Sask. women find chat room sharing their intimate or sexualized images without consent
'It feels like these men involved are really dangerous,' says victim
Late last year, a man Kelsey Diaz knew said he had seen her intimate photos online, but he refused to offer more information about it. She assumed he was lying to her.
This week, as the existence of an online server harbouring that material became more public, she learned that he wasn't.
She and others who say they obtained the link and infiltrated an online Discord chatroom estimate thousands of intimate or sexualized photos and videos had been shared, potentially more. Discord is a social media platform that allows users to create private chat rooms only accessible by invite.
Diaz said she searched for her photos for an entire day, believing that she was safe. It was a "stab in the chest" when she found her photos.
"It was definitely a really icky feeling, especially because the photos that were on there … were never actually sent out to anybody," she said. The photos were stored on a cellphone application, she said, suggesting someone gained access to her account, took them and posted them.
Looking for accountability
According to Saskatchewan RCMP, several northwest detachments received reports about intimate images of females circulating on a website without their consent. The offence is often referred to as "revenge porn."
The RCMP is investigating and encourages anyone who believes they are a victim, or who has information about this or similar incidents, to report it to police.
Diaz alleges some users of the server had shared material of intimate partners, or of women who were unconscious or from hidden cameras. She also alleged users encouraged others to sexually assault some of the people pictured in the server and record it.
"This is just really disgusting and it feels like these men involved are really dangerous," Diaz said.
We need to teach our men, our boys, that this behaviour, is not acceptable: it's [exploitative], it's violating to women.- Alexis Currie
She also alleges some of the material being shared includes minors.
The Saskatchewan Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit said in an email, "At this time, we can confirm that none of the victims are known to be under the age of 18."
"ICE is involved in this investigation as those investigators have significant experience in investigations involving social media chat rooms and technology."
Diaz is hoping the police take this issue seriously, find those involved and hold them accountable. At the very least, she wants the people who posted the material to be held accountable.
"I need that little win," she said.
As of Friday, no charges have been laid.
In a similar case in Thunder Bay, Ont., 12 men are facing 172 charges for their role in an online chat group that shared materials from at least 117 women and children online.
The majority of those charges were Distribution of Intimate Images Without Consent.
Infiltrating the server
Recently, women have been posting on social media to bring awareness to the existence of the server. Photos shared online appear to show that the server has material categorized by Saskatchewan communities.
Police say the chat room used to distribute the images has since been removed. Before that, Diaz said the link was shared among the women believed to have their photos posted to the server.
Diaz said they raided it.
It was actually kind of traumatizing to see but I knew I had to clear those girls' names and just get out of there.- Kenna
Within a few hours, she said, the server's original users had deleted their accounts, went silent or fled — potentially to separate servers where the material endured. She knows there were more servers because she found them too.
Diaz said all of the servers she found are down, but believes there are more locations where the material exists.
No safe space
Kenna was among those in the raid.
CBC is choosing not to use her full name because she doesn't feel comfortable being named after becoming a victim to the server.
Kenna said she spent time gathering usernames and searching for the photos of women at their request before they were deleted, in hopes of collecting evidence for police. Others did the same.
"It was actually kind of traumatizing to see but I knew I had to clear those girls' names and just get out of there," she said. She clarified that clearing their names meant investigating if they had been exposed in the chat rooms or not.
She said she has never taken an intimate photograph. In the photo shared to the chatroom, she was in a bathing suit. It had been posted to her private social media account with less than two dozen followers.
Kenna does not know who could have shared her photo.
"It was very violating in a way," she said
Victims not to blame
Like Kenna, Alexis Currie said she chose to delete some followers from her private social media accounts, where her photos were retrieved.
Currie said some of the photos posted to the chatroom were similar to Kenna's, while others had been digitally altered to make it look like she was nude.
"There were many women featured on this site, and this is not to shame women who have sent nudes, but I do want to acknowledge the fact that a lot of these images, they were sexualized."
In a message to other victims, Currie said the victims are not to blame. Currie said people are framing this as an issue with women not being safe on the internet.
"That's not the problem, I think even now it's clear that this is not a problem; I, myself, have never sent an intimate photo and I was still a victim of this," she said.
"We need to teach our men, our boys, that this behaviour, is not acceptable: it's [exploitative], it's violating to women."
Currie said the names and locations of people in the photos were added to posts in "a lot" of cases.
She also said she's been a victim to similar incidents on other social media sites, like Reddit, in the past and this incident is not isolated — by either date or location. Currie said issues like this need to be addressed globally.
Indigenous women being targeted
Jennifer Laewