Married at First Sight (MAFS) has dived deep into one of its most messed up plotlines yet. From what we were shown Olivia Frazer seemingly found and distributed nude pics of Domenica Calarco from her OnlyFans or some other site. Conversations around revenge porn have emerged since the moment aired, including the legality of sharing around images that already exist on the internet.
Given everyone and their nonna is talking about the photo scandal on MAFS, it’s important that we get a few things straight about what “revenge porn” actually is.
Is revenge porn illegal?
First, let’s talk about things in a legal sense before we move on to the ethics of it all.
Legally, revenge porn is often referred to as “image-based abuse”. It’s a crime in all states, although the punishment varies across Australia.
The name “revenge porn” comes from the fact that in most instances, someone will use an intimate image of a partner to either blackmail them or “get revenge” on them once the relationship is over.
In section 91Q of the NSW Crimes Act, “a person who intentionally distributes an intimate image of another person without the consent of the person, and knowing the person did not consent to the distribution is guilty of an offence”.
Basically if you obtain a nude image of someone and distribute it around without their explicit consent, that’s a crime.
Section 91O of the NSW Crimes Act further elaborates on the meaning of consent when it comes to image-based offences.
“A person who distributes an image of himself or herself is not, by reason only of that fact, to be regarded as having consented to any other distribution of the image.”
So yeah, if you knew someone who put up some pics on OnlyFans and then had them distributed by someone else, that someone else could potentially get in a lot of legal trouble. I’m talking jail time of up to three years kinda trouble here.
What do lawyers say about revenge porn?
We spoke to James Janke criminal lawyer and director at Hamilton Janke Lawyers about revenge porn.
We asked whether sharing an image from OnlyFans is considered illegal and whether or not you can get into some serious trouble for it.
“If someone has come across these images without being a member of the OnlyFans site — or even [if they are] a member but there’s a caveat on the membership that you’re not to share them with anyone — but they have intentionally shared them with another person or people without the consent of those depicted, knowing that or being reckless to the fact that the person depicted does not consent, then that is an offence under section 91Q in the Crimes Act of NSW,” Janke told Pedestrian.TV.
However, Janke said things get a little more confusing if the image was in fact found on social media apps like Twitter that we all currently use.
So what happens if someone posts their nude content on social media?
According to Janke, if you were to find images of someone on social media as posted by that person, it may be hard to prove that you intentionally distributed those images either knowing or being reckless to the poster’s lack of consent.
That’s due to the public nature of Twitter and the fact that usually, posts on that forum are made with the express intent that the material will be viewed and considered by as wider an audience as possible, including by being on-shared and spread around the internet.
Distribution could still be considered an offence, but it would be harder to prove to the criminal standard. OnlyFans, however, has a paywall guarding the content and also has set rules against distribution.
What does OnlyFans say about distribution?
To put it quite plainly, you should not be distributing anything from OnlyFans. Not only is it against the rules of the site and very much illegal, but it’s also a scummy fkn thing to do.
Here’s what the site says regarding distribution:
“You must not reproduce, distribute, modify, create derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, republish, download, store, or transmit any of the material on the Website.”
Well, there you have it.
