FEMME Magazine

PEPPER SPRAY HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN

REVENGE PORN THE EPIDEMIC HURTING THE RGV

FUNDS FIGHT BACK ABORTION FUNDS AFTER SB8

Plan B One-Step works silmilar to other birth control pills to help prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex. The sooner you take it within 72 hours, the better it works.

Plan B shouldn’t be used as a regular form of birth control, as it only stays in your body for a short amount of time and works to help prevent pregnancy after only one instance of unprotected sex.

If you find that you are using emergency contraception frequently, talk to your doctor about finding a regular birth control method that’s right for you—as regular birth control pills are more effective.

Keep in mind: Plan B won’t interfere with your regular birth control methods or make them any less effective.

CONTENTS 02 THE LILITH FUND DURING SB8 06 THE SOCIAL STORY OF

HOMEMADE PEPPER SPRAY

14 UNDOCUMENTED FOLKS AND ABORTION IN THE RGV

22 EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ANONME

EXCLUSIVE

08 BETO FOR TEXAS AD

SB8 UPDATES AND SUPREME COURT

10 SUPREME COURT BREAKING SILENCE

Subscribe to our Newsletter

619 CEDAR LANE , WEST PALMER, NY 07093 +1-303-777-0202 CONTACT@FEMMEMAG.COM

WWW.FEMMEMAG.COM

Pro-Choice posters held by protesters during Texas march

How Texas's Oldest Abortion Fund Is Responding To The State's Abortion Ban

By Gabby Shacknai For more than two decades, the Lilith Fund has provided financial assistance and emotional support to people seeking abortions in Texas, and for much of that time, the organization has fielded up to 50 calls a day. In the two days immediately after the state’s sweeping new abortion ban went into effect, however, the group’s hotline received a total of just 20 calls.

“It doesn’t mean that all of those people just stopped needing help with their abortions,” says Shae Ward, director of the Lilith Fund’s hotline. “It means their choice got taken away, and they no longer have any options or know if it’s safe to reach out.”

While abortion has not been altogether outlawed in Texas, it remains legal only until a fetal heartbeat can be detected about six weeks into pregnancy, which is roughly two weeks after a woman’s first missed period.

2

The new law, officially titled Senate Bill 8, has been making headlines around the country, and indeed the world since it was enacted at midnight on September 1, but it has been worrying abortion rights advocates in Texas for much longer. As one of many anti-abortion introduced in the Texas Legislature’s 2021 session, it initially sent alarm bells ringing in March and produced full-out panic when Governor Greg Abbott signed it into law in May. Growing increasingly concerned over S.B.8 and its impending effects, the Lilith Fund began preparing without hesitation for the worst-case scenario. “Before S.B.8 was passed, we were doing a lot of work with our partners around policy to try to stop it, so when that didn’t happen, we had to switch gears to see how we could continue to serve the people in our community,” Ward says. “Since this bill directly targets abortion funds,

“Keep Abortion Legal“ Poster during Texas Pro-Choice march

"They are trying to prevent people from accessing care, and the confusion and fear is the tactic they’ve decided to use." support organizations, and clinics—basically all the work that we do—we had to get lawyers to figure out how we could still operate and fully comply with all state and federal laws. So, that meant going in and looking at our operations and seeing what we could change and how we could communicate that with others so that they know we’re still operating, even with this new law enacted.”

Though it had over a dozen clinics in its network before the law went into effect, the Lilith Fund has had to expand the list of clinics it works within recent days. The number of abortion providers in Texas was dwindling long before S.B.8, and those remaining are now facing the threat of extinction in the wake of lost business. But with abortion after six weeks now prohibited, women who are further along in gestation have no choice but to leave the state to terminate their pregnancies, due to this,

the organization has had to look beyond state lines.

“We’ve had to reach out to clinics out of state to explain that we want to continue to support Texans and ask if we can work with them when clients want to go to their facilities,” Ward explains.

