Previous two chapters described unquestionably negative factors contributing to a female celebrity's online experience related to social media. It it important to notice that the ordeal was also involuntarily; an unforeseen consequence of seemingly innocuous actions, rooten in the trust put into leading Internet companies, and, obviously, other users.
Among the undeniably adverse occurrences, it is, however, necessary to remember that famous American women are not fated to encounter problems every time they log into their accounts; social media, above all, provide an opportunity not only to defend oneself and respond to criticism and comments about sudden vulnerability, but also to take a stand against it, as well as other forms of mistreatment experienced by the victim, and others.
Moreover, besides expressing internal, personal feelings, social media allows users to share concepts and ideas they support with a large and usually diverse audience.
The term “activism” might bring to mind taking literal physical action and steps towards reaching a chosen goal or drawing a wider attention to a situation or a problem. Examples of such processes involving or centering around women can be traced – most noticeably – from past decades (suffragettes being probably the most recognisable one) to the present day (Iranian women publicly opposing mandatory veiling in hopes to regain the right to present themselves in accordance with their beliefs and will).
Even though those movements, among others, were, and still are, widely discussed and popularised through the Internet and, ipso facto, social media, they did not specifically start within the online community. In his book, Tweets and The Streets. Social Media and Contemporary Activism, Paolo Gerbaudo (2012) informs the reader that online activism is not as foreign and unfamiliar of an occurrence as it might seem.
“Where self-managed activist internet services like Indymedia and activist mailing lists were the media of choice of the anti-globalisation movement, contemporary activists are instead shamelessly appropriating corporate social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Commenting on this enthusiastic adoption of social media, pundits and journalists have readily resorted to expressions like ‘the Facebook revolution’ or ‘the Twitter revolution’.” (p. 2)
As with many popular movements, online activism gets divided into categories and manifests itself within different realms of focus. The types of activism described in this chapter are going to be divided into two categories: societal issues and political activism.
Aforementioned mandatory veiling can be considered related to the first category, however it is associated with a law upheld in a Middle Eastern country. In Women and Politics in Iran: Veiling, Unveiling, and Reveiling, Hamideh Seghdi (2007) details the coercion to the reader:
“From the outset, unveiled women became a social anathema but veiled women acquired revolutionary credentials. Extolling the concealed women, women's bodies were ordered to be disguised like “pearls protected inside a shell”, as street murals conveyed and communicate today. Veiling guarded Islam, but significantly, it hid women's sexual power/energy from eliciting public disorder by distracting and arousing men sexually.” (p. 211)
Taking cultural differences into account, one might wonder what decree or societal norm western women, especially those who are famous, might struggle or have issues with? From being the first to be granted the right to vote, to being in a complete control over their lives and choices (which, sadly, still cannot be attributed to women and girls in numerous contemporary societies), the lives of the female part of the populations of North America and Europe appear desirable and praiseworthy.
However, behind the facade of liberty, there are various concerns and questions, still unanswered, that shatter the seemingly perfect notion of such life, and, by the fact itself, motivate female celebrities to try to have a say in discussions and debates about a certain commotion.
In the early seventies the Supreme Court in the United States decided that providing an access to abortion as well as the procedure itself would no longer be treated as a criminal offence. The infamous case is known as “Roe vs Wade”, as those were the name and the alias of the opposing sides that took part in the case. Since the legal settlement American abortion clinics have been providing approximately 300000 terminations every year. In their book, Abortion Politics: Public Policy in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Marianne Githens and Dorothy Stetson (1996) describe the long-lasting effect of the case:
“(...) In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled in the case Roe vs. Wade that abortion fell within a woman's zone of privacy and struck down a restrictive Georgia abortion law in the companion case Doe vs. Bolton, the right to obtain an abortion has continued to be hotly debated (…). The case for an against abortion is regularly made in homes, in churches, in the media, and in legislatures across the country.” (p. 7)
Abortion and access to contraceptives (often called “reproductive rights”) for many seem to be a big part of western women's liberation. Even though the concept of a woman's right to choose her own way of living is mostly seen as positive, the meaning of liberation varies. Just as the accessibility of medical procedures mentioned above might be seen as an improvement on women's life, there are those – also females – that bear a different perspective.
One of the most influential pro-life advocates is a famous California-born journalist Lila Rose. As Marsha Vanderford (1989) explains in Vilification and Social Movements: A case study of pro‐life and pro‐choice rhetoric, the term “pro-life” (as opposed to “pro-choice”) is a name given to a person or organisation that disagrees with abortion, as well as any other form of ending a human life by another person. They also support adoption and promote taking care of the elderly, both of which are alternatives to terminating pregnancies and providing an access to euthanasia for people who are close to their natural passing or death caused by severe or terminal illnesses. Interestingly, in her book, the author also mentions the abundance of pro-choice personalities in media, therefore making the case for activists like Lila Rose:
“Patterns (...) delineated powerful individuals in media, business, and politics as pro-choice supporters. Media executives were consistently linked to pro-choice action.” (p. 171)
Rose, on her website, describes herself as: “a speaker, writer and human rights activist. Lila founded and serves as president of Live Action, a media and news nonprofit dedicated to ending abortion and inspiring a culture that respects all human life.”
Besides more traditional form of online presence, like websites, Rose uses several social media platforms that help the advocate spread her message.
Similarly to Facebook, Twitter does not only allow its users to share content and comment on it in a conventional form. Adding the commentary directly above the shared post is a popular feature which allows the user's remark to be seen by everyone, not just those who directly open the comment section. Rose seems to use this function a lot in order to target a larger audience.
The Twitter posts quoted below come from the activist's account (@LilaGraceRose) and are written in a form of the described reply.
