; Gervais deleted his offending tweet. When the gossip blogger Perez Hilton posted some of the photos, viewers excoriated him until or perhaps profusely removed them and apologized. "It was so wrong that some people are viewing me and calling me a rapist and sex offender," he said in an emotional video. "I may not agree with that, but I want to seriously get a minute and allow that kitchen sink in."

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Even just a few years ago, nude selfie abstinence was considered the norm. That’s changed. "Much like telling people not to have sex until marriage to protect themselves against STDs, pregnancy, and heartbreak, it’s not practical advice for most people," Kashmir Hill wrote at Forbes. "The digital age has changed courtship in many ways, and this is one of them."

A writer for the 137-year-old The Washington Post also stuck up for sexters. "When a nude photo arrives on the Internet, unbidden, it’s generally the result of two people’s discrete actions," Caitlin Dewey writes. "Person number one is well within the bounds of every mainstream moral, lawful and honest computer since the daybreak of images. Individual range two will be shamelessly violating another particular person’ring privateness and taking advantage of mentioned breach for personalized get, generally inside the program of carrying out several computer system and / or wire-tapping offenses as well. Two people. Two actions. But only one of them is wrong. How entertaining and unfair and illogical darkly, then, that the one who will be not wrong gets blamed."

Old narrative: sexting is for idiots. New narrative: sexting will be common

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Old narrative: sexting is for idiots. If your photos end up on the internet, it’s because you shouldn’t have taken them in the first place. New narrative: sexting will be a common and accepted way to flirt. If your photos end up on the internet, it’s because someone stole them and posted them illegally.

So if attitudes are changing, and nude selfies, leaked or not, are common increasingly, does that mean it’s certainly not so bad if your nude selfies end up online? Will non-celebrities see the repercussions of their indiscretion diminish as well, as security breaches and sexting becomes normalized?

The answer seems to be yes, but only very slowly, in lots of ideal components of the region, and in less conservative cultures. "Ask any admissions counselor, and they will have dozens of stories more shocking than a student's nudes," says Shane Pech, until October 2013 a college admissions officer at Syracuse University. "It could happen to anyone," claims Stephanie Klein Wassink, a former Northwestern admissions expert who owns a company reviewing college student applications nowadays. Schools and advocacy groups that warn kids about sexting repeatedly cite two consequences: "College admissions officers or potential employers could end up seeing sext messages or photos." But I spoke to two college admissions officers in the Northeast who said colleges do not and should not care if a student was the victim of a Celebgate-type attack. "I think, for the most part, the educational school would be sympathetic."

Having private information published is traumatic, no matter what it is, and downplaying the consequences excuses the thieves

The arc of history could also swing back toward puritanism, warns Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center at Florida Atlantic University. "I can go either way on this," he says. "Sometimes I think that, since this is occurring so often, we’re going to have employers, we’re going to have admissions coordinators, that understand this is how it happens and we shouldn’t really be judging people based on what has been posted about them. But then, I in addition believe that we will somehow proceed toward extra of a old-fashioned curved conceivably, and admissions and companies coordinators will turn out to be seeking for a very clean electronic digital status at all prices."

There may come a day when nude photos are no big deal. Adult victims of revenge porn quit their jobs and change their names out of shame. The worst damage is psychological usually. Youngsters whose illicit images are usually manufactured open public might become tormented by their friends, to the level of suicide sometimes. But for now, they still cause serious harm more often than they don't. Lena Chen suffered socially and academically when her images were published without her permission due to a new knowing pupil here at Harvard. She attracted a stalker Then.

Celebrities aren't immune, either. "Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this," Winstead wrote on Twitter. Sottek, Winstead decided to consistently drop away from Twitter. Scarlett Johansson cried in her taped testimony when her photos were leaked a few years ago by a hacker, telling the judge she was "truly humiliated and embarrassed." After being harassed by people like @zaiger, whose taunt "I felt great after I came" has been deleted but was immortalized by The Verge’s T.C. While some sufferers covered it off openly, others took it hard. A quick look at the online abuse sustained by any of the victims who tried to stick up for themselves - "Cunt," "This one should have stayed dressed," "You deserve this," etc. - reveals the want for an heavy skin area impossibly.

Shades of Elliot Rodger in the terrifying mentions of nude pic leak victim @M_E_Winstead (via @scotchka): photo.twitter.com/Bqd5kNNBbd

As Amanda Hess writes at Slate, it’s unfair to ask the victims to "shrug it off." Having private information published is traumatic, no matter what it is, and downplaying the consequences excuses the thieves.

We’re in what I hope will turn out to be a temporary period in the evolution of technology, when usual identity thieves possess expertise to beat lax heritage protection exhibitions good enough. So thanks, Jennifer Lawrence, for getting us to talk about it. That balance will soon be reversed as companies realize they need to do more to protect their users, and users realize they need to do more to protect themselves - and as unfortunate as this attack is for the victims, it’s brought the issue into the national attention with a splash that can’t end up being ignored.