In addition to inhibiting access to abortion—and violating the Supreme Court’s decisions on both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992)—S.B.8 enables private citizens to enforce the ban by filing lawsuits against anyone who “engages in conduct that aids and abets” an abortion after the six-week mark, be it the patient, the provider, or even a Lyft driver who provides transportation. This burden of enforcement has already proven to be fear-mongering and confounding to many, which Ward believes is to blame for the Lilith Fund’s declining call volume. "It basically incentivizes a flood of harassing lawsuits against the support network

3

that exists for Texans, and that’s very intentional,” the hotline director explains. “With this new law, they are trying to prevent people from accessing care, and the confusion and fear is the tactic they’ve decided to use.”

To combat the confusion spurred by the law, the Lilith Fund, alongside similar organizations, has been using NeedAbortion.org to provide women with information not only on clinics that have the capacity to serve them but also on S.B.8 itself. “People can refer folks there so they always have an accurate, up-to-date resource on abortion access in Texas and the organizations that can help them access that care,” says Ward.

Whole Womans Health Clinic

“We are committed to fighting for people’s access, so if this lasts a while, so will we.”

Despite the turmoil caused by the new law, though, the organization, which received a little more than $566,000 in individual contributions last year, has seen a continued influx of donations over the last week. As a result, the Lilith Fund has already been able to offer grants that surpass its $350 average and help more than the 30% of callers it currently funds.

“At this point, we have our normal budget in the back of our head, but we’re also aware that we’re getting a surge of donations, so we’ve already been increasing our voucher amounts and trying to serve everybody as soon as possible,” Ward notes. “So, it’s been great to have that support to allow us to continue to do this work.”

4

And although donating to the Lilith Fund and like-minded organizations is a great way to ensure S.B.8 does not stand in the way of Texans’ access to abortion, the hotline director believes that sharing resources, like NeedAbortion.org, and spreading awareness is the best course of action to prevent similar bans across the country. “This is so harmful and dangerous to the community, and it’s being done by the people who are supposed to protect us,” she says of the new legislation.

“Listening to marginalized communities and what they have to say and leaning into a reproductive justice framework can only help to create a future where everybody has the right to parent or not parent.”

Even as the Supreme Court refused to block the Texas ban, hope remains that it will be struck down in the months ahead. But unlike the law, the Lilith Fund is far more certain about its future. “I don’t know what the other side plans, but our plan is to continue to do the work that we do and fight to make sure that people have abortion access,” Ward says. “We are committed to fighting for people’s access, so if this lasts a while, so will we."

For more information on The Lilith Fund and abortion care access, visit www.lilithfund.org or email info@lilithfund.org

Girl’s Secret Weapon: A DIY Pepper Spray Aims To Help Women Use In Self-Defense

By Rhaelyn Harder We have seen and heard a lot of incidents involving girls that had been robbed, kidnapped, and even molested.

Having such an unsafe environment, a brilliant idea shared on social media had gone viral as this might help girls to protect their selves.

A Facebook user, Marry Ferjel Babasa, shared her DIY pepper spray detailing how she made it at home with a caption: “Dahil marami na ang bad guys ngayon, I’ll share my lifesaver hack. Super easy and affordable so no hassle."

Indeed the hack was pretty simple, all you need is an empty spray bottle and two to three chili peppers. To make it, first, you have to cut the pepper into small pieces, then put it in the bottle with water in it then shake it as a final step and it’s all done.

Coconuts Manila had an interview with her through Facebook messenger and she said that the Philippines is not safe anymore. Babasa wanted to share her creation with all the ladies for them to be informed that it might be useful for self-protection.

“I shared this so everyone, especially the ladies, will be informed about it,” she said.

Marry Fergel Barbasa

Does it really work?

"The DIY pepper spray really does work. To test its effectiveness, people can spray it on a piece of paper and take a whiff. With the strong aroma of the chili pepper, surely it does really work."

Babasa was really shocked by the responses of the netizens as she didn’t expect that her post would go viral and most who have reacted are girls, which made her think that girls nowadays seek protection.

How did you react to your post being viral?