"Since 2015, at least 16 babies were born alive in Florida after failed abortion attempts. We don't know what happened to these little ones. Were they given sufficient medical care to survive? Will we ever get to hear their stories?" as a response to "Over the past few years, according to online reports, there have been 16 abortion survivors born after abortion attempts in the state of Florida."
"Thank you, Nebraska @GovRicketts for ending federal funding to Planned Parenthood through Title X. Planned Parenthood is the largest recipient of Title X funding, and every dollar frees the abortion giant up to pay staff and lobby for more tax dollars." as a response to "Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts signed a budget Wednesday that will eliminate federal family-planning funding to Planned Parenthood of the Heartland."
"Your [Planned Parenthood] abortionists violently tore apart 900 children today, some of them old enough to survive outside the womb. All were helpless.
You took money from parents who were scared and struggling and sold violence and death as a solution to their struggles." as a response to "Everyone has the right to lead a life that is healthy & free from violence (...)"
The tweets, obviously, give the reader and users an insight into the author's view, but, simultaneously, help them understand how social media has alleviated a woman's ability of signalling ideas and engaging in discussion.
Even though a female celebrity might already have a degree of recognition and capability to use long-established means of sharing her opinions (interviews, authoring a book), a direct message with an option of an easy engagement in conversation creates a sense of ability – and, in many cases, the ability itself – to actually take part in a case one is interested in supporting or debating. Davidson (2008) details the importance of such opportunity:
“Managers and leaders routinely use a variety of techniques, such as encouraging informal social interaction and creating and maintaining strong organizational to help people feel a part of the whole organization (Schein, 1985). One's sense of feeling included is most crucial because it strengthens affective commitment to the organization.” (p. 172)
Societal issues – abortion and adoption being not only not an exception, but a popular and returning points – are thoroughly linked to politics. On the other hand, they rarely stem out of it, however, an issue discussed publicly by a politician or a party might start a nationwide debate, involving, besides ordinary voters', the opinions of those with an already established fanbase and following.
The 2016 American presidential election seems to be a good example of such involvement.
One might safely assume that the fact that Hillary Rodham Clinton became one of two main candidates in the race to the White House greatly encouraged female celebrities to start social media based political commentary. Since the wife of the former president, Bill Clinton, had the chance to become the first female to take the office, numerous famous women used their Internet platforms to show their encouragement.
However, similarly to the previously discussed issue related to abortion, there were also those who disapproved of Clinton's candidacy. The opponents did not hesitate to detail their stance by using social media accounts as well, and – what was easily predictable – both sides drafted a wide attention for their activity, which resulted in a great number of favourable, but also, what seemed inevitable, critical comments.
It is important to remember that the purpose of this chapter is to present the famous American woman's availability to debate political turmoil (that had an impact on them as citizens) that presidential elections usually bring, and analyze the experience. The examples and quotations presented below do not ai at judging the person's position or opinion, but are supposed to illustrate and provide details of said online environment.
During the presidential campaign in 2016, Katy Perry (full name Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson) – one of the best selling American pop artists worldwide - became a prominent and dedicated supporter of Clinton. Among various public ventures, notably designing shoes named after the candidate and dedicating one of the songs on her album Witness to the loss of the supported Democrat, Perry used her Twitter account, which is currently followed by over 100 users, to show her approval for Clinton. By adding a popular hashtags created by other supporters, she announced:
“YOU GOT THIS @HillaryClinton #DEBATES”
"She's smiling with ease cause #shesgotthis #ImWithHer #debatenight"
"RT if you're already preparing a seat at the table for @HillaryClinton"
As mentioned above, despite the tweets being targeted mainly at the singer's fans and the followers of the Democratic candidate, Perry also faced criticism for her posts. Under the article of the writer Jerome Hudson (Katy Perry Begs Democratic National Convention To Vote For Hillary Clinton), working for the political news site Breitbart, they commentators demonstrated their contempt for the woman's plea and actions. The author of the most popular (given the most votes by other readers) comment claims:
“(...) EMPTY mind, you vapid c_nt. Empty, not open. Make an IQ of at least 110 a prerequisite for voting rights, and all America's problems will be gone. Make it a requirement for performing in public, and we'll never hear from Katy Perry again.”
The statement clearly indicates the person's derogatory attitude towards the woman in relation to her gender (“vapid c_nt”), as well as doubt in her mental abilities, calling her mind “empty”. Even though it is unknown whether Perry saw the comment, it is safe to assume that she must have been aware of the opinion others have of her for supporting the chosen candidate, since the post, as previously mentioned, gained a big applause of the readers of the article.
Nevertheless, since there were two candidates hoping to become the resident of The White House, both of them gathered supporters amongst the famous.
Keeping in mind the point made earlier – that Hillary Clinton could have become the first female president of The United States – it seemed that she was the one to have the majority of female celebrities as allies. Scholars Bremner, Soufer, McCarthy, Delaney, Staib, Duncan, and Charney (2001) support the theory in their article, Gender Differences In Cognitive and Neural Correlates of Remembrance of Emotional Words:
"Studies suggest that men and women have important differences in specific cognitive functions. (...) women rely on emotional content to a greater degree in the processing of information." (p. 56)
The emotional aspect of having a representative of their gender among American leaders was undoubtedly an important factor that lead many female celebrities to show Hillary Clinton their appreciation. Nonetheless, her rival, Donald John Trump, managed to attract various popular names as well.
