If you searched “is watching inappropriate media cheating” you’re probably looking for clarity. For a woman who has just discovered what her husband has been secretly doing with his time, it feels like a betrayal because it is. It’s a betrayal if her husband is sharing his energy, attention, and loyalty with other women (thousands of them online). This episode is a two-part conversation with experts from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
This article answers the question: is watching inappropriate media cheating? But it also answers the question underneath it: “Why does my husband’s use of inappropriate media hurt me so much… even if apparently all men do it.”
In marriage, yes. Because it meets the basic definition of cheating: He is engaging in sexual activities and directing sexual energy toward other people, often in secret, while expecting ongoing intimate access to his wife’s trust, body, and partnership.
And your gut response to think that he’s cheating is logical. In fact, it’s how most women feel. I’ve interviewed over 200 women who told me how terrible it felt to find out about all his lies, including his lies about how he’s been spending his time online. Over the last almost two decades, my team has helped over 8,000 women thrive after betrayal. So here’s what we know:
Below is the “wife-brain” list, the one that finally puts words to what you already know.
If your husband is pursuing stimulation from searching for and viewing other women online, he’s still directing intimate attention outside the marriage. He may argue “that it doesn’t mean anything” because there’s no physical contact.
But your marriage is real and your natural reaction to his choice to pursue arousal with other women is healthy and real.
I interviewed Christen Price, an attorney at The NCOSE and we talked about how the strongest tactic of coercive control is lying to maintain power and a preferred narrative.
If your husband has a pattern of using hidden or secret apps, unusual password protected accounts, and deflection, anger, or mockery when confronted, that isn’t him just needing “privacy.” He’s engaging deception, which is an obvious marker when asking, “is watching inappropriate media cheating?”
Women generally consent to a marriage based on a certain set of sexual boundaries that they expect both partners share.
If he’s not staying inside those boundaries (and lying about it), she’s not able to consent, either to the relationship itself or to intimacy in the relationship.
She’s being kept in the dark so he can keep living a double life. Because he wants to keep the benefits of the relationship, without staying within the boundaries. That’s not partnership. That’s exploitation.
in my interview, Christen defines image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) as the creation, threat, sharing, or use of sexual images/videos without consent or for exploitation.
And then she lists what falls under that umbrella:
Here’s the gut-punch for wives: Her husband is watching other women being abused.
When a husband says, “I would never do anything to hurt you,” he may believe that he’s not harming anyone because he’s just looking at “images.” But the inappropriate media industry involves the abuse and objectification of women, and by choosing to engage with it, he’s supporting it.
Even if he has no emotional “relationship” with the person he’s aroused by on a screen, if his wife is left with distance, disconnection, and feeling like she’s competing with strangers, that’s infidelity.
Of course a husband using inappropriate media wants to maintain the narrative “I’m a good guy.” That’s why he lies about it.
So when women are hurt by these lies, she gets labeled:
That type of gaslighting is emotional abuse. To learn more and to see if you’re experiencing this type of emotional abuse, take my free emotional abuse test.
In helping women face this type of betrayal for almost two decades, I’ve heard some chillingly specific stories of husbands secretly recording wives in showers or during sex and posting it for financial gain. This is nonconsensual recording and distribution. Even if you’re husband isn’t doing this, if he’s watching it, that’s what motivating other men to harm their wives or girlfriends.
Even if something is common or deemed acceptable by some people, that doesn’t make it healthy. Melea describes why industries like this resist regulation: they don’t want their profits to decrease. When consumption of inappropriate media is easy, private, and constant, it creates a culture where:
Wives often experience the effects of this cultural acceptance as:
And all of these erode the foundation of safety and intimacy that marriage is supposed to be built on.
Even the most tech savvy husband who thinks he’s keeping it “private,” can’t guarantee that curious kids, with devices on shared Wi-Fi, won’t be impacted his browsing history.
He’s not just risking damage to a marriage. He’s risking the emotional safety of your children.
Melea Stevens’ board member at The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, talks about a “filter bill”, which creates default safety settings on phones/tablets.
Most women search because they feel betrayed, and they don’t realize it’s exploitation.
If your husband is consuming it, hiding it, minimizing it, and expecting you to live with the consequences of that lie, yes, it’s cheating. And it’s actually so much more. Christen Price and Melea Stevens from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation are on the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to clearly articulate why watching it is so harmful to women.
Anne: I have Christen Price and Melea Stevens on today’s episode. Christen serves as Senior Legal Counsel for the National Center on Exploitation Law Center.
