See below for an update on what has happened after our executive director witnessed a man watching violent, pseudo-child pornography on her Delta flight.
From Dawn:
In case you didn’t hear about it:
The short story is:
I witnessed the man in front of me watching pornography on his i-Pad. I confronted him about it and he denied it (even though it was still clearly visible). I told the flight attendant and he said there was NOTHING he could do. I was pretty upset (wish I could do this part over again, but alas I cannot). Then an older woman told me that “no one cared” and to just be quiet.Â
Following the incident, I made this YouTube video to share with our supporters. I had no idea what would come of it.Â
It went viral. You can see that it has over 230,000 views. Many others online made “mocking” videos of me (but played most of mine in theirs) and some of those videos have over 300,000 views. In all, the incident was viewed more than 1,000,000 times! For weeks we received hundreds of threats and hateful comments daily. My personal contact information was discovered and posted all over the Internet, as well as that of my parents and my little brother. We were all harassed. The police and the FBI got involved and for a few days I was completely overwhelmed about my choice to be involved in this fight.Â
At the same time we received overwhelming opposition, we also received an outpouring of support! And so many GOOD things have happened in the war on pornography as a result of that incident.Â
Some of the good from the whole thing:
- Our army of supporters exploded. Thousands of people contacted us with prayers, love, gratitude and support. They have since joined the fight with us, which has led to many more victories on other fronts in war on pornography!Â
- The story was covered on the Sunday front page of the New York Times and many other news outlets picked it up. I was invited to be on Fox News a couple of times as a result of all of the increased press. Most of these news stories took the side that pornography should not be viewed in public and they laid out many of the harms.
- People are still contacting us about this, but now it is almost all supporters.
- We contacted all US-based commercial airlines and discussed their policies regarding pornography on flights. All airlines, except for American Airlines, was willing to discuss this issue with us. They all promised to make their existing no-porn policies more known among their crews or to improve their policies to include no pornography viewing. This was huge! All it took was asking them.Â