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Paloma González's avatar

Hi Elle, this is a very interesting topic. I also wanted to point out that this also happens to anyone online. Someone took my profile picture on IG (I don’t have any “provocative” pictures online by the way) and used it to make a p*rn*graphic IG account. The person start following friends and family. So, I get to know about this account when people started texting me that they got a “friend request” from “me” to an adult entertainment account on IG. It was incredibly frustrating. I have to ask all my friends to reach IG and report the account. It took a long time before that account got closed.

Just wanted to share another example on how difficult and complex having a picture of ourselves online can be. - It doesn’t even have to be a “sexy” picture. Anything can be used against us or with bad intentions. Especially now that AI is out and is so good with recreating images.

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Gérard Mclean's avatar

“Before the internet, an artist might be known for their work—a singer for their albums or an actor for their films—but they weren’t harassed for their personal life.”

This caught my eye and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle popped into my head. He was perhaps the leading edge of the press shifting its interest from mostly political monitoring and championing (no “objective” press back then, journalism wasn’t even a profession, and didn’t require a J-School degree, there were no J-Schools.. anyway, that’s a topic for another day) to celebrity reporting. 40 quarts of liquor, a party in a hotel, a dead model — Virginia Rappe — a silent movie star (Fatty) and a relentless press. The only difference between them and now might be the speed and volume at which things get published. It’s a fascinating story... two book reccos:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/room-1219-the-life-of-fatty-arbuckle-the-mysterious-death-of-virginia-rappe-and-the-scandal-that-changed-hollywood-greg-merritt/12428878

https://bookshop.org/p/books/forty-quarts-of-liquor-fatty-arbuckle-and-the-death-of-virginia-rappe-hollywood-s-first-scandal-dave-zuda/12122859

Maybe a third... a little biased, but a good read nonetheless

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-trial-of-fatty-arbuckle-a-precedent-of-injustice-brad-kronen/11535276

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