She engages in legal advocacy to end impunity for all forms of sexual exploitation. In her role at NCOSE Christen works to influence courts and legislatures. Toward protecting human dignity and equality on behalf of exploitation survivors, as well as resources to stop human trafficking. Through legislative advocacy, litigation, and support for other attorneys. Particularly in terms of trafficking, prostitution, child abuse, and image based abuse.
Malea is on the board of the National Center for Exploitation.
Welcome Christen.
Christen: Thank you so much for having me.
Anne: I met Christen in person a while back. She impressed me with her passion for protecting victims. I want to jump straight into talking about image-based abuse. What is image based abuse?
Christen: Image based abuse is a broad term. That includes a wide range of harmful experiences involving the weaponization of explicit images or videos. IBSA involves creating, threatening to share, sharing, or using recordings without the consent of the person in them or for exploitation purposes.
So sometimes people call one form of this revenge posting of intimate media, but at NCOSE we try to avoid this term because it implies that the person victimized by it did something wrong to the perpetrator, and that this is some kind of punishment payback. But the reality is that men do this to women for any reason or for absolutely no reason at all.
Anne: Right! I’ve spoken to human trafficking survivors who share their experiences with this. When you say men do this to women. This podcast is specifically for women, victims of exploitation perpetrated by men. And so all of our listeners are women. Well, my intent is to help women.We do have some men listeners, but when you say that, does it ever happen the other way around?
Christen: It definitely happens the other way around. And also women can victimize other women, men can victimize other men. But the victims are disproportionately women, and the perpetrators are disproportionately men. And I think the figures vary somewhat.
In a 2017 US survey conducted with 3, 000 or so participants, one in eight people were targets of distribution. Or threat of distribution of intimate images without consent. Women were roughly twice as likely to be targets of this abuse. Compared to the men in that particular survey.
Christen: But there was another survey by the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. And in their survey, over 90 percent of the victims were women, mostly between 18 and 30 years old. So there’s some variation there, of course. That IBSA affects women and girls disproportionately isn’t in dispute.
Anne: Because I advocate for women, I appreciate those statistics. And letting people know that this is a woman’s health issue. It’s important to women, especially my listeners. Are there news stories that highlight this issue?
Christen: So there is one. It’s significant because it shows the level of impunity people at least think they have when they perpetrate this. They arrested the mayor of a town in Maryland, called Cambridge, late last year. It’s maybe an hour and a half outside of DC where I am. They charged him with 50 counts of non consensual distribution.
The CEO and the COO of —-hub, or MindGeek, the company that controls it, have resigned. You know, this is in the wake of years of reporting, but especially over the last two years. Of how their flagship site facilitates and profits from image-based abuse in the United States. In all of its various forms.
Anne: When Christen says image based abuse, what I want you to think in your mind is pornography. This is what we are talking about. So husbands who are constantly on their phone looking at this stuff. Would you say all of it, or most of it, is image based abuse? For our listeners who are so traumatized by their husband’s use?
Christen: So one thing that might be helpful would be to go down the list of the different things that fall under this category. And then you realize, wow, this is what is on sites and drives traffic to these sites. The whole industry, because it is an industry, is a profitable enterprise to exploit other people in this way. This obviously has implications, even for people who don’t end up portrayed on the websites.
There’s a sense that exploitative materials use is abusive to people in general, especially women and girls. Because it’s incompatible with their full equality in society. If this is a way they can be portrayed with impunity. It has implications for everyone.
Christen: But just to go down the list of the different things that fall under image based abuse (IBSA). One is sextortion, which uses inappropriate images or materials that the perpetrator blackmails the victim. Or coerces them to produce increasingly inappropriate content. So that in exchange, the initial content is not released. So that’s sextortion.
Then, this is the one I think most people think of when they hear the term image based abuse. Non-consensual sharing of images. Which is sometimes accompanied by doxxing, which is you share the content. But then you add the person’s name, their address, or other identifying or locating information.
Anne: Many women in our community have had their husbands secretly video them in the shower or while they were in their bedroom. This kind of behavior is also what marital coercion is. They did not know. And then he posts that online, and other people watch it as “pornography.” Not knowing that they’re actually viewing abuse. That happens frequently to women in our community.
Christen: Yeah, that’s actually the next one I was going to say, which is non-consensual collecting. Swapping and posting of these types of images in groups or in third party platforms. As you noted, if IBSA is used, absolutely. I mean, they didn’t have consent to take the image, let alone to distribute it. Non-consensual recordings of images or videos of other types of activities, they’re not doing anything intimate.