Kaya Jones (real name Chrystal Neria), a singer raised in Nevada, who was once performing with a popular all-girl music group The Pussycat Dolls, did not conceal her support for the Republican candidate. Similarly to Perry, Jones decided that Twitter would help her spread her opinion and approval:
"I want to show other celebrities who voted for @realDonaldTrump it’s ok to come forward. Better yet let’s show the world how many Americans stand with him. Bullies shouldn’t be allowed for almost a year and a half to bully us without cause. If you voted for him just Like or RT"
She even used a hashtag invented by Trump's opponents to show her support:
"Trump that’s who. Himself even more fabulous #CouldBeatTrumpIn2020"
The statements received a negative feedback as well. In an interview with Willie Pena, as an answer to the question about being criticized for openly supporting the candidate, the woman admitted: “Yes. I've received death threats.”
Jones, however, is not the only famous ally of Donald Trump. Blaire White, a political commentator with a following of almost 400 thousands users on her YouTube channel, admitted to voting Republican in the 2016 election. White is usually considered as phenomenon, since transsexuals have always been associated with the opposite side of the political spectrum, a theory that is backed in Rawyn Connell's (2012) Transsexual Women and Feminist Thought: Toward New Understanding and New Politics:
"The political meaning of transsexuality began to be negotiated in the US New Left (...). Several small, radical transsexual/transvestite groups formed, and they issued a manifesto calling for social justice." (p. 4)
White shares her experience from the point of view of a trans female who has publicly voiced her approval of the candidate. Marie Solis adduces White's interview with Newsweek, where the YouTuber describes a physical assault she has endured:
"I have never been assaulted for being trans. I’ve never had anyone on the street say anything nasty to me about being trans. But I was assaulted for wearing a Trump hat. I think that speaks for itself."
Although such reaction to someone expressing their political leaning might seem exaggerated, Henrik Urdal reminds that, surprisingly, it is to be expected in countries like The United States: "The opportunity literature suggests that the opportunity for political violence is greater the less autocratic a state is (…)" (p. 613)
In summary, the chapter described a new opportunity for famous women not only to join a discussion, usually related to a popular or controversial topics, but also to spread their message and opinions more easily. Despite already having an audience, social media allows a celebrity to engage with followers and commentators in a way that is quick and gives the impression (and, obviously, the real experience) of having an impact on The United States and the world's current struggles and events.
23 September 2018
7 September 2018
Hacking [women in social media - part 2]
Identity theft is only one of many misconducts that, with the popularization of the Internet, started to occur online. Though similar, as it involves stealing personal data, the purpose of hacking differentiates from creating a fake persona. In her article, Why Do People Hack?, Carol Finch describes various reasons for such activity, one of them being especially relevant in cases of the famous being the victims:
“Some hackers use their skills for criminal activities. On a personal level, a hacker might break into someone's computer and take control of it -- this could give him access to passwords and financial information that he could then use to defraud the individual. On a larger scale, groups of hackers might target companies as part of a wider criminal operation. For example, in 2014, a group of Russian hackers accessed systems in various companies around the world and stole over 1 billion usernames and passwords from over 400,000 websites.” (Finch, 2015)
The vulnerability of well-known American women to being targeted by illegal hacking to can be illustrated by the example of Celebgate, a 2014 controversy, where numerous female celebrities fell victim to an organized picture leak.In the summer of 2014, users of a popular image board-type forum, 4chan, began publishing personal, mostly nude, pictures of female celebrities. As it became obvious that the images had not been previously shared by the people depicted on them, the situation was understood to be a leak, either coincidental or intentional.
Eventually, it turned out that the published pictures had been deliberately stolen. An online cloud service, iCloud (a part of Apple Inc.), was found to be the “culprit”; the later investigation revealed that the hackers exploited the service's insufficient security measures which allowed them to guess any user's password, thus gaining access to the stored data. The even had been given the name “Celebgate”, an obvious implication to The Watergate scandal; the idea originated from the people responsible for the leak.
Celebgate, as an example of an invasion on famous women's privacy, can be examined in various aspects, including, inter alia, the motive of the hackers, and legal consequences of such misdemeanor. The description of the original actions of the individuals accountable for Celebgate should help one correctly discern the subsequent events, as well as the case itself.
The person officially charged with illegally obtaining the pictures was Ryan Collins, a Pennsylvania resident, whose methods are described in detail in an article published two years after the incident by U.S. Attorney's Office in California:
“He sent e-mails to victims that appeared to be from Apple or Google and asked victims to provide their usernames and passwords. When the victims responded, Collins then had access to the victims’ e-mail accounts. After illegally accessing the e-mail accounts, Collins obtained personal information including nude photographs and videos, according to his plea agreement. In some instances, Collins would use a software program to download the entire contents of the victims’ Apple iCloud backups.”
Apple itself provided an explanation as to why individuals other than those contacted by Collins beforehand were also subjected to the hacking, shedding a light on the technical side of the problem:
“After more than 40 hours of investigation, we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple’s systems including iCloud® or Find my iPhone.”
The characterization of the process raises two substantial issues: the aforementioned mistakes in security precautions taken by the creators of Apple's storage system, and the seemingly effortless practice – involving the victims' participation - that let Collins collect the information necessary to temporarily take control of the accounts he was interested in. The first point, being a technical issue disrupting the usage of a product, is distinctly connected to the legal proceedings resulting from the incident, while the second has a psychological and societal basis.
Using Apple's - an international, well-known company - products, rarely raises concerns in a user, as a business this size appears to have gained trust of many. A customer, in many cases rightfully so, does not suspect such corporation to have problems securing the content stored by the user, let alone allowing a third party to view and copy it, unbeknownst to the owner.