“I was really shocked with the number of shares and most of it were girls. And that gave me the idea [of] how us girls really seek for protection,” She started making her DIY pepper spray in 2016 and every six months she would replace the mixture with a new batch. Though she never used it with someone, she says, “It’s better to be prepared.”

6

A Guide To Homemade Pepper Spray

Cayenne Pepper

Water

Alcohol Black Pepper

Vegetable Oil

Instructions: To start, mix dry ingredients in a bowl with water.

Then, strain the mixture and mix with oil and alcohol.

Funnel in the mixture into a spray bottle.

Let the mixture settle overnight and it's done!

7

GOOD PAYING JOBS, EQUAL OPPORTUNITY,AND AN ECONOMY THAT WORKS FOR ALL TEXANS "Our economy isn't working for everyone when black Americans have 10 times less wealth than white Americans.

Let's level the playing field by ensuring access to good jobs, higher pay, skills training, and a fair shot at economic success."

PAID FOR BY BETO FOR TEXAS

Supreme Court, Breaking Silence, Won’t Block Texas Abortion Law

Marry Fergel Barbasa

The law, which prohibits most abortions after six weeks and went into effect on Wednesday, was drafted by Texas lawmakers with the goal of frustrating efforts to challenge it in federal court.

10

By Adam Liptak, J. David Goodman and Sabrina Tavernise The Supreme Court refused just before midnight on Wednesday to block a Texas law prohibiting most abortions, less than a day after it took effect and became the most restrictive abortion measure in the nation.

The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the court’s three liberal members in dissent.

The majority opinion was unsigned and consisted of a single long paragraph. It said the abortion providers who had challenged the law in an emergency application to the court had not made their case in the face of “complex and novel” procedural questions. The majority stressed that it was not ruling on the constitutionality of the Texas law and did not mean to limit “procedurally proper challenges” to it.

But the ruling was certain to fuel the hopes of abortion opponents and fears of abortion rights advocates as the court takes up a separate case in its new term this fall to decide whether Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to the procedure, should be overruled. It also left Texas abortion providers turning away patients as they scrambled to comply with the law, which prohibits abortions after roughly six weeks.

All four dissenting justices filed opinions.

“The court’s order is stunning,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. “Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”

“The court should not be so content to ignore its constitutional obligations to protect not only the rights of women but also the sanctity of its precedents and of the rule of law.”

“The court has rewarded the state’s effort to delay federal review of a plainly unconstitutional statute, enacted in disregard of the court’s precedents, through procedural entanglements of the state’s own creation,” Justice Sotomayor wrote.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote that he would have blocked the law while appeals moved forward.

“The statutory scheme before the court is not only unusual, but unprecedented,” he wrote. “The legislature has imposed a prohibition on abortions after roughly six weeks, and then essentially delegated enforcement of that prohibition to the populace at large. The desired consequence appears to be to insulate the state from responsibility for implementing and enforcing the regulatory regime.”

The chief justice underscored the tentative nature of the majority’s ruling. “Although the court denies the applicants’ request for emergency relief today,” he wrote, “the court’s order is emphatic in making clear that it cannot be understood as sustaining the constitutionality of the law at issue.”

Justice Elena Kagan criticized the court’s practice of deciding important issues in rushed decisions without full briefing or oral argument — on what Supreme Court specialists call its “shadow docket.”

“Today’s ruling illustrates just how far the court’s ‘shadow-docket’ decisions may depart from the usual principles of appellate process,” she wrote. “That ruling, as everyone must agree, is of great consequence.”

“Yet the majority has acted without any guidance from the court of appeals — which is right now considering the same issues,” she wrote. “It has reviewed only the most cursory party submissions, and then only hastily.

And it barely bothers to explain its conclusion — that a challenge to an obviously unconstitutional abortion regulation backed by a wholly unprecedented enforcement scheme is unlikely to prevail.”

“In all these ways,” Justice Kagan wrote, “the majority’s decision is emblematic of too much of this court’s shadow-docket decision making — which every day becomes more unreasoned, inconsistent and impossible to defend.”

