Revenge porn victims are struggling to get Instagram to remove their images despite a rise in cases over lockdown

• Victims of so-called "revenge porn" are struggling to report their content to Instagram due to the coronavirus pandemic.
• According to screenshots seen by Insider, victims are being told that their content might take longer to be reviewed due to the company having a reduced workforce that is working from home.
• One victim Insider spoke to, who had no issues reporting her images in the past, said that "old wounds" were reopened after her pictures popped up on Instagram again during the lockdown period.
• A student activist from France, who has spent most of her lockdown helping victims remove around 300 "fisha" or "shame" accounts, said she'd seen the worst content on Instagram.
• Since Instagram does not have specific language in their reporting flows to allow users to flag content strictly as "revenge porn", users have to report it as "nudity" instead which means it won't be given top priority.

Victims of image-based abuse are struggling to get their explicit pictures removed on Instagram, despite a rise in incidents over the lockdown period.

In some cases, the reported pictures or accounts are left on the platform for days. The distressed victims of so-called "revenge porn" are being told that due to COVID-19, the company has fewer moderators to review reports and are therefore forced to "prioritize content," according to screenshots seen by Insider.

This policy change is in stark contrast to evidence that revenge porn cases have increased steeply.

The UK government-funded Revenge Porn Hotline, for adult victims, told the BBC in April that traffic to its website nearly doubled in the week after the country went on lockdown, on March 23. It opened more cases in the month that followed than any other four-week period since the offense was first made illegal in 2015.

As a result, the hotline, which only has two full-time employees, has been given extra funding. In England and Wales, revenge porn is a criminal offense with a maximum punishment of up to two years in prison.

The rise in cases can be attributed to "the increased use of the internet and social media, as well as heightened emotions," according to Professor Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University, who was quoted on the BBC.

An increase in "sexting" between couples who were not isolating together during the lockdown could also have contributed to the surge, the BBC reported.

Simultaneously, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has been working with a reduced workforce since the coronavirus outbreak, a public statement released by the company said.

As a result, it has been forced to prioritize the reviewing of certain content and is relying heavily on AI technology to do the job for them.

In a comment to Insider, a Facebook company spokesperson said: "Since March, when we sent our content reviewers home to protect them from COVID-19, we've been prioritizing reviewing content that has the greatest potential to cause harm. This includes reports of non-consensual intimate imagery, which we have continued to review during this time."

"I've been reliving the trauma"

Grace*, 21, a student from Bristol who has chosen to be anonymous, was horrified after she found that nude images of her that had initially been posted on social media by her ex-boyfriend in 2018 — and were removed — were again posted on Instagram during the lockdown period.

The student, who had no problems with reporting the images in 2018, says her experience during lockdown has been drastically different and resulted in a great deal of stress.

"I reported the account several times and also asked my friends to do the same but it took Instagram almost 10 days to take any action and every day I was having mini panic attacks because of it," she told Insider.

After reporting the account that had reshared her images, Grace said that an automated Instagram message warned her that not all flagged content could be reviewed due to COVID-19, but she didn't expect it to be ignored for so long. She was also advised to block the account.

"I was watching as it stayed on there, it was so awful I had to stop checking," she said.

After her first experience with revenge porn in 2018, she had to seek treatment with a university therapist for several weeks because of how traumatizing it was for her.

Grace said that the reemergence of her pictures "opened old wounds," and that it has "only added to the current stress of what's been happening in the world."

"When I saw them again, I couldn't believe it, I have been reliving the trauma I had last year, the one I've been working so hard to work on," she added.

These cases are not just happening in the UK

Shanley Clemot McLaren, 22, a student from Paris, France, has helped hundreds of revenge porn victims after observing a surge of so-called "fisha" accounts — the French term for "shame" — over the lockdown period.

Clemot McLaren, whose studies were put on hold during the lockdown period, says that she has seen at least 500 of these accounts emerge on social media since the coronavirus restrictions were put in place in France in mid-March.

While these "fisha" accounts have been appearing across different social media platforms including Twitter and encrypted messaging service Telegram, Clemot McLaren told Insider that she's seen the worst content on Instagram.

