Online violence against women has been reaching alarming proportions in Brazil and worldwide. Given the extensive public debate surrounding one aspect of this issue, specifically the phenomenon of unconsented dissemination of images (commonly known as revenge porn), and the diagnosis that we were facing a problem without adequate legal responses, we initiated a project in 2015 with the main goal of understanding how the law addressed this phenomenon.

The team analyzed all judicial decisions on the topic of revenge porn in the São Paulo State Court of Justice and reinforced their conclusions by interviewing various actors within the justice system. The project also included a case study on the practice of creating so-called “slut lists” in schools in São Paulo (the “Top 10” list). As part of the project, a critical review of the bills being processed in the National Congress and the existing public policies proposed by the Executive branch was conducted to seek solutions to the issue.

By mapping the alternatives that the law offers to combat the unconsented dissemination of images, the investigation debunked the common belief that there are no legal alternatives but highlighted the problems that arise when the existing alternatives are applied in the judiciary. These and other results of the work were published in the book “O corpo é o código: estratégias jurídicas de enfrentamento ao revenge porn no Brasil” (in English, “The Body is the Code: Legal Strategies to Confront Revenge Porn in Brazil”) in an exclusively digital format available for free download under a Creative Commons license.

A Comparative Analysis among 27 Countries

The project goes further and provides a comparative perspective on the Brazilian context compared to that of 26 other countries, considering their bills, laws, and judicial decisions. The investigation resulted in the report “Fighting the Dissemination of Non-Consensual Intimate Images: a comparative analysis” (english version).

After the completion of the project, the team continues to intervene in the public debate on the topic by conducting workshops, participating in and promoting events, congresses, and seminars, as well as making recommendations to entities such as the Brazilian National Congress and the United Nations (in english) regarding state or private responses to minimize the effects of online violence against women and the unconsented dissemination of intimate images, specifically.

Some examples of these efforts to raise awareness of the topic and its comparative portrayal include the publications of the articles “Violación de la intimidad en internet en Brasil: Un abordaje sociojurídico” (in the book “Género y TIC” by the Mexican research center Ecosur), “Entre el perpetrador y la víctima: el papel de los intermediarios de Internet en las violaciones contra las mujeres” (in the Spanish journal “Sociología y tecnociencia” from the University of Valladolid), and “Not Revenge, Not Porn: Analyzing the exposure of teenage girls online in Brazil” (in the 2015 Giswatch – Global Information Society Watch report).