Continued on next page

11

The Texas law, known as Senate Bill 8, amounts to a nearly complete ban on abortion in Texas because 85 to 90 percent of procedures in the state happen after the sixth week of pregnancy, according to lawyers for several clinics. On Tuesday night, clinics were scrambling to see patients until the minute the law went into effect, with six-hour waits for procedures in some places. By Wednesday, the patient lists had shrunk, clinic workers said in interviews.

The law is the latest battle over abortion rights in the United States. In recent years, anti-abortion campaigners have found success through laws in state legislatures, and a broad swath of the South and the Midwest now has limited access to abortions.

Texas has about 24 abortion clinics, down from roughly 40 before 2013, when the State Legislature imposed a previous round of restrictions. It was not immediately clear on Wednesday if every one of them was complying with the law, which the Republican governor signed in May, but many, in interviews, said they were.

In the emergency application urging the justices to intervene, abortion providers in the state said the new law “would immediately and catastrophically reduce abortion access in Texas,” and most likely force “many abortion clinics ultimately to close.”

Supreme Court precedents prohibit states from banning abortion before fetal viability, the point at which fetuses can sustain life outside the womb, or about 22 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. The law in Texas says doctors cannot perform abortions if a heartbeat is detected, activity that starts at around six weeks, before many women are even aware they are pregnant.

Many states have passed such bans, but the law in Texas is different. It was drafted to make it difficult to challenge in court.

Usually, a lawsuit seeking to block a law because it is unconstitutional would name state officials as defendants. However, the Texas law, which makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape, bars state officials from enforcing it and instead deputizes private individuals to sue anyone who performs the procedure or “aids and abets” it.

The patient may not be sued, but doctors, staff members at clinics, counselors, people who help pay for the procedure, and even an Uber driver taking a patient to an abortion clinic are all potential defendants.

Plaintiffs, who do not need to live in Texas, have any connection to the abortion or show any injury from it, are entitled to $10,000 and their legal fees recovered if they win. Defendants are not entitled to legal fees.

That novel formulation has sent clinics scrambling.

Dr. Jessica Rubino, a doctor at Austin Women’s Health Center, a small, independent clinic in the state capital, said that at first, she wanted to defy what appeared to be an unconstitutional law. But she said she concluded that doing so would put her staff at risk.

“My staff is nervous.

They’ve been asking, ‘What about our families?’” .

“If this was a criminal ban, we’d know what this is and what we can and cannot do,” Dr. Rubino said. “But this ban has civil implications. It requires a lawyer to go to court. It requires lawyers’ fees. And then $10,000 if we don’t win. What happens if everybody is sued, not just me?”Dr. Rubino said her clinic had “struggled so much to come up with any plan to take care of anyone” under the new law, and on Wednesday was sorting out what the new policies would be. For example, she wondered, if someone knows they are more than six/ seven weeks

12

pregnant — roughly the new legal limit — should the clinic advise them to go out of state and not waste money on an ultrasound?

given the way the law is structured, only Texas courts can rule on the matter and only in the context of suits against abortion providers for violating the law.

Doctors who are sued, even if the suit is dismissed, have to report the lawsuits when they renew licenses or obtain hospital admitting privileges, according to Amy Hagstrom Miller, the chief executive at Whole Woman’s Health, which operates four clinics in Texas.

The Supreme Court’s ruling was provisional. The challenge to the law remains pending in the lower federal courts, and they are poised to sort through the complex issues in the case.

There was little indication of the shifting legal ground outside the Planned Parenthood Center for Choice in Houston, the group’s only location in the city that provides abortion services. A blue bus offering free pregnancy tests from an anti-abortion group, a regular presence, sat across the street. But inside, the effect was clear: Dr. Bhavik Kumar, a staff physician, said he had seen six patients by Wednesday afternoon, down from his usual 30.

At Whole Woman’s Health of Fort Worth, the last patient appointment was completed at 11:56 p.m. on Tuesday, said Marva Sadler, the organization’s senior director of clinic services. She said doctors started early on Tuesday morning and treated 117 patients, far more than usual.

