Cover image credit to East2West News, retrieved from Unilad. 3-minute read.
Another day, another disturbing story about hidden cam footage ending up on porn sites.
Here’s what happened.
Ukrainian gynecologist Dr. Vyacheslav Tripolko has been accused of secretly filming his female patients’ private medical procedures and uploading them to porn sites. The charges emerged when one of his patients discovered a video of her own ultrasound published on a porn site. Responding to her report, local police found a hidden camera installed on Dr. Tripolko’s office computer.
Authorities suspect Tripolko used the hidden camera to record dozens of female patients’ appointments and sell the footage of the naked or partially naked women to online porn platforms.
He denies these charges, claiming that rival gynecologists in his practice must have snuck into his clinic and installed the camera without his knowing.
Porn’s ultimate privacy invasion
Dr. Tripolko is still under investigation, and it remains to be seen just how involved he actually was in the production and distribution of his patients’ intimate footage.
But regardless of the trial’s outcome, the facts are simple: hidden cam footage uploaded to porn sites is a problem because there’s demand for it.
There are few things more private and personal than an invasive medical procedure, yet even those are entertainment-worthy in the sexually exploitative world of online porn. Consider how the countless laws, medical practices, cultural norms, and official procedures to protect and respect an individual’s healthcare and medical privacy are disregarded entirely in this disturbing case.
But when have porn sites been known to refrain from crossing serious boundaries with the content promoted on their platforms?
No matter who is responsible for the hidden camera in the exam room or the uploaded videos of the medical procedures, porn sites bought or otherwise allowed the videos to be uploaded and distributed with no check as to the legality or otherwise unacceptable nature of the content.
If it should be protected, porn has exploited it
Sadly, nonconsensual content gets uploaded to porn sites daily. This story is not isolated.
There’s image-based abuse—or revenge porn—of unsuspecting exes finding what were once private photos or videos displayed across the internet.
There are cases like this one from Ukraine, where over 80 men had what they thought was a private, consensual sexual encounter that was secretly filmed and distributed online.
Related: Why Over 22,000 Women In South Korea Are Protesting Against The Spycam Porn Epidemic
There are former performers like Mia Khalifa who, after choosing to leave the industry after a few short months, have to fight continually for ownership of their content—and most often lose.
Then there are the countless instances of voyeuristic porn, when someone films another in a sexual, compromising, or intimate context without their knowledge or consent and posts it online. Coaches have posted videos of girls changing in locker rooms. College students have installed secret dorm room bathroom cameras to capture footage for porn sites. Bosses have filmed employees in vulnerable conditions. World-famous K-pop stars have shared secret footage of themselves raping unconscious women.
And of course, there is heartbreaking reality of child exploitation porn. That’s as nonconsensual and invasive as it gets.
As if this violation of consent is not heartbreaking enough, modern technology tends to worsen it. Consider how once media content has been published online, it is almost impossible to completely remove it.
This kind of personal violation can cause serious mental, emotional, and psychological harm to the exploited. A person’s privacy gets reinvaded every single time someone clicks on their exploited content. It can take a lifetime to recover and move on from this violation.
It can’t be ignored that the porn industry is an active creator, distributor, and enabler when it comes to privacy invasion and exploitation.
It’s time they be held accountable for building a global empire that profits from and distributes such privacy violations. You with us?
