Were you aware that our military and government may have a revenge-porn crisis on their hands? Unfortunately, this is not a new problem — military culture is rampant with sexual assault and abuse. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation has worked with the military to help eradicate sexual exploitation by our service members and military personnel. We have recommended better policies and worked to expose the harms of pornography use by our military personnel.
Now, the Daily Beast reports that an alarming number of individuals within the government and military, including the U.S. Senate and the Navy, allegedly have been frequent users of a revenge-porn site, Anon-IB.
An alarming number of individuals within the government and military, including the U.S. Senate and the Navy, may be frequent users of a revenge-porn site #endexploitation #pornharms Click To TweetAnon-IB is a free-to-use message board where users post images, typically of women, and which is split into various genre or location sections. Some parts are focused on countries, while U.S. sections may narrow down to a state. Many users pursue so-called wins, which are nude or explicit photos, and may egg each other on to share more images.
As the report notes, an IP address alone is insufficient to determine precisely who is posting these images.
An IP address does not necessarily refer to an individual, and it’s not possible to know whether a guest or other visitor on a government network is responsible for the posts. There is also a chance that a hacker may be routing their traffic through government computers, but the Senate and Executive Office of the President IP addresses do not appear in lists of known, previously compromised machines, according to online records.
While it is not completely clear who is posting on this revenge-porn site now, the Navy suffered a scandal last year:
Last year, the U.S. Marines faced a revenge-porn crisis in which servicemen nonconsensually shared intimate videos and photos of partners on secret Facebook groups.
Despite an official, wide-spanning investigation into the incident, and the Navy and Marines making posting nude photos of personnel online a criminal offense, people using U.S. Navy computers have continued to post on Anon-IB as recently as late last year, according to the data obtained by The Daily Beast.
In addition to rampant pornography consumption, many military personnel frequently patron strip clubs, illicit massage parlors, and purchase sex both at home and abroad, all of which directly foster and promote sexual exploitation and sex trafficking.
It’s time that leaders in both the military and government recognize that all forms of sexual exploitation are connected and fuel each other.