In their research, Xin Li, Traci Hess, and Joseph Valacich (2008) provide an explanation as to why users remain unsuspecting of any technical issues:
“When the trustor has no prior interaction with a trustee, he/she cannot develop trust based on direct experience with or first-hand knowledge of the trustee. Instead, the trustor will depend on other sources, such as second-hand information, contextual factors, or personal intuition to make trust inferences. For example, before having direct interaction with an information system in a specific context, a trustor can build initial trust in this system based on their experiences with other systems, their knowledge about this system used in other contexts, and/or others’ opinions about the system.” (p. 41)
Such prevalent and understandable conviction seems to be one of the aforementioned factors - that are rooted in societal beliefs - which made an incident like Celebgate possible. Yet, it is not just the victims of the leak who were afflicted by Apple's mistakes; Collins, after discovering the security loophole, had decided to use it to his own advantage.
In an interview with Marlow Stern, one of the victims, actress Teresa Palmer describes her experience and attitude towards the leak, as well as a specific connection between her gender and falling prey to Collins:
“It was difficult,” says Palmer. “It certainly was such an invasion of privacy, but also scary on a universal level that nobody’s stuff is safe. Thank god for me I didn’t really have anything too risqué, but it’s really scary to know that I have so many photos of my son, my birth video, all of my stuff that I know is in the hands of someone that’s hacked into my computer.” (…) “You know what’s so unfortunate?” Palmer says. “All the women got together and talked it out. We all had photos of boyfriends—some are famous, some are not—who are naked, and none of the photos of famous men were ever released. It was all women. So, it was a personal attack on women, and trying to shame women. I just think it’s disgusting that there were no men—I think there was only one male victim—so women were specifically targeted.”
It is important to pay attention to how Palmer reacts to the idea of being vulnerable to having private data published against her will: she calls it “scary”, which supports the claim that companies like Apple have the reputation of being trusted providers of expected services.
Interestingly, the actress' ordeal mirrors another famous' woman struggle with her image being used against her will. In the further part of the quote, Teresa Palmer stresses that it was not just pictures of her that were exposed to Collins; stored were also images of her son, which, though not illicitly published, were also viewed by an unapproved party. This claim resembles what Aimee Gonzales, the victim of catfishing, admitted happened to her children when Angela Wesselman decided to impersonate her online – even though the minors' identities were not stolen in the same way as their mother's was, they were also indirectly involved in the process. This instance yet again demonstrates how a child can suffer collateral consequences, however small, of the actions of those who decide to target the mother, whether to fulfill their personal agenda (Wesselman), or to induce a controversy, as in Collins' case, causing troubles for both the victims and the provider of the service.
The last part of the quote, in which Palmer mentions even more people concerned, gives one an insight into the hacker's mind and motive, as from the perspective of a person affected. According to the actress' statement, the women whose accounts were hacked, also kept saved private pictures of their male partners, whose depictions were similar to those of the victims. Nonetheless, none of the pictures were leaked. Palmer understands this as an example of a perpetrator specifically targeting women in order to put them in a situation that might expose them to ridicule and humiliation. She does not, however, fully explain her logic as to why she believes so. Roxanne Gay, a writer for The Guardian, in an article related to the Celebgate, provides what Palmer failed to in her interview. According to Gay:
“It’s not clear what the people who leak these photos hope to achieve beyond financial gain and a moment of notoriety. (...) These hackers are not revealing anything the general public does not already know. BREAKING: beneath their clothes, celebrities are naked. What these people are doing is reminding women that, no matter who they are, they are still women. They are forever vulnerable.”
Teresa Palmer concludes her talk with Stern with a clear statement:
“I’ll be in the bath with my son and my husband will take a picture of us. I’ve just given over to the fact that, ‘You know what? This may end up on the Internet' (...) I think I have a pretty healthy perspective on it, but I know some of the other girls were really traumatized by it.”
Unfortunately but obviously, not all victims eventually reacted to the leak with such confidence. One of them was a popular actress, Jennifer Lawrence. In an article for Vogue, Ellie Davis reminds the reader what are Lawrence thoughts on being targeted by Collins:
“When I first found out it was happening, my security reached out to me. It was happening minute-to-minute - it was almost like a ransom situation where they were releasing new ones every hour or so,” (…) I feel like I got gang-banged by the f***ing planet - like, there's not one person in the world that is not capable of seeing these intimate photos of me. You can just be at a barbecue and somebody can just pull them up on their phone. That was a really impossible thing to process.” (Davis, 2017)
The easiness of sharing the pictures, mentioned above by Lawrence, calls into question the issue of trust once again. This time, however, it can be described from the perspective of Collins. The hacker, besides his technological knowledge, has used persuasion to obtain any information necessary to access the pictures. Marian Friestad and Peter Wright (1999) describe the aim of the technique used by Collins. Their explanation might be linked to that of Li, Hess, and Valacich in an instance that the hacker used the well-known name of the company to convince the victims to provide him with desired information. In this case, however, the trust in security measurements was deliberately taken advantage of by a single person, and not just by the users' belief that Apple's precautions were sufficient. According to Friestad and Wright:
“Persuasion knowledge (...) is an especially important interpretive belief system because it tells people about situations where an intelligent purposeful outside agent is skillfully trying to alter their inner self (their beliefs, their emotions, their attitudes, their decisions, their thought processes) and thereby alter the course of their lives. (...) The resources that enable someone to competently manage the numerous influence attempts that other people direct their way are their personal persuasion related beliefs. Individuals who allow unnoticed or uncontrolled invasions of their internal psychological world, and consequent changes in their behaviors, do not survive and prosper.” (p. 186)
The cases described above relate to a violation of privacy where a personal, private data, previously stored within websites that mainly provide related services, was involuntarily published on an image-board type page, consisting of anonymous posts and users. Both domains – iCloud and 4chan - however, are not widely understood to be a part of personalised, customisable social media profiles. Whereas, after discussing the origins and course of Celebgate, one can undoubtedly state that the leak has greatly contributed to how the victims perceive their online presence, and how it has affected not just their Internet activity, but also their sense of intimacy, the responses, reactions, and role of utilities like, amongst many others, Twitter and Facebook, cannot be omitted or underestimated.
