For years, if your intimate photos appeared online without your permission, there appeared to be little recourse. The images spread on the Web while those responsible for posting them often went unpunished.
But that seems to be changing.
Government officials are more aggressively pursuing people who leak such images and the Web sites set up to profit from them. Meanwhile, more than a dozen states have passed laws criminalizing nonconsensual pornography. Essentially, the long war against revenge porn is finally getting results.
“We’ve made huge progress,” said Charlotte Laws, a prominent activist who became involved in fighting nonconsensual porn after a topless photo of her daughter was posted to a site run by Hunter Moore, one of the most notorious revenge porn site operators.
Moore is now the latest example of how the government is taking the issue more seriously: He pleaded guilty to federal hacking and identity theft charges Wednesday and faces a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