They expect they’re in a private context, like showering in the gym or even in their home or hotel room. So restrooms or locker rooms people put surveillance cameras. We call that downblousing or upskirting. Another form it takes is harassment or assault in virtual or augmented reality. So harassment through direct messaging or assault of somebody’s avatar. Like in a virtual context.
Sending unsolicited material, also called cyber flashing. Identity theft, where people take someone’s images to make artificial or photoshopped videos. It’s intended to portray them as though they’re really in it. We call that cheap fake or deep fake. And then pressuring or harassing someone to self generate or share inappropriate images.
So it’s quite a variety of offenses that fall under this category. And much of it makes its way onto massive public sites.
Anne: I would say the average user has no idea that it is abusive. In fact, when you educate them about it, they dismiss it. They’re like, whatever. In our experience, listeners of this podcast, you’re hurting our family and marriage. You’re also just flat out watching abuse, and it’s like, no, that’s not how it is.
Christen: Do you think people who say that read the tags for the material they’re watching? Because sometimes they tagg it as spycam or locker room or something like that. There’ll be clear indications that it’s not consensual. I’m not saying that’s always the case. But that’s a thing that they to drive traffic. They categorize things.
Anne: What I’m saying is they’re like, yeah, it’s a spy cam, but she doesn’t know. And she doesn’t even know it’s online. So why is it hurting her? One thing I have learned about abusers is they do not want to admit they are abusive. They don’t want to call it abuse. They want to call it anything else, because they want to continue to justify their behavior.
People call this stuff out there spy cam material, not abusive spy cam material. It’s disconnected. In fact, this was fascinating. I talked to a convicted offender. He was like, wow, his mind was blown. He never thought of himself as an abuser, even though he was a convicted offender.
Christen: Wow.
Anne: How prevalent is image based abuse, IBSA and who is the most affected by it?
Christen: It’s impossible to know what percentage of it falls under this, which is one of the big dangers. Because someone taggs it in a certain way. But it’s not necessarily going to be apparent that someone is watching abusive content. Once you put together the fact that this includes CSAM Which is rife on the internet.
Anne: When you say CSAM. Our community commonly refers to that for our listeners who don’t know, as CSCAM. I appreciate that NCOSE and many advocates are trying to change that language.
Christen: No, thanks for saying that. I meant to include that. It is still called in the law in most places. So that’s an important distinction.
It includes extremely violent and dangerous content. Which is pretty obviously harmful, regardless of whether they obtained consent. It includes the type of spy cam and other types of surreptitious recording or non consensually distributed content. So all that is abusive. All of that is exploitive, most of it is illegal in many jurisdictions. Much of what seems to drive traffic to some of these sites is this type of content.
A subreddit on Reddit, I think it’s called wife pic, has 250, 000 members. The abuse is prevalent and rampant. It’s a massive risk. Anyone who consumes it chooses to consume someone’s abuse. A Human Being Is Always Objectified
Anne: We take the stance at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, people disagree with me, and I don’t care. That all use is abusive, period. It’s abusive to someone, somehow. Someone’s coerced, lied to, manipulated and harmed. That is our stance. So when you’re talking specifically about image based abuse. I think you’re also specifically talking about criminal things. People are arrested for those things.
Christen: Yes, or at least sued, in some cases.
Anne: With our listeners, the abuse they’re experiencing, the emotional and psychological abuse, is not a “crime.” So they have a difficult time figuring out how to get help. But it is good for them to know that anyone consuming this type of material. Or producing it will have some danger to you.
Christen: Yes, there’s no exploitative material in which a human being is not objectified. That’s always present. So much of it is extremely violent and degrading, especially to women. Thinking it’s unharmful shifts the norms and expectations for all women. It’s like basically a form of propaganda. It conditions women to submit to violence rather than resist it, among other things.
Women and girls are most affected by it, disproportionately. So especially younger women and girls.
Anne: Yeah, here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, even if the wives aren’t the ones filmed, our husbands use continues to affect us. When we think about the victims in image based abuse, and these degrading acts being visible to other people. Where do people generally post them?
Christen: They’re posted anywhere you can post things. Google will index searches for this type of content. I mean, it is everywhere. Some sites specifically devote themselves to sharing non-consensually distributed content. Really all over chat groups and texts.
Anne: It’s alarming to think about.
Christen: It really is.
Anne: Apps, anywhere you can find anything, you can find it. But I would say the public is not. When you’re trying to explain to people why exfoliative material is abusive, what arguments have you found useful?