“It was absolutely organized chaos.”

“Patients were waiting upward of five and six hours to have their procedures done.” She said patients were waiting in their cars, and also in the waiting room. Some were told to come back later. On Wednesday, she said, the clinic was in uncharted waters. Of the 79 people on the schedule, she estimated that about 20 would be able to eventually complete their procedures. Many, she said, would be too far along in their pregnancies to be treated under the new law.

“People are confused,” she said. “They don’t know where to go. They don’t know what this law is.”

The immediate question for the justices was not whether the Texas law is constitutional, but whether it may be challenged in federal court. The law’s defenders say that,

As the law came into force, Democrats assailed it and pledged to fight to retain abortion rights in Texas and nationwide. In a statement, President Biden said the measure “blatantly violates” the constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade.

In its next term, which starts in October, the Supreme Court is set to decide whether Roe v. Wade should be overruled in a case from Mississippi concerning a state law banning most abortions after 15 weeks that has been blocked by the courts.

The Texas case, which was on the court’s “shadow docket” without a full briefing or oral arguments, leapfrogged the one from Mississippi.

The Texas and Mississippi laws are among many measures enacted by Republican-controlled state legislatures intended to test the durability of Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that affirmed Roe’s core holding and said states may not impose an “undue burden” on the right to abortion.

The lawmakers behind the various state-based measures are betting that the Supreme Court’s recent shift to the right will lead it to sustain the new laws. The court now includes three members appointed by President Donald J. Trump, who had vowed to name justices prepared to overrule Roe v. Wade.

Two months after Senate Bill 8 was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, abortion providers in Texas filed suit in federal court, naming, among others, every state trial court judge and county court A federal trial judge rejected a motion to dismiss the case and scheduled a hearing on whether to block the law. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, canceled the hearing. The challengers said are minimum entitled to a decision on their request for the law to be temporarily suspended.

13

Undocumented And In Need Of An Abortion In Texas' Rio Grande Valley

By Alanna Vagianos For someone seeking an abortion after their sixth week of pregnancy in Texas right now, the answer is simple: leave. Travel to a different state where you can access an abortion after six weeks, which, in Texas, is illegal under S.B. 8. It’s the only option left, even if it’s a logistical and financial nightmare.

deportation. Those are your two options if you’re undocumented and pregnant and don’t want to be.”

But what if you can’t travel out of state? What if traveling at all ― whether to go to the grocery store or the nearest clinic three hours away ― puts you at risk of being detained or deported? That’s the reality for undocumented people trying to access abortion care in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

Home to around 1.3 million people, the Rio Grande Valley is an “abortion clinic desert,” said Cathy Torres, the organizing manager at the Frontera Fund, a reproductive justice organization that provides financial and logistical support to undocumented people in the valley seeking abortions. The region, which includes four counties, only has one abortion clinic, Whole Woman’s Health in McAllen — the only abortion clinic from San Antonio, Texas, (four hours north of the valley) to Mexico City (eight hours south).

The valley sits at the southern tip of Texas, an area bordered by the Gulf Coast on the east and the Rio Grande River along the U.S./Mexico border on the west.

Within 100 miles of the border, the valley also contains nearly 20 internal immigration checkpoints run by the Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Patrol. If an undocumented person comes across one of these checkpoints and is asked to show documentation but doesn’t have it, they will be immediately detained. rs say that, “You can’t go to Mexico if you’re undocumented and you also can’t leave the valley because an hour north of you there’s another man-made border crossing,” Torres said.

“You’re either forced into parenthood or risking...

When Texas passed the country’s most extreme abortion restriction in September, advocates and providers scrambled to ensure people could still access the procedure out of state. Practical support groups worked around the clock to handle ride shares and flight costs; physicians and staff distributed information about these resources to patients; and state and national abortion funds raised money to help pay for procedures in other states. (Various courts have ruled to uphold or stay the law in recent weeks, further adding to the confusion of Texans seeking abortions.)

