A Houston woman is suing social media giant Facebook after a
compromising picture of her was posted by her ex-boyfriend on his Facebook page,
opening a new legal front in the battle to aid victims of “revenge porn.” In her suit filed last month, Meryem Ali alleges
that “ex-friend” Adeel Shah Khan started an “imposter Facebook site” that
featured Photoshopped photos of Ms. Ali’s
head attached to “false, phony, naked body shots,” and one photo where she is
“in a graphic, pornographic, like photo purporting to be in the middle of a
sexual act.” Ms. Ali is
seeking “full justice” against Facebook and Mr. Khan
for the “significant trauma, extreme humiliation, extreme embarrassment, severe
emotional disturbances and severe mental and physical suffering.” She is suing
for $123 million or 10 cents for every one of Facebook’s 1.23 billion
users.
Facebook has
declined to comment on the lawsuit, but the case has focused renewed attention
on the efforts to combat so-called “revenge porn” and on the struggles the
legal system has faced in obtaining justice for victims of sexual abuse and
exploitation in the age of the Internet. Revenge porn, also known as “cyber
rape,” is the distribution of nude or sexually explicit content without the
consent of the individual pictured. Typically, a couple will share sexually
suggestive pictures or videos as a consensual act, but when the relationship
ends, an angered ex will post the material online out of spite. The content is
usually attached with personal information about the individual: phone number,
links to social media profiles, address and employment. Several websites even
sprang up to collect and disseminate revenge porn.
Britain, Japan and dozens of U.S. state legislatures are now
looking at laws and legal arguments to halt revenge porn, and the Houston
lawsuit is believed to be the first to go after the social media sites that can
host revenge porn postings. According to the petition filed July 25, Ms. Ali was
not aware of the photos until family and friends were invited to connect to the
phony site in December 2013. Following months of requests to connect to the
fake Ms. Ali’s Facebook page, the
bogus page was removed after the Houston Police Department subpoenaed Facebook’s records. Ms. Ali alleges Facebook “failed to
live up to its worldwide marketing and advertising promise” to take down fake
sites in a timely fashion.
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