Christen: Thinking about how it works as a tactic, and also thinking about the impact, I make it clear that’s the right category for it. Taking the standard definition of abuse, it’s typically a set of tactics. Usually it’s systematic or calculated. That one person uses to gain and maintain coercive control over another.
And it can be physical, emotional, financial or spiritual. Image based abuse fits squarely within that. It’s ultimately about maintaining coercive control over another person. Men have posted things because women wouldn’t go out with them, or because they broke up with them. And when we look at what effect it has on the victims, that also very much tracks with what we understand abuse to be.
Anne: Coercive control is the main theme. When it comes to the husbands. They’re doing the same thing, but it’s in a different way. So they’re using coercive control to manipulate, lie, to gaslight to hide their use. So they’re lying to them about their whereabouts.
Anne: They’re lying about their use of time or why they’re angry about something. Or they’re trying to gaslight to make sure their wife doesn’t know the types of things they’re doing. Because they want their wife to live in a different reality. But he wants his wife to think he’s a good guy.
That he’s a churchgoer, that he’s an upstanding member of society. So it’s that same coercive control to maintain the narrative. I’m a good guy. I’m a good husband. You, wife, you’ve got some problems. And if you would cook better, or if you would be more respectful of me, or if you would appreciate my job more. Then maybe our marriage would be good.
That gaslighting happens all the time. And that is why I want to hit home to the addiction recovery community. Or other communities that these men are abusers. They’re not just users. They are abusive to their wives. And it’s important for people to understand. That we’re talking about a specific type of trauma to the women being filmed.
Anne: Why is it so important to recognize that this is trauma? And people actually document it and then post it?
Christen: Yes, I think it’s exactly what you just said. Their trauma is posted. If I were to sum it up, I would say probably for the three reasons that it’s a really prevalent form of trauma.
Christen: Going back to the statistics from earlier, it’s extremely destructive. People usually commit it with impunity. Impunity just means you’re getting away with it. You’re getting away with the thing in a way that is so clear and obvious, you have no reason to stop doing it. Other people watching what’s happening don’t have a reason to not do the same thing themselves.
Anne: Oh, this is happening in people’s families too. It’s amazing, the parallels between the two, the impunity with the divorce, or they’re still getting child custody.
Christen: Some ways the trauma manifests for the people depicted include high levels of anxiety, PTSD, depression, shame and humiliation, loss of trust and agency.
The risk of suicide is very, very high. Some 51 percent of people responding to one survey said they had contemplated suicide due to their experience with image based abuse. It’s also important to note that this is a form of abuse that never ends. Someone else can always share or upload the images. It may never fully go away.
It’s an abusive situation, a person may never fully exit. Survivors shared with us that their reputations are completely lost. They’ve lost jobs or had to leave jobs because of the level of harassment directed at them. When people realized it was them in the videos. They’re constantly anxious in social situations, wondering if someone has seen the content.
They’ve had family and other relationships destroyed because of this, so it, it really manifests. Like other forms of trauma.
Anne: The federal government passed a law against revenge —ography.
Anne: Can you tell us about the law?
Christen: It provides victims with the right to sue for non-consensually distributed content. If the person who disclosed it knew or recklessly disregarded the depicted person’s lack of consent. So when it allows people to sue for damages, it allows them to potentially get a temporary restraining order. Or an injunction, basically ordering the perpetrator to stop displaying or disclosing the image.
There are some exceptions that I think are a bit concerning about who can bring an action under this law. So basically, there’s an exception called matters of public concern or interest. In my view, it is vague and appears to exclude any possible cause of action if something is deemed to fall within that category. And my perspective on that is famous or well known women shouldn’t be public property either.
It doesn’t address the rights of a person if someone is not well known. There was no public interest in appearing in content alongside someone who was. That’s one exception that raises a flag for me. And then there’s another exception related to commercial content.
Basically, it means content with people who appear under 30 if force does not produce it, fraud, misrepresentation, or coercion. They would accept that kind of content. In some ways, it means that the websites most likely to be exempt are ones most likely to have people under 30 exploiting younger people.
It also exempts the websites and people likely to profit from the display of the content. So if someone ran his own website with younger looking people. He couldn’t be sued by his wife or ex girlfriend for non-consensually posting her images on it. As long as she isn’t coerced to make the video.
Christen: To me, these are exceptions that are worrisome, and ultimately I think make the law incomplete. But I think it can be useful for some victims to have legal recourse.