To support the claim of what constitutes social media in the first place, it is apt to familiarise oneself with how Thomas Poell (2013) defines it:
“Social media can be roughly referred to as a "group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of the Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content" ([20], p. 60) The quick rise of social media platforms in the first decade of this century was part of a more general networked culture where information and communication got increasingly defined by the affordances of web technologies such as browsers and search engines. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as well as user generated content sites, including YouTube and Flickr, became the core of a host of web-based applications that together formed an expansive ecosystem of connective media.” (p. 5)
The “quick exchange of user-generated context” can be understood as crucial in describing a female celebrity's experience. Since social media allow users to easily portray themselves in a desired way by sharing text, pictures, and various other types of data, it can also, paradoxically, enable others to depict the famous in any chosen way. Again, such actions bear a resemblance to catfishing; however, the aim differs from creating a fake online persona, as the content revealed during celebgate hack shares even more features with the phenomenon of “revenge porn”.
Scott R. Stroud (2014), besides explaining what the foregoing term represents (revealing private materials, previously shared between consenting individuals, usually after their relationship has come to an end), specifies the incentives behind it:
"Posting revealing photos of non-consenting others along with identifying information potentially leads to humiliation, embarrassment, and could increase the potential for online and “real life” harassment. (...) This harm is enabled by the anonymity provided to the posters of this information, and those who run the sites that allow for such posting. As research on user-generated content for news sites has determined, anonymity often increases incivility and immoral behavior (Singer & Ashman, 2009)." (p. 9)
Clare McGlynn and Erika Rackley (2017) compare the phenomenon to sexual abuse:
"Advances in technology have transformed and expanded the ways in which sexual violence can be perpetrated. One of these new manifestations of violence and abuse is the non-consensual creation and/or distribution of private sexual images: a phenomenon we have conceptualised as image-based sexual abuse." (p. 1)
The issue of being anonymous, mentioned in the first quote, can undoubtedly be attributed to social media as well. Since it has already been discussed what triggers one to act accordingly in circumstances characteristic to the events surrounding Celebgate, it is essential to describe the consequences of the behaviour.
The statements from Teresa Palmer and Jennifer Lawrence concern their feelings related to the hack itself, not their attitude to appearing on social media afterwards (although Palmer provides the reader with the idea on how she hopes to deal with the aftermath of Celebgate, she focuses on her daily life, simply revealing that she is now aware that any type of personal data might get stolen and uploaded online). While the two women are, undoubtedly, not the only ones that concentrated mainly on the fact of being subjected to Collins' shenanigans, and not the direct reactions of others, their way of coping with the trauma in the media should be considered to be as legitimate as the response of those who chose to publicly share their views on the engagement of Internet users and followers with the case, since methods of dealing with stress vary greatly according to one's personality and numerous psychological traits.
The experience of another victim of Collins, actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead, gives one a detailed insight into the struggle of online presence following the leak. Winstead used her Twitter account to voice her concerns and describe her attitude at that time:
"To those of you looking at photos I took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, hope you feel great about yourselves."
"Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this."
"Going on an internet break. Feel free to my @s [mentions] for a glimpse of what it's like to be a woman who speaks up about anything on twitter"
These three simple messages (in 2014 Twitter's 140 characters limit still existed) thoroughly describe the actress' approach to the situation. She feels not only that her privacy and personal freedom have been violated but also does not understand why users are interested in content that was never intended to be viewed by third party. Winstead is also surprised with the effort put into looking for the photos even after most of the copies have been removed. Finally, she informs that she is not going to respond again, stating that the reaction to her posts is what a woman in a time of stress is likely to experience from her online following, and other users, curious about a given case.
Bernie Hogan (2010), however, appears to have answered Winstead's question concerning the users motives to keep looking for the pictures: "To expect privacy online is not to imply that one has something worth hiding or a presentation that may contradict one’s role in other spheres of life" (p. 4). The author suggest that the interest was fueled by the actress' general image: in the opinion of the public, Winstead was never considered to be a person that would agree to appear in such pictures; such impression had probably been caused by the woman's public demeanor and the impression that occurred from it.
While Winstead's reaction might have seem harsh and incited by anger, another actress afflicted with the hack took a less exasperated, however still firm approach. Yvonne Strahovski, whose career, similarly to Palmer, flourished in the US, chose Instagram to publish her statement:
“It is with great sadness and disappointment that I address this hacking issue. To my fellow actresses whose privacy has been invaded – my heart goes out to you. I'm so disappointed that there are people in the world who feel the need to commit these criminal acts. Some of these pictures are fake, my own included. Regardless – I ask you all – do not share the links. Don't even look at the photos. Just let people have the privacy they deserve. Integrity is sacred.”
The response, besides calling for respect and voicing Strahovski's attitude towards the person responsible for the leak, also suggests yet another issue the woman had to face: despite the pictures being fabricated, there was still the need to address the situation.
Obviously, a person unfamiliar with photo processing might not have been able to recognize the pictures to be fake. This might be understood as beneficial, since the actress' privacy has not, in fact, been invaded. Nonetheless, even if Strahovski's plea not to distribute the links prevented a given number of people from seeing the pictures, those who have already viewed them were not certain to also see the discussed Instagram post, and therefore remain under the impression that they have come across a genuine depiction of the actress. In such case, the woman has not been hurt directly by having her privacy violated, but by false assumptions that lead to both reactions similar to those Winstead experienced, and having been wrongly accused.
