I love watching Netflix documentaries and reading about vigilante storylines. And if there is anything I can take away from watching Don’t Fuck with Cats, it is the fact that one shared purpose and mutual support in a community driven by morals and ethics can do almost the impossible.
TLDR: A post on how I was threatened, blackmailed for “my” sex videos. I shared this on Facebook and Ig, and received msgs from other females saying they’re going through the same shit and anxiety. While writing this article, I was also threatened on Telegram by another anon to remove it “or else”. Hence, I’m writing this post to garner awareness and encourage all females in the same situation to drop me a message anywhere so we can brainstorm ideas to fight this legally.
Almost 2 years ago, I was harassed by an anonymous account on Instagram following myself, my family members, and friends, to take screenshots of me only to post them on Ig, tagging them and slut-shaming me. Slut-shaming me for a sex video of a girl giving a blowjob, because it’s apparently “me”. He called me a slut, that I had no shame, etc in my DMs. I saw the video and photos, well, it wasn’t me although that girl did looked a little like my younger days when I was much skinnier and prettier with longer hair. In fact, I don’t even think she’s Singaporean.
In response, I taunted him, not giving him the thrill and attention he wanted because another thing I learnt growing up is to never give what you know your haters want. He wanted me to feel the shame, guilt, and pain of having a personal moment leaked into the public. I ignored it at first and actually had fun making a joke out of this account. Constant blocking and ignoring didn’t work because across the next 2 months, he took it to another level by involving everyone else that I knew, spamming them, etc, with new accounts whenever I block him on the old ones.
It eventually got to a point that he threatened to assault me physically. So of course, that’s when I made a police report. I was also told that if I were to pursue legally, actions can be taken against the creator of this account. I informed the anon about the report and so, he deleted everything. I never heard anything from him since then. This narrative seems all too familiar few years later, when I see creators of Sg Nasi Lemak getting jail time (yes, baby). 4 men were involved in the creation of such a group.
Very interestingly WHEN I am writing this post, I just received a telegram message from an anon saying someone’s blackmailing this individual to get me to remove my post or MY videos will be leaked. You know what, go f*k yourself. You can leak all the images and videos you want of me, and then you’ll have nothing on me. Anyway, much easier to catch someone when one stays active.
Today, there are still at least 2 other accounts on Telegram and Tumblr which are active. The telegram group alone boasted over 4,000 members from Singapore, 12,000+ photos and 3,400+ videos of females in Singapore whose private moments (whether taken themselves or by someone else) were shared without their permission to this group of individuals. There are folders also labelled with their Instagram handles. I am also aware that some of these members joined to check if their friends and family members whose explicit content might be compromised and are scared to do it themselves. The tumblr profile started posting content from September 2019, and somehow managed to go under the radar for so long. Many reblogs as well, which means there is more than one account sharing such leaks.
It came to my attention recently as I received an anonymous message from a follower from before who asked me if I was okay because my “leaks” were again on Tumblr, and I kind of knew what this person was referring to because of what has happened 2 years ago. He encouraged me to file another report, and I didn’t want to and my response to him was simply – it’s us in the light fighting against these people in the shadows. It’s always going to be difficult. I was going to brush it off and not take any action because if I don’t see it, I don’t really care. But just a day later, I started receiving anonymous messages on Telegram harassing me for the same video, slut-shaming, etc.
I actually wrote in to Mothership regarding this earlier today, but I had enough after receiving all the messages and stories from other females. That’s when I decided, I need to call this shit out – whether or not it involves my content or not.
I started to share this on my Instagram and Facebook, and I got so many messages from friends and acquaintances across genders expressing their concern, anxiety, and anger around this situation of private moments being shared publicly without their consent (obviously). I then realised it is a much bigger issue than if “my privacy was compromised”. It was a real world issue, targeted at females, who are still expected to be conservative and not “show too much skin” publicly. While pre-marital sex is not illegal, it is still somewhat frowned upon publicly by the older generations, even though we could joke around about it with fellow peers. It was something we, as females, had to answer to when family members and relatives take notice. It became a social responsibility, and not so much of if we were taking care of our own bodies.