But organizers like Torres and Anna Rupani of Fund Texas Choice are worried that not enough attention is being paid to the barriers undocumented people are experiencing in the wake of S.B. 8.

"Undocumented folks are being left out of the conversation."

15

16

Border Patrol checkpoints and abortion clinic deserts are the most glaring barriers for undocumented Texans in the wake of S.B. 8, but they’re not the only obstacles.

Abortion care costs, lack of access to resources in Spanish and other languages, as well as the continued militarization of the border are constant deterrents for undocumented folks seeking abortion care in the Rio Grande Valley.

The cost of an abortion in the Valley is very high — ranging from $800 to $1,500, depending on gestation — because the few clinics left in or near the area are privately run. In comparison, the average cost of an abortion in other areas of Texas, like Houston, is around $600.

And although coverage like Medicaid is available (albeit to a limited degree) for undocumented immigrants, it doesn’t matter: The Hyde Amendment, first passed in 1976, restricts federal health insurance from covering abortion procedures. Rosie Jimenez, a native of the Rio Grande Valley, was the first known victim of the Hyde Amendment after she attempted to get an abortion in 1977 but couldn’t afford the procedure because Medicaid no longer covered it. Jimenez later died after going to an unlicensed midwife who offered to do the procedure for less money. (Texas has its own version of the Hyde Amendment, S.B. 214, which passed in 2017.)

Language is another big roadblock, especially for undocumented people who are attempting to navigate really complex laws — like S.B. 8 — written in English.

“Other than from advocates like ourselves, where have you seen information about S.B. 8 talked about in other languages?” Torres asked. “It’s confusing enough in English. Expecting other people who speak different languages to just understand this when we are still learning about it, that’s an issue.”

Sharon, an undocumented woman currently living in Texas who asked to be identified only by her first name to protect her identity, had an abortion in 2016 and was forced to travel to New Mexico because she was unable to get abortion care in Texas, which had a 20-week ban in place at the time. Although she was on a student visa then, Sharon said she was still worried about traveling.

Abortion funds helped her raise $9,000 in three days so she could fly out of state and get an abortion later in her pregnancy.

“It was really scary because at that time I was on standby on my student visa because I didn’t study that semester. They said if I didn’t study my visa was going to be out of status. So I was like, what am I going to do?

What if I fly and something happens? I was really scared,” she told HuffPost.

Sharon didn’t have issues with a language barrier since she studied English in her home country, but she did see how hard it would have been if she couldn’t speak English. When she was at her appointment at the New Mexico clinic, Sharon had to translate for a woman who didn’t speak English. At one point, the woman called Sharon from her hotel room because she was in such severe pain after the procedure and needed Sharon to speak to clinic staff for her.

“It’s confusing enough in English. Expecting other people who speak different languages to just understand this when we are still learning about it, that’s an issue.”

“If I didn’t speak English, I know for sure it would’ve been impossible to get an abortion,” Sharon said. Nancy Cárdenas Peña, the state director for the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice in Texas, also pointed out how the militarization of the border and immigration policy impact undocumented residents seeking abortions. S.B. 4, which passed in 2017 and allows state police officers to act as immigration agents, has only further marginalized undocumented folks.

17

Bo“There’s always been a steady increase and funding of military and police in the valley to quell a so-called border crisis that doesn’t seem to exist for people in the valley but for some reason it exists for the governor,” Cárdenas Peña said.

When looking ahead at the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade ― the landmark decision that protects a person’s right to an abortion ― Torres was realistic about life for many in Texas: “We’ve already been navigating a post-Roe world,” she said. “Being from a community that is often left out of the conversation and faces more disparities than other regions, abortion is not accessible whatsoever here, especially if you are undocumented.”

For more information on Frontera Fund and how you can help,

visit www.fronterafundrgv.org or call (967) 887-0706

And if Roe is overturned, it will only get worse. “I’m a human being. I’m really scared about Roe v. Wade being overturned,” she admitted. “You have so many people who say, ‘That’s so extreme, it would never happen.’ But everyone said S.B. 8 was extreme and wouldn’t happen and look at where we are now.”