Carolyn Hole, Naomi-Ellen Speechley, and Ross Burnett warn of the severity of the described kind of situation:
"It is apparent that for those wrongly accused the effects are likely to be devastating(...) they may have a substantial impact. Some allegations (...) may still affect their subjects’ employment or standing in the community. Others may be aired in employment tribunals or family courts, and even when they are not substantiated, their consequences may be severe. (...) Significant damage may be done to alleged ‘perpetrators’ in circumstances where there has been no finding of guilt." (p. 4)
To conclude, violation of privacy in a form of illegally obtaining private data is yet another factor that a famous American woman's social media experience comprises of. Albeit similar to catfishing, its reach and effects are considerably greater, as events like Celebgate involve not just one person (or a small group of people) that is meant to be deceived, but the victim's online following, as well as a global audience, interested in the situation. Such leaks create a sense of doubt in security measurements of even the biggest Internet storage providers, which, along with the feeling of humiliation (especially when confronted with direct comments) and uncertainty (in many cases related to the fear of losing business opportunities and inability to pursue chosen career path), might make social media usage more of an ordeal, than a pleasant and work-facilitating activity.
“Some hackers use their skills for criminal activities. On a personal level, a hacker might break into someone's computer and take control of it -- this could give him access to passwords and financial information that he could then use to defraud the individual. On a larger scale, groups of hackers might target companies as part of a wider criminal operation. For example, in 2014, a group of Russian hackers accessed systems in various companies around the world and stole over 1 billion usernames and passwords from over 400,000 websites.” (Finch, 2015)
The vulnerability of well-known American women to being targeted by illegal hacking to can be illustrated by the example of Celebgate, a 2014 controversy, where numerous female celebrities fell victim to an organized picture leak.In the summer of 2014, users of a popular image board-type forum, 4chan, began publishing personal, mostly nude, pictures of female celebrities. As it became obvious that the images had not been previously shared by the people depicted on them, the situation was understood to be a leak, either coincidental or intentional.
Eventually, it turned out that the published pictures had been deliberately stolen. An online cloud service, iCloud (a part of Apple Inc.), was found to be the “culprit”; the later investigation revealed that the hackers exploited the service's insufficient security measures which allowed them to guess any user's password, thus gaining access to the stored data. The even had been given the name “Celebgate”, an obvious implication to The Watergate scandal; the idea originated from the people responsible for the leak.
Celebgate, as an example of an invasion on famous women's privacy, can be examined in various aspects, including, inter alia, the motive of the hackers, and legal consequences of such misdemeanor. The description of the original actions of the individuals accountable for Celebgate should help one correctly discern the subsequent events, as well as the case itself.
The person officially charged with illegally obtaining the pictures was Ryan Collins, a Pennsylvania resident, whose methods are described in detail in an article published two years after the incident by U.S. Attorney's Office in California:
“He sent e-mails to victims that appeared to be from Apple or Google and asked victims to provide their usernames and passwords. When the victims responded, Collins then had access to the victims’ e-mail accounts. After illegally accessing the e-mail accounts, Collins obtained personal information including nude photographs and videos, according to his plea agreement. In some instances, Collins would use a software program to download the entire contents of the victims’ Apple iCloud backups.”
Apple itself provided an explanation as to why individuals other than those contacted by Collins beforehand were also subjected to the hacking, shedding a light on the technical side of the problem:
“After more than 40 hours of investigation, we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple’s systems including iCloud® or Find my iPhone.”
The characterization of the process raises two substantial issues: the aforementioned mistakes in security precautions taken by the creators of Apple's storage system, and the seemingly effortless practice – involving the victims' participation - that let Collins collect the information necessary to temporarily take control of the accounts he was interested in. The first point, being a technical issue disrupting the usage of a product, is distinctly connected to the legal proceedings resulting from the incident, while the second has a psychological and societal basis.
Using Apple's - an international, well-known company - products, rarely raises concerns in a user, as a business this size appears to have gained trust of many. A customer, in many cases rightfully so, does not suspect such corporation to have problems securing the content stored by the user, let alone allowing a third party to view and copy it, unbeknownst to the owner.
In their research, Xin Li, Traci Hess, and Joseph Valacich (2008) provide an explanation as to why users remain unsuspecting of any technical issues:
“When the trustor has no prior interaction with a trustee, he/she cannot develop trust based on direct experience with or first-hand knowledge of the trustee. Instead, the trustor will depend on other sources, such as second-hand information, contextual factors, or personal intuition to make trust inferences. For example, before having direct interaction with an information system in a specific context, a trustor can build initial trust in this system based on their experiences with other systems, their knowledge about this system used in other contexts, and/or others’ opinions about the system.” (p. 41)
Such prevalent and understandable conviction seems to be one of the aforementioned factors - that are rooted in societal beliefs - which made an incident like Celebgate possible. Yet, it is not just the victims of the leak who were afflicted by Apple's mistakes; Collins, after discovering the security loophole, had decided to use it to his own advantage.
In an interview with Marlow Stern, one of the victims, actress Teresa Palmer describes her experience and attitude towards the leak, as well as a specific connection between her gender and falling prey to Collins:
“It was difficult,” says Palmer. “It certainly was such an invasion of privacy, but also scary on a universal level that nobody’s stuff is safe. Thank god for me I didn’t really have anything too risqué, but it’s really scary to know that I have so many photos of my son, my birth video, all of my stuff that I know is in the hands of someone that’s hacked into my computer.” (…) “You know what’s so unfortunate?” Palmer says. “All the women got together and talked it out. We all had photos of boyfriends—some are famous, some are not—who are naked, and none of the photos of famous men were ever released. It was all women. So, it was a personal attack on women, and trying to shame women. I just think it’s disgusting that there were no men—I think there was only one male victim—so women were specifically targeted.”