So this is my letter to my fellow lovable females who might feel vulnerable right now.
Normalize private moments
These images and videos are representative of a time you share out of the high during an intimate moment. It is a moment you felt sexy and beautiful enough to capture it for yourself or someone you love. There is ABSOLUTELY no need to feel ashamed about this. Love your body, and embrace the way you love it. Whether it’s through taking videos, photos, or anything else kinky. Love that side of yourself. Don’t shy away from it. Acknowledge it, embrace it.
While I’m not encouraging you to share it publicly since by now you should know some idiots can’t be trusted, and relationships don’t last forever, be safe. Just know that no matter what you do in your bedroom in a private moment, on your own, or with anyone else, it is nobody else’s business, and you will still be loved for who you are, both in and out of the bedroom.
If anything, it is through these few days that I realize a DAMN LOT of females actually DO take photos and videos of themselves during such moments, so don’t feel like you are alone. In the Telegram group alone, if we were to assume there’re 10 videos per female, we’re looking at around 345 females’ nudes being circulated on this group alone. Just imagine how many others are out there. Bottom line – nothing to be ashamed of.
It says a lot about your partners and/or people who leak it
Females are incredibly beautiful, I totally understand that. The shapes, curves, and soft edges. Even so, if one’s videos and photos are leaked, it actually says a lot more about the person who has shot them, leaked them, and circulated them. Let’s just start focusing on these people instead of the ones in the videos.
For anyone else who have been uninvolved but circulating these out of glee, ask yourself – what if this happens to someone you love? Your closest friend, your sibling, your parent, or even your child. How would you beg for others to react? React and ACT the same way. Report it to the police, bring it to the person’s attention privately.
Why has there been no resolution after so many cases and years of similar situations?
This issue of leaking private photos have been LONGSTANDING. Absolutely longstanding. The same reasons for not being able to catch these perpetrators are usually of the same few reasons:
- No evidence of culprit
- Afraid of societal judgment
- Afraid of your friends and family members finding out
- Not pursuing legally because you’re not sure if you should (questioning/doubting yourself, afraid of spoiling or ruining friendships, etc.)
- Not pursuing it legally because you’re not sure if it’s expensive
- Not knowing who to speak to that doesn’t come at a cost
- Just not knowing who to speak to
How to protect yourself and what you can do:
- Be safe and remember that anything on the digital realm will most likely exist forever.
- Check social media guidelines on how to get posts removed, if you don’t want to pursue it legally.
- Report the content on respective platforms, but remember that with over tens of thousands of reports almost everyday, it will take awhile before content is removed. There will also be almost zero penalty to the person sharing or circulating these as they would most likely be anonymous accounts.
- If you get harassed, gather information/collect data and then execute Step 5. Don’t respond to it. Chances are if the content are out in the open, they are already out in the open. Do NOT give in to extortion. It will just find its way into other groups, platforms, etc.
- File a police report with SPF online with as much evidence as you can. Screenshot usernames, track user profiles, and if possible, get the person’s mobile number or any information you can possibly have of him/her in the real world. Full name/mobile number/paylah accounts etc are sufficient to find out who this person is. Unless you have information on who the person is, there’s hardly anything the police can do.
- If nothing is done or nobody was held accountable despite you offering the individual on a platter to the popo, escalate this and write in to the Chief of Police /MP/ etc with a proper detailed breakdown of the (1) evidence you have gathered, (2) timeline of harassment incidents, (3) how nobody was held accountable despite your collection of data. Also a proven method, only if you have enough information though.
- I’ve also included Mega guidelines as I personally saw such content being sold and distributed through Mega, an end-to-end encrypted storage and file transfer platform. While it is fully encrypted, their policy indicates that such content is still removable and they may be able to disclose user data and information to authorities upon request. This means that if you have the link to the folder or files they are sending that you would like to report, filing a police report instead of a content report might lead to Mega disclosing this user’s information to the authorities.
Capturing Evidence
- Social Media: What you can do is to save their social platforms’ usernames and profile IDs. Copy their links, take screenshots of their messages, especially those that include threat and blackmail.