Anne: When you say consent, that word is just fraught in our community. Because women give their consent to marry, for example. They’re giving their consent to be in a relationship, but that doesn’t mean they give their consent to be abused. When you say, yeah, they consented to participate. But they’re not consenting to be manipulated or gaslit. This law is a he said, she said. Is the consent issue clear when it comes to this law? Or does it get caught in the same kind of rape/domestic violence problems? Where you can’t ever prove it.
Christen: It’s a good question. It’s hard to say right now, because no one has tried to use the law yet. I think a lot depends on how judges interpret it, and how it’s actually used. This type of law is not covered in the federal trafficking law, which covers it. The standard for whether something meets the definition of trafficking is whether it features a minor? Or was it produced through force, fraud, or coercion?
So in a sense, consent is arguably not a defense if people mean agreement. People can coerce you into agreeing to something. You can be deceived into agreeing to something. If either of those two things are present, the crime is still committed. So I think it remains to be seen if this specific law will take a similar view.
Christen: It seems to anticipate that people may produce content through coercion and deception. That’s included in the law. It wouldn’t necessarily let you sue a commercial website, but it would let you sue the person who posted it. So they seem to anticipate coercion as possible in this context, but I think a lot will depend on how things end up being interpreted.
Anne: We’ve spent a lot of time talking about this. I know some of you listening are victims of this. Like your own husband has posted things of you, or you’re a victim of revenge ___ography. You’re a victim of abuse in this way. Many of you, I personally talked to you, and you have been afraid to press charges. Number one, because you’re not sure if you want a divorce, you’re not sure if things will work out with your husband.
I want to encourage you to do something. The best hope for your husband not to be abusive is to actually account for his crime. Even if you think there’s some chance it will work out. I still think if he were truly changed, truly repentant, truly non abusive, he would take accountability for what he’s done.
And so reporting it is an important step. So I know that reporting domestic violence, especially if it is your husband or your boyfriend, is important. It’s a safety issue, so I want to acknowledge that.
Anne: At the same time, there are resources available.
Christen: Yes, one of the main resources we recommend is the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. It’s specifically helpful for victims in the United States. They have a crisis helpline, and the number is (844) 878-2274, and you can talk to a counselor 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They also have an online removal guide. Which walks people through instructions for how to address content they found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Google, Snapchat, and other sites.
And then they also have some international resources for people in Australia, Brazil, Israel, Palestine, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. Our main recommendation is definitely to contact them. Listeners are also welcome to contact the NCOSE Law Center. We do have a number of lawsuits addressing image-based abuse. Although at the moment, almost all concern child abuse victims. Adults who were minors when their content was posted.
We have lawsuits against big suppliers
Anne: Many of our listeners actually might be victims and might not know it at all. We are here for you. NCOSE is here for you. And the resources she just talked about are here for you.
If you’re a concerned woman and you want to advocate to make this world safer. You need to check out NCOSE at endsexualexploitation.org.
Christen: Speaking broadly, there is a market for this kind of content on —-hub and all these other sites. Demand drives markets. So the first thing a regular person can do, especially men and boys, is not consume the abuse. This is a profitable industry. It is driven by the fact that people want to see this stuff.
I would also say if you’re in one of the two states that currently don’t have a law against this type of content. Definitely advocate with your local leaders for such a law. I think there’s a need to educate boys and men and the public about this issue in a way that puts the responsibility for it where it belongs.
I think that in many ways, as a society, the way we talk about assault has changed for the better. We’re not just telling women to watch out or blame them for not fighting back. You know, we recognize that it’s on men not to perpetrate, and I think the same applies with this issue.
We can’t just tell women and girls to watch out or be more careful. We need to teach men and boys not to perpetrate. Part of the importance of this abuse framing is doing that. It’s calling this thing by its right name, calling it by the term that shows how seriously wrong it is. And how seriously abusive to human rights.
Christen: And I think that’s a big part of what any person can do with any type of gendered violence or abuse. To call the thing by its right name. I think so often men’s violence against women, abuse of women and girls, is disappeared by how we talk about it. Or the fact that we don’t talk about it. So I think that’s a big thing that any person can do.
Anne: I’m reminded of the Jackson Katz quote. “We talk about how many women were raped last year, not how many men raped women.” For our listeners, since they’re not men and boys, the number one thing you can do is get to safety in your own home. The number one thing you can do is learn how to get to safety yourself, and how to ensure your own home is safe. That’s number one.
When your own home is safe, the number two thing you can do if you want to get involved is check out the NCOSE Website. They have many campaigns there. You can get on their email list. I’m on their email list. I love it when I get their emails. Things like, sign this petition or send an email to your Senator. And they give you a template of things that you can do. So at least, that gives you some scaffolding to start making some progress.
If you want to do something, but you don’t know where to start. The NCOSE website, and they have a summit every year, and getting involved that way is a good way to start making change in the world.
Anne: I want to say for me personally, when I was in my abusive relationship. I was so focused on addiction recovery, I didn’t understand it was abuse. So I went down the wrong road for a while. And I was also involved with NCOSE which was awesome. And I loved it, but I spent a lot of time trying to solve the world’s problems.
Not at that time to actually get to safety myself. And I have found that I am much more effective in making the world safer when my own home is safe. And it’s impossible to make the world safer, so that your home is safe. It’s much easier to make your home safe first, and then help the world, than the other way around. You can actually literally, within a few years, three to six years, actually make your home a safe place. It takes a long time.
It’s hard to learn boundaries. It’s hard to learn these skills, but it is possible. The fight and exploitation that we are all involved in, it’s like a worldwide battle that will take a long time. And so don’t wait for that. Don’t think, okay, well, when, the US passes a law that it’s illegal and my husband can’t watch it anymore, then I’ll be safe.
Please do not wait for that. Get to safety now. There is a peaceful and safe place.
Christen: One final thing from me, it’s just a broader point that I think reflects some of the things we’ve talked about I think the way people often perceive it can follow this pattern. Of the way that the invisibility of various forms of violence and abuse against women is invisible. Whether the abuser is a pimp, a husband, a boss, or a film producer.
Violence and abuse are not seen as political, systemic, as an attack against women as a class. And I think it’s important that we identify this as the sort of systemic thing that it is. Because it’s incompatible with gender equality in a society.
Anne: It is systemic, because when our listeners try to get out, they go to a therapist, they go to clergy, and they get like, oh, it’s a communication issue, or, oh, you’re just not having it enough. They don’t get, oh, he’s abusive. I went to therapy for seven years with an emotional and psychological abuser who also coerced me. I did addiction recovery for seven years. No one told me I was abused. It is insane.
I go to a church with an on the books doctrine and policy that no abuse will be tolerated. And all my clergy were like, oh, he’s such a good guy. They didn’t know it was abuse. I didn’t know it was abuse. Because of that misunderstanding and not labeling it for what it is. Women are continually harmed. And men continually abuse with impunity. And it is absolutely systemic and dangerous, not just for women, but also for men.
Anne: Because they can’t have a healthy relationship or have a peaceful, healthy life if they’re abusive. So, the answer for everyone is healthy, non-abusive interactions with other people, and non-exploitative interactions. So thank you for all your work again. I cannot stress enough how important their work is. Please visit their website, endsexualexploitation.org.
Anne: Christen, thank you so much for coming on today’s episode.
Christen: Thank you so much for having me.
Anne: Okay, Melea, you got involved with NCOSE, because you’ve seen young children addicted to online inappropriate material for over 23 years, thanks for talking with me today.
Melea: Thank you for having me
Anne: Melea lives in Alabama. She’s currently working on passing a bill in her state. We’ll also talk about how you can help protect children online in your location. Can you tell us about what’s going on in Alabama right now?
Melea: We worked to pass what we call a filter bill. It’s a bill that would require tablets and smartphones to have the filters defaulted on. One of the names it had was the default to safety bill. We had different names at different points, but a similar bill passed in Utah a few years ago. And we wanted to pass it in Alabama. Several other states are interested in introducing it.
One reason we wanted to promote this bill is that we know 47 percent of young children have their first unwanted early exposure on smartphones and tablets. It’s just a common sense protection to have pre existing filters already on smartphones and tablets defaulted on. Versus putting the burden on caregivers and parents to try to go through 30 some odd steps on many devices to figure out how to activate existing content filters.
Melea: We have Supreme Court precedent that says it is preferable for protections to come at the filter level on devices. We know this bill would be upheld in court. And we’re confident it would be very enforceable. And all it is simply doing is asking that three major companies, Amazon with the Kindle, the Apple products and Google with their products, have smartphones and tablets.
That a software update would happen, which is a very simple fix. We’ve talked to software experts who work closely with device manufacturers. They would just do a very simple update that would allow phones activated in Alabama to have the default on instead of off with the content filter. And it automatically has broad based protections for young children, so they’re less likely to stumble across online inappropriate material at an early age.
People would say kids will find ways to get around it, obviously, but we were talking about very young children who aren’t even thinking about it that stumble upon this content. And it Is very traumatic to them to not understand what they’re looking at and the way it affects their brain. This gives them extra years of innocence, safety, and protection. I had the honor of speaking to different parent groups.
And have spoken to schools and churches in areas where kids don’t have involved parents. And those children, child on child, harmful behavior is rampant in those communities. Parents just hand children devices. They need resources to stop human trafficking and this behavior. No one’s looking for them, and they can become addicted to online inappropriate material and they act out what they see. That’s what children do. They copy what they see.
Melea: Then there’s a cycle of abuse happening and a cycle of trauma. So I especially think about those children when I think about this bill. We’ve been excited. We had a great response and had 67 bipartisan co sponsors in the House, and it passed through committee with bipartisan support. We got to the Senate, it passed through committee with bipartisan support. There are people working hard to stop human trafficking and help with this effort.
It was poised to be passed through the Senate. But we had one person in the Senate, who refused to allow it on the calendar. It only takes one or two people to set the calendar. They blocked it because a lot of opposition turned up to fight along the way. And that’s been true in every other state. Big tech has been our opposition. And telecommunications companies have also shown up at all our hearings with their lobbyists.
Even though our bill has zero to do with companies like AT&T or Verizon. They’re not held liable. It’s explicitly stated in our bill. They would show up, because unfortunately, big tech and telecommunications companies and the industry will sometimes fight common sense browsing protections for kids. And it’s really sad. But that’s one of the things we dealt with. Unfortunately, this gentleman blocked it. We assume there was pressure from lobbyists and one company in particular.
Anne: They’ll say all kinds of reasons that aren’t real. What’s the reason they don’t want to do it? Is it just simply money, this type of exploitation is sadly about money.
Melea: Money is a big factor. We know that historically, Google, AT& T or Verizon, do they get back general profits from online explicit material?
Melea: They do, and they have. There is potentially a loss of revenue. Big tech hates regulations. They do not want to be restricted in any way, shape, or form. They don’t want to give up an inch. So I think money, power, and resistance to any form of regulation. To me, it’s a safety feature on a on a car or something like requiring that they have proper antilock brakes on a car, something reasonable. And in this case, it’s just a simple software update. All the technology is there.
Anne: I hope this does not sound too political, but I’m a patriot saying, I’m grateful for all the government services we have. We have roads, we have a military, we have things in place to keep us safe. And that’s only something that the government can do, because the government is all of us. So I am so grateful that we have these opportunities to protect us. We need to do that through the government, because nobody’s going to willingly do that.
Although NCOSE has worked well with some companies. So that is exciting. They provide resources to stop human trafficking and are helping this bill to pass.
Melea: Absolutely, yeah, there’s opportunity. Companies respond to positive communication and sometimes negative. We have what’s called the dirty dozen list, and name and shame the main promoters of exploitation. We have had tremendous success, because once things are brought to light, it’s been refreshing that several companies have changed their corporate policies and resources to stop trafficking or unwanted exposure to online inappropriate material.
This has been a very tooth and nail fight all along the way. The opposition will say, well, you should just be fighting the online inappropriate material, instead of asking the manufacturers to do this at the device level, which I agree. We are like the National Center on Exploitation, and many of our allies are constantly fighting the industry to make changes there. But I wish our government was stepping up in this issue.
Because the laws on the books on a federal level would prohibit the production and distribution of hardcore online inappropriate material, which is the majority of harmful on the internet. And also our laws prohibit the distribution of all online inappropriate material, whether soft core or hardcore, from our internet. But our department of justice for many years has not been enforcing federal obscenity laws. That leaves us to tackle this issue of illegal content through corporate strategies and legislation.
Through lawsuits, like we have lawsuits against providers that are, we’re winning right now. We’re gutting companies because of lawsuits that we have with survivors. So we’re having to go at it every different angle.
Melea: And to everyday citizens that want to make a difference and make an impact when it comes to stopping and resources to stop trafficking and exploitation in general. At NCOSE, we understand that you’ve got to go upstream. I don’t know if you’ve heard the analogy of seeing people floating down the river drowning. You rush in to try to pull out as many as possible, and you’re struggling to get as many to safety as possible.
And you do this for a long time until you’re exhausted, but you’re not able to get to everyone. Eventually you come to this idea of like, I’ve got to go upstream and figure out who’s throwing people in the river. And so you go upstream and find out there’s someone who’s shoving all these people into the river. And in this case, that’s the industry because today’s mainstream online inappropriate material is highly addictive.
It changes their belief system, gives them permission, giving beliefs about consent and buying. People become objects. It’s creating a world of harm. And we know that if we did not have rampant, hardcore material if it was restricted to adult bookstores. Like you had back in the eighties with soft core material. As bad as that was, if we just lived back in that world, that’s what our laws on the book say.