It is important to pay attention to how Palmer reacts to the idea of being vulnerable to having private data published against her will: she calls it “scary”, which supports the claim that companies like Apple have the reputation of being trusted providers of expected services.
Interestingly, the actress' ordeal mirrors another famous' woman struggle with her image being used against her will. In the further part of the quote, Teresa Palmer stresses that it was not just pictures of her that were exposed to Collins; stored were also images of her son, which, though not illicitly published, were also viewed by an unapproved party. This claim resembles what Aimee Gonzales, the victim of catfishing, admitted happened to her children when Angela Wesselman decided to impersonate her online – even though the minors' identities were not stolen in the same way as their mother's was, they were also indirectly involved in the process. This instance yet again demonstrates how a child can suffer collateral consequences, however small, of the actions of those who decide to target the mother, whether to fulfill their personal agenda (Wesselman), or to induce a controversy, as in Collins' case, causing troubles for both the victims and the provider of the service.
The last part of the quote, in which Palmer mentions even more people concerned, gives one an insight into the hacker's mind and motive, as from the perspective of a person affected. According to the actress' statement, the women whose accounts were hacked, also kept saved private pictures of their male partners, whose depictions were similar to those of the victims. Nonetheless, none of the pictures were leaked. Palmer understands this as an example of a perpetrator specifically targeting women in order to put them in a situation that might expose them to ridicule and humiliation. She does not, however, fully explain her logic as to why she believes so. Roxanne Gay, a writer for The Guardian, in an article related to the Celebgate, provides what Palmer failed to in her interview. According to Gay:
“It’s not clear what the people who leak these photos hope to achieve beyond financial gain and a moment of notoriety. (...) These hackers are not revealing anything the general public does not already know. BREAKING: beneath their clothes, celebrities are naked. What these people are doing is reminding women that, no matter who they are, they are still women. They are forever vulnerable.”
Teresa Palmer concludes her talk with Stern with a clear statement:
“I’ll be in the bath with my son and my husband will take a picture of us. I’ve just given over to the fact that, ‘You know what? This may end up on the Internet' (...) I think I have a pretty healthy perspective on it, but I know some of the other girls were really traumatized by it.”
Unfortunately but obviously, not all victims eventually reacted to the leak with such confidence. One of them was a popular actress, Jennifer Lawrence. In an article for Vogue, Ellie Davis reminds the reader what are Lawrence thoughts on being targeted by Collins:
“When I first found out it was happening, my security reached out to me. It was happening minute-to-minute - it was almost like a ransom situation where they were releasing new ones every hour or so,” (…) I feel like I got gang-banged by the f***ing planet - like, there's not one person in the world that is not capable of seeing these intimate photos of me. You can just be at a barbecue and somebody can just pull them up on their phone. That was a really impossible thing to process.” (Davis, 2017)
The easiness of sharing the pictures, mentioned above by Lawrence, calls into question the issue of trust once again. This time, however, it can be described from the perspective of Collins. The hacker, besides his technological knowledge, has used persuasion to obtain any information necessary to access the pictures. Marian Friestad and Peter Wright (1999) describe the aim of the technique used by Collins. Their explanation might be linked to that of Li, Hess, and Valacich in an instance that the hacker used the well-known name of the company to convince the victims to provide him with desired information. In this case, however, the trust in security measurements was deliberately taken advantage of by a single person, and not just by the users' belief that Apple's precautions were sufficient. According to Friestad and Wright:
“Persuasion knowledge (...) is an especially important interpretive belief system because it tells people about situations where an intelligent purposeful outside agent is skillfully trying to alter their inner self (their beliefs, their emotions, their attitudes, their decisions, their thought processes) and thereby alter the course of their lives. (...) The resources that enable someone to competently manage the numerous influence attempts that other people direct their way are their personal persuasion related beliefs. Individuals who allow unnoticed or uncontrolled invasions of their internal psychological world, and consequent changes in their behaviors, do not survive and prosper.” (p. 186)
The cases described above relate to a violation of privacy where a personal, private data, previously stored within websites that mainly provide related services, was involuntarily published on an image-board type page, consisting of anonymous posts and users. Both domains – iCloud and 4chan - however, are not widely understood to be a part of personalised, customisable social media profiles. Whereas, after discussing the origins and course of Celebgate, one can undoubtedly state that the leak has greatly contributed to how the victims perceive their online presence, and how it has affected not just their Internet activity, but also their sense of intimacy, the responses, reactions, and role of utilities like, amongst many others, Twitter and Facebook, cannot be omitted or underestimated.
To support the claim of what constitutes social media in the first place, it is apt to familiarise oneself with how Thomas Poell (2013) defines it:
“Social media can be roughly referred to as a "group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of the Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content" ([20], p. 60) The quick rise of social media platforms in the first decade of this century was part of a more general networked culture where information and communication got increasingly defined by the affordances of web technologies such as browsers and search engines. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as well as user generated content sites, including YouTube and Flickr, became the core of a host of web-based applications that together formed an expansive ecosystem of connective media.” (p. 5)
The “quick exchange of user-generated context” can be understood as crucial in describing a female celebrity's experience. Since social media allow users to easily portray themselves in a desired way by sharing text, pictures, and various other types of data, it can also, paradoxically, enable others to depict the famous in any chosen way. Again, such actions bear a resemblance to catfishing; however, the aim differs from creating a fake online persona, as the content revealed during celebgate hack shares even more features with the phenomenon of “revenge porn”.
