In the U.S., people aghast at finding their nude photos online without their permission already have a free website to help them move forward. Now, British victims have an even better option: they can call 0845 6000 459, the U.K.’s new revenge porn phone hotline.
The new service is run by the nonprofit South West Grid for Learning, a group devoted to teaching people online safety. It provides free counsel to anyone whose intimate photos were shared without their consent. As the majority of revenge porn victims are women, the service also provides help to women who are victims of stalking and domestic abuse.
The campaign isn’t just free legal advice, either. South West Grid for Learning promises to tap its “partnerships with internet industry partners” to try to convince website owners to take down revenge porn.
The new U.K. hotline is the latest piece of a growing movement to aid victims of revenge porn, also referred to as non-consensual porn. U.S. states have increasingly been enacting criminalize it, while a federal bill is reportedly on its way to Congress. In the U.K., distributing revenge porn can lead to a two-year prison sentence.
H/T Independent | Images via Anomie/Wikimedia Commons, DejaVu 2.20/Wikimedia Commons, and q644/Photobucket | Remix by Max Fleishman.