"The most shocking content I've seen has been on Instagram. I don't really get it to be frank. So many girls are fully nude, " she said.

"The worst was a gang rape video and that image is going to stay in my brain forever. It was on Instagram for two days, and had millions of people who saw it," she added.

To combat this, Clemot McLaren got together with a lawyer and a group of friends to create an online awareness campaign called #stopfisha, which has since received extensive media coverage in France, where revenge porn is an offense punishable of up to two years in prison or a €60,000 fine ($68,000).

But the work has not been easy. A lot of the accounts being reported are either remerging again or are being left on Instagram for days at a time, causing victims major distress.

In response, Clemot McLaren and supporters of her campaign have developed a strategy of "virtual raids."

"On the first raid, for example, we were 300 people, and we told people to log in at a precise time and report a list of accounts at once," Clemot McLaren said.

"So these raids were quite successful because since we were plenty of people and had plenty of reports in a short time, they can't ignore us anymore. But it's tiring, and we shouldn't be having to do this in the first place," she added.

So far, Clemot McLaren and her team have managed to remove around 300 "fisha" accounts. But she thinks more can be done.

"I'm happy that we can make a difference but these companies should be doing more, especially now," she said.

Instagram has been working with a reduced team

In mid-March, the company announced it would send home most of its employees, including its team of content moderators, hired to review posts flagged by users or the company's software to determine if the content is inappropriate or harmful.

Instagram explained that it would be difficult for moderators to be working from home. Their home network wasn't secure enough for the data they were looking at, and there were no on-site resources that could help employees who were finding the job emotionally taxing.

As a result, it has made several changes to how it reviews content. It includes the increased usage of automation, which it has already acknowledged could lead to mistakes and omissions.

It also began prioritizing user reports based on their potential for harm. The company told Insider that non-consensual imagery is on their priority list, alongside other sensitive areas including suicide and self-harm, terrorism, and child exploitation. Nudity, however, is not included in this list, Facebook informed Insider, by email.

Instagram does not have specific language in their reporting flows to allow users to flag content as "revenge porn." Instead, they must flag it as nudity or harassment, which means it won't be given top priority.

This week, Facebook said that some content reviewers had returned to the office voluntarily, to help review the most sensitive content that could cause harm.

The trend of image-based abuse will outlast the pandemic

Image-based abuse is also becoming a common feature of domestic abuse, which has seen a drastic increase in the lockdown period. Calls to Britain's national domestic abuse helpline have soared 66% since the lockdown, according to the Thompson Reuters Foundation.

Johanna Nelles, executive secretary of the Istanbul convention — a European treaty to prevent violence against women — told Reuters that the trend of image-based abuse, as well as the shame and anxiety that accompanies it, will likely outlast the pandemic.

"During lockdown and as the world moves online...women and girls are exposed to higher risks. Domestic violence is on the rise and many perpetrators also use new technologies to assert their power over the victim," Nelles said

While the Revenge Porn Hotline and activists like Clemot McLaren have been helping hundreds of victims, their job is becoming increasingly difficult as numbers continue to soar.

The French campaigner, in particular, has said she is currently taking a step back from her work, mainly because of the impact on her mental health.

"I've decided to step back a little and to let other people help and investigate these accounts for me. Because on a psychological level, it's really really hard. I have had to start seeing a psychiatrist now because I've seen so much traumatizing stuff," she said.

It remains unclear when Facebook offices will be fully staffed again. In an announcement in June, the company wrote: "It's become clear in recent weeks that our offices are unlikely to return to business as usual in the near future. Some of our full-time employees will continue to review sensitive content...but we will begin working with our partners to bring a small number of content reviewers back to offices to support these efforts in the coming weeks."

One "fisha" account that was flagged to Instagram by Insider has since been removed.

• Read more:
• 'Is this you?!' How revenge porn victims are forced to deal with the incompetence of the police
• There are revenge porn laws on the books in 46 states, but victims say not enough is being done to protect them online
• Here's a map showing which US states have passed laws against revenge porn — and those where it's still legal
• WHO: If lockdowns go on for 6 months, there could be 31 million new domestic violence cases globally