Scott R. Stroud (2014), besides explaining what the foregoing term represents (revealing private materials, previously shared between consenting individuals, usually after their relationship has come to an end), specifies the incentives behind it:
"Posting revealing photos of non-consenting others along with identifying information potentially leads to humiliation, embarrassment, and could increase the potential for online and “real life” harassment. (...) This harm is enabled by the anonymity provided to the posters of this information, and those who run the sites that allow for such posting. As research on user-generated content for news sites has determined, anonymity often increases incivility and immoral behavior (Singer & Ashman, 2009)." (p. 9)
Clare McGlynn and Erika Rackley (2017) compare the phenomenon to sexual abuse:
"Advances in technology have transformed and expanded the ways in which sexual violence can be perpetrated. One of these new manifestations of violence and abuse is the non-consensual creation and/or distribution of private sexual images: a phenomenon we have conceptualised as image-based sexual abuse." (p. 1)
The issue of being anonymous, mentioned in the first quote, can undoubtedly be attributed to social media as well. Since it has already been discussed what triggers one to act accordingly in circumstances characteristic to the events surrounding Celebgate, it is essential to describe the consequences of the behaviour.
The statements from Teresa Palmer and Jennifer Lawrence concern their feelings related to the hack itself, not their attitude to appearing on social media afterwards (although Palmer provides the reader with the idea on how she hopes to deal with the aftermath of Celebgate, she focuses on her daily life, simply revealing that she is now aware that any type of personal data might get stolen and uploaded online). While the two women are, undoubtedly, not the only ones that concentrated mainly on the fact of being subjected to Collins' shenanigans, and not the direct reactions of others, their way of coping with the trauma in the media should be considered to be as legitimate as the response of those who chose to publicly share their views on the engagement of Internet users and followers with the case, since methods of dealing with stress vary greatly according to one's personality and numerous psychological traits.
The experience of another victim of Collins, actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead, gives one a detailed insight into the struggle of online presence following the leak. Winstead used her Twitter account to voice her concerns and describe her attitude at that time:
"To those of you looking at photos I took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, hope you feel great about yourselves."
"Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this."
"Going on an internet break. Feel free to my @s [mentions] for a glimpse of what it's like to be a woman who speaks up about anything on twitter"
These three simple messages (in 2014 Twitter's 140 characters limit still existed) thoroughly describe the actress' approach to the situation. She feels not only that her privacy and personal freedom have been violated but also does not understand why users are interested in content that was never intended to be viewed by third party. Winstead is also surprised with the effort put into looking for the photos even after most of the copies have been removed. Finally, she informs that she is not going to respond again, stating that the reaction to her posts is what a woman in a time of stress is likely to experience from her online following, and other users, curious about a given case.
Bernie Hogan (2010), however, appears to have answered Winstead's question concerning the users motives to keep looking for the pictures: "To expect privacy online is not to imply that one has something worth hiding or a presentation that may contradict one’s role in other spheres of life" (p. 4). The author suggest that the interest was fueled by the actress' general image: in the opinion of the public, Winstead was never considered to be a person that would agree to appear in such pictures; such impression had probably been caused by the woman's public demeanor and the impression that occurred from it.
While Winstead's reaction might have seem harsh and incited by anger, another actress afflicted with the hack took a less exasperated, however still firm approach. Yvonne Strahovski, whose career, similarly to Palmer, flourished in the US, chose Instagram to publish her statement:
“It is with great sadness and disappointment that I address this hacking issue. To my fellow actresses whose privacy has been invaded – my heart goes out to you. I'm so disappointed that there are people in the world who feel the need to commit these criminal acts. Some of these pictures are fake, my own included. Regardless – I ask you all – do not share the links. Don't even look at the photos. Just let people have the privacy they deserve. Integrity is sacred.”
The response, besides calling for respect and voicing Strahovski's attitude towards the person responsible for the leak, also suggests yet another issue the woman had to face: despite the pictures being fabricated, there was still the need to address the situation.
Obviously, a person unfamiliar with photo processing might not have been able to recognize the pictures to be fake. This might be understood as beneficial, since the actress' privacy has not, in fact, been invaded. Nonetheless, even if Strahovski's plea not to distribute the links prevented a given number of people from seeing the pictures, those who have already viewed them were not certain to also see the discussed Instagram post, and therefore remain under the impression that they have come across a genuine depiction of the actress. In such case, the woman has not been hurt directly by having her privacy violated, but by false assumptions that lead to both reactions similar to those Winstead experienced, and having been wrongly accused.
Carolyn Hole, Naomi-Ellen Speechley, and Ross Burnett warn of the severity of the described kind of situation:
"It is apparent that for those wrongly accused the effects are likely to be devastating(...) they may have a substantial impact. Some allegations (...) may still affect their subjects’ employment or standing in the community. Others may be aired in employment tribunals or family courts, and even when they are not substantiated, their consequences may be severe. (...) Significant damage may be done to alleged ‘perpetrators’ in circumstances where there has been no finding of guilt." (p. 4)
To conclude, violation of privacy in a form of illegally obtaining private data is yet another factor that a famous American woman's social media experience comprises of. Albeit similar to catfishing, its reach and effects are considerably greater, as events like Celebgate involve not just one person (or a small group of people) that is meant to be deceived, but the victim's online following, as well as a global audience, interested in the situation. Such leaks create a sense of doubt in security measurements of even the biggest Internet storage providers, which, along with the feeling of humiliation (especially when confronted with direct comments) and uncertainty (in many cases related to the fear of losing business opportunities and inability to pursue chosen career path), might make social media usage more of an ordeal, than a pleasant and work-facilitating activity.
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