Campaigner and reality TV star Georgia Harrison has said sexual content shared without consent should be automatically taken down after a conviction.
The former Love Island star told MPs that a video of her having sex with former partner Stephen Bear, which was made and shared on OnlyFans without her consent, “went viral to a point I can’t explain”. She said social media giants must have 24-hour helplines for victims to report unconsented videos and pictures after intimate footage of her spread online like a “house fire“.
Bear served 10 and a half months of a 21-month prison sentence for voyeurism and two counts of disclosing private sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress. But Ms Harrison, 29, said it was a “kick in the teeth” that the content was not automatically taken down after the court case.
Asked what the impact would be if content was deemed illegal once there was a conviction, she said: “It would make every single bit of difference. I think there’s almost 30,000 images and pictures that the RP (revenge porn) helpline have already said have gone through the court case – they’ve won so they are technically illegal – but they are still legal right now.”
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She said it could be done through the Online Safety Act and would change tens of thousands of women’s lives. She went on: “For me, it would mean that I know I have a future knowing full well that no one is going to be able to find or see that video of me again, as they shouldn’t. But until this gets made illegal, that’s not going to happen.”
Ms Harrison said she tried to get footage of her taken down but some of the platforms hosting it only offered automated responses. Appearing before the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, she said: “It absolutely horrified me that an individual had done this to me but what most horrified me was that these platforms were hosting these videos that were unconsented.
“For many that I tried to reach out to I got an automated response saying we will get back to you within four to six days. When something like this is happening, it is really like a house fire. The quicker you can put it out, the quicker you can stop it. Unfortunately in four to six days your house has burned down. Everyone knows about this video, your family, your workplace, your peers and it’s just too late.”
She said it was vital to be able to get through to the companies immediately to report it, adding: “It shouldn’t be robots you’re getting through to when it’s this important a situation, it shouldn’t be that hard to get through to someone.”
Ms Harrison admitted there were times that she felt like giving up on the legal process but she was determined to stop this happening to someone else. She said: “I felt I had been at such an injustice not just by the man that had done it to me but by the platforms that used me to make money on their behalf, they literally used this unconsented video to make money off me, and I felt it was something I didn’t ever want to happen in the future.”
Ms Harrison also told MPs that she struggled to work for two years and had to move in with her mum because brands dropped her. She said her “my body deteriorated with my emotions” after she discovered the video online. “For the first few days, I was really just going through waves of complete sorrow and shock,” she said.
“It got to the point where I was so emotionally affected by what happened to me that I ended up being physically ill as well to the point where I was in hospital for five days over Christmas a little bit after the incident because the stress took such an effect on my body. I ended up having a cyst burst and I got an infection and literally it was just like my body deteriorated with my emotions.”
Thousands of victims have been in touch with her over the past three years – and she still gets “five to six messages a day,” she said.