If they are on Telegram, BLOCK them. Even if they change or remove their usernames, you can still track their profiles, unless they delete the account entirely. Access it in Settings > Privacy Settings > Blocked Users. Remember to adjust your privacy settings to hide your profile photo, contact number, etc from everyone. - Website: (1) Save the post link and profile link. (2) Take a PDF screenshot of the URL with this chrome extension, save the PDF file for future usage. (3) IMPORTANT: Go to waybackmachine, paste the URL of the page, and if there isn’t already an archive on the waybackmachine, hit “Save This Page”. This will ensure that even after the page is removed at some point, we can always come back here to refer to the old content just by keying in the URL.
So through this you should know by now that the best chance any of us has got to catch these people is to gather as much personal information as possible. The best way to find out more information about these criminals is to wait it out. Being someone who has been harassed before, it is hardly ever a few different individuals doing the same act over across a few years/months. It’s very likely to be the same individual with a renewed hatred for you.
Over time, they get more relaxed and lazy with the way they do things, and this is when they accidentally let some things slide. For example, if you block them on telegram when they harass you, at some point, they might Instagram DM, Facebook msg you, etc. Don’t respond to it, take a screenshot and get the link to the user profile. Find ways to capture more information online. File a police report and present all the evidence you have gathered OVER time.
If you do have questions about it, please reach out to me and I will try my best to help/find more info. Through this post, I have actually received information and contacts of people in respective industries offering their help. So I’ll do as much as I can to help you raise your case to the right people. Know that you’re really not alone in this.
Here is a Safe Platform for Community Support + Legal Knowledge + Emotional Support #NOSHAME
There are TONS of groups spreading explicit content, including underage girls’. But none of which provides support to females who have their images/videos compromised and not knowing what to do besides reporting to the police and having no action taken for various reasons. With this letter, I want to build a community for us who are involved in a way or another – helping yourself, a friend, a family member, to start having more conversations and problem-solving this together.
Through this incident, I realised that many of us females have reported police, and some of us have different extent of knowledge regarding what we can or can’t do to find people who post our leaks online. The lack of knowledge sharing due to fear of judgment has also stopped us from being able to share very valuable information on how to counter this issue progressively as a society safe for any gender. We’re talking about the anxiety of receiving anonymous messages from people, dangling such information over our heads all the damn time. It’s not a laughing matter at all.
On this private Telegram group, please join if you need more resources, etc. Even if you’re not someone who’s directly involved but would like to help in a way or another. I am also using this opportunity to call out to people who have knowledge on how we can approach this legally or even technically. If you feel uncomfortable or if the group no longer exists, just dm me anywhere. I don’t expect this group to immediately start helping victims win litigations, but I want to, at the minimum, provide an available platform for mental and emotional support for anyone who is going through such issues AND to be updated with legal information and know-hows on how to go about doing this. Let’s try to approach this one step at a time. If you feel like your private content has been compromised or just unsure what you could do, join this group. First, let’s all come together, gather all the knowledge we know, and find ways to fight this fked up shit.
I am also actively reaching out to people who are familiar with cases like this legally and technically. So please let’s all do a little bit and help to contribute so we can build a knowledge hub for females going through the same shit.
If they give it to you once, give it to them a hundred times.
One thing I learnt growing up is that whenever someone gives you one problem, give them a hundred more. And I do encourage females who are going through this to adopt this mindset. Do not be afraid of trouble, or drama, of consequences. Deal with it. If they ask for or blackmail you with something, you know what, go ahead. Once you start giving in, it never stops. I believe in justice, maybe naively, but I do, at least in Singapore.
To females who are worried:
I am not going to post the link to the Tumblr, but am willing to do so if you can drop me a private message on Ig, Facebook or Telegram verifying your identity. I don’t want to spread this to people who are just viewing for their own entertainment. I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE everyone of you to file a police report regarding this situation. If they can find out who started Sg Nasi Lemak, someone can find out who owns these tumblrs and telegram groups, and I’m sure, beyond these 2 accounts.
Stay safe, and remember that as a tight community, we can do a WHOLE DAMN LOT more!
Coke of All Trades 