19

Everything You Need To Know About Revenge Porn Site AnonMe

By Alma Fabiani Surely you’ve heard of revenge porn before, but hopefully, you’ve never been introduced to the term as a victim of it. Revenge porn is defined as “revealing or sexually explicit images or videos of a person posted on the internet, typically by a former sexual partner, without the consent of the subject and in order to cause them distress or embarrassment.” While many of the videos and pictures end up on mainstream porn websites such as Pornhub, there is one platform in particular that takes pride in specializing in revenge porn hosting: AnonMe.org Although it is now called AnonImages instead of AnonMe, nothing else seems to have changed for the infamous website. Despite a recent crackdown on revenge porn in many countries, on AnonMe, users still share and ‘trade’ pornographic photos of others. The website somehow runs unchecked. What is AnonMe about exactly and why are we still dealing with these kinds of platforms?

What is AnonMe? AnonMe is a non-consensual pornography (NCP) image board, also called a revenge porn site, which allows users to post adverts asking for information about someone specific. Personal details such as photographs, videos and even workplaces are then provided by other users on the platform, which the subjects obviously do not consent to being shared.

The requested content is then shared by anonymous users without any explanation on where it came from in the first place. Most images published are titled with the woman’s real name, and more often than not completed with an age and location too. As expected, underneath the pictures and videos shared on AnonMe, users (most probably male ones) leave insulting comments such as ‘slag’, ‘slut’ and more misogynistic slurs of the same type.

22

Originally called Anon-IB, the website was shut down in 2018 after Dutch authorities arrested three of the platform’s administrators in April 2018 and seized its server. Things had been quiet since then, but not forgotten as Reddit and 4chan users still posted about Anon-IB from time to time, asking where the new alternative could be found.

While it seems unlikely that the exact same people who ran the first site are running the new versions of it that appeared between 2019 until now, users have flocked to it regardless with many requesting content they remember from the previous original site As previously stated, AnonMe is nothing more than a copy of the original Anon-IB. However in this case, newer seems to implicate crueller too. According to a Motherboard article on the birth of AnonMe published in February 2020, founder of the anti-NCP advocacy group Battling Against Demeaning & Abusive Selfie Sharing (BADASS) Katelyn Bowden explained that “while AnonIB was willing to work with groups like BADASS to take down photos when victims asked, sites sharing NCP

currently will now instead move content behind a paywall when victims—including underage victims— complain.”

Of course, none of these websites can be applauded but it is clear that revenge porn and the platforms that host it are only getting worse and worse, and so is their impact.

Who runs AnonMe? Similarly to the Fappening or Anon-IB previously, tracking the person or people behind AnonMe remains hard to achieve. First of all, the domain’s name is registered anonymously through a service in Russia that hides evidence of where the site is hosted. On top of that, AnonMe is protected by the internet security firm Cloudflare, which protects websites from malicious floods of traffic.

Surprisingly, it is not the first time Cloudflare has run into controversy. In the past, the security firm also protected sites dedicated to hateful content such as 8chan and neo-Nazi websites. Meanwhile, in 2019, Cloudfare banned a site that was meant to help sex workers stay safe, which endangered many sex workers by pushing them off internet platforms.

Long story short, the people behind AnonMe remain anonymous—for now, unfortunately. This website and the behaviour it promotes does nothing less than to encourage and promote a predatory mindset, bringing abuse and stalking along with it. While websites like this are still able to run, the people behind them run free too.

Instead of making elaborate plans to stop teenagers from enjoying a bit of porn here and there, should we not focus on the source of the problems that some porn websites truly represent?

“I felt violated and exposed.

I trusted someone with those images. To think they are capable of sharing them with the world haunts me.

Who knows what else may be out there.” - Anonymous

If you or someone you know has been a victim of revenge porn sites, contact RGV SAFE Project at rgvsafeproject@gmail.com

23

Leave plastic in the past

Buy our new tote line today!