Melea: Our world should look like when it comes to online inappropriate material in the United States. There should be nothing on the internet, nothing on cable, or satellite TV. Can you imagine how different our world would be if our children could go through their developmental years without exposure to it around every corner? So that’s what we strive for is a shift in cultural expectations.
But then there are also practical things we’re doing to interrupt the cycles of things feeding trafficking. So we’d love for them to come to our website. It’s endsexualexploitation.org. And if you go to the action center, you can immediately get involved in helping us stop human trafficking and winning these victories.
Anne: I recommend NCOSE because so many people are talking about trafficking these days. And I have a really interesting story that is super alarming. So, one of my friends was on an airplane, and she was sitting next to a man, and they started talking about politics. He said, “I’m voting for this person because of his record on trafficking, because he will protect the children.”
Her ears perked up and she was like, oh, really, tell me more about this. He said, yeah, there’s these people are stealing these kids and we’ve got to stop it. And then she said, what do you do for a living? And guess what he did for a living?
Melea: What?
Anne: He owned a strip club.
Melea: Oh my gosh. You’re kidding.
Anne: No, so here’s a man who is an actual literal trafficker. He owns a strip club. And he’s talking about this nameless faceless group of people who’s like kidnapping kids when we know who they are. It’s him.
Anne: We know who the exploiters are. It’s obvious. Getting involved with NCOSE is so awesome, because it’s clear what’s happening. So that you can say, okay, this particular Senator, he’s the one blocking this bill. We can write to that particular Senator and ensure that this bill gets passed.
So I love that NCOSE clears out all the confusion, because at least this man who owned the strip club loved saying, oh yeah, we got to stop trafficking to distract from the fact that he was a trafficker. We need the resources to stop human trafficking, which NCOSE has.
Melea: Talk about denial and hypocrisy, or else just a good marketing scheme there, yeah.
Anne: That is scary these days. So I love that NCOSE is a very reputable organization that has been around for a long time.
Melea: They do their research, and they are careful about the details before they speak out. That’s one reason I’m hesitant as a spokeswoman for NCOSE. I want to make sure I do my best to accurately present the facts, because they have such a high standard when it comes to what they share and do.
They’re very intentional and I respect that about them and they will correct themselves if there is something that they find out is inaccurate, but they do things with a lot of integrity and they get a lot done with a very small budget and a small group of people.
Anne: Well, that’s the other thing I love about NCOSE.
Anne: Because so many people talk to me about it, they’ll be like, nobody’s doing anything. And I’m like, every year, NCOSE with their dirty dozen list, they make progress. They have wins. And if you’re on their mailing list, you’ll get messages, and it’s so amazing to be part of that, because you can feel the momentum. And as much as this online stuff is this overarching, exploitative, abusive, systemic problem. It affects every woman who listens to this podcast.
And so many families all over the world, it’s horrific. It needs to be stopped, it’s an abuse issue. The exploiters, they don’t want people to know that progress is being made. They want people to think it’s a lost cause or fine, and what’s your problem? We should just let this go. Or the alternative, which is, there’s nothing you can do.
Melea: They want it to seem that it’s a right and an entitlement, first and foremost. They don’t want people to know that it’s illegal. They want people to feel this is a free speech issue. And it’s not, it’s not protected speech, but you would think that’s the case given everything they do. They have all these organizations that are under misleading names, such as this free speech coalition, various names that make it sound like they’re anti exploitation as well.
They have some groups that sound like they’re anti trafficking, that they’re actually the industry putting up a false front to sound like they’re being benevolent, and they’re doing everything they can to undermine decency in society.
Melea: So you have to do your homework and dig deep when it comes to these issues. A legislator presented this filter bill, just like in our state and in other states. Several groups came in acting like they were, pro family, pro children presenting Trojan horse stills that sounded anti exploitation, and people fell for it. It’s a very sneaky opponent. Thankfully, the law is on our side, science is on our side.
As we educate the public about the harms of it on the brain and relationships in society. And as we educate the public about what the law actually says. They become empowered to push back against this evil industry.
Anne: And so that my listeners are not distracted by actual traffickers who say, Hey, I want to stop trafficking. So you don’t accidentally support a trafficker. NCOSE is the place to get your information to stop human trafficking. They are trustworthy, they’ve been around for so long, and they do their homework. And they know who the specific people are and talk about specific actionable things. That’s what makes it so effective.
Melea: Well, thank you so much. Enjoyed my time with you.
Anne: Yes, you too. Thank you.