On Friday evening, UCD released a statement declaring that they had failed to unearth evidence to suggest that the reports of the existence of a “revenge porn” group were factual.
The story first broke in an article in The College Tribune.
According to the investigation by Professor Mark Rogers, “the evidence cited in the article was based on hearsay from anonymous comments on Yik Yak”. Furthermore, the investigation found that “the editor and reporter of the article were aware that the source quoted in the article was basing her information on hearsay. The claims in the article have been fully investigated and have been found to be unsubstantiated”.
And while I can’t discredit the investigation conducted by UCD for fear of a defamation suit, I will say that certain paragraphs in the report indicate that it itself was not substantial.
In the report's own findings, Ward Solutions, an independent IT Security firm, confirmed that “to determine any information relating to the use of social media (beyond what is publicly available), a court or legal order is required to the social media provider”. And as the investigator did not pursue such an order, it's fair to believe that the report did not examine the accounts of any suspected student, nor did it trace any online activity.
As Professor Rogers so eloquently puts it, the failure to identify such a site could not represent absolute proof that such a site did not exist.
But anyway, UCD’s report and 'findings' are a different story. The purpose of this piece is to say it really doesn’t matter.
Naively, I reacted to the UCD revenge porn story with disgust and annoyance. I thought it was disgraceful that intimate images be shared and rated; inflicting shame and humiliation on college-going girls. I thought this violation of privacy and trust was terrifying. And then through the launch of our
#StandAgainstUCD200 Digital Abuse survey - a survey that we had been working on for some time with Women's Aid - I realise this supposed group of students was the mere tip of a much deeper iceberg.
The reality of digital abuse is far darker, far more common, and far more violent.
Calm down media lawyers, I’m not suggesting those who were or were not involved in a potentially factual or fictional group of students are violent domestic abusers, but I am saying that the results of this survey reveal an epidemic.
3,000 people took the survey and spoke up about the issue.
Of those, 35% had experienced digital abuse of some sort. The type of digital abuse was split evenly with 27% categorising it as bullying and 27% categorising it as sexually explicit. 23% experienced both forms.
We heard stories of targeted abuse from people who had been intentionally victimised and embarrassed on social media. Abusers ranged from one-night stands to long term partners and husbands, lifelong friends, colleagues and strangers.
The abuse ranged from strangers trolling, stalking and leaving aggressive and offensive comments on pages and photos. In a significant number of instances, the abuse transpired to real life occurrences of violence.
The survey respondents begged us to make a difference.
They commented that laws needed to be reinforced, that the experience is terrifying and that the faith in the Gardaí to prosecute in cases of digital abuse is minimal.
The effects of the abuse were the most upsetting. Respondents commented that they felt worthless, that they felt ashamed, scared and in an overwhelming amount of reports, they lost trust in people.
So see, UCD200 really doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter because this is a much bigger issue and it’s happening right now, on way more social media channels and by many more people. By males and females, students and professionals, in Dublin, in Ireland and in Europe.
What we need to do now is to respond. We need to legislate and we need to make lasting change.
And sure, for the time being, let’s be thankful that “it didn’t happen”.
But let’s not for one second believe that suspicions were "unsubstantiated".
There’s still time to take our survey HERE.
We will be presenting findings from this survey tomorrow evening at The Project Arts Centre at our first live #HerTalks event.
Limited availability. Please RSVP to Grace.OReilly@Her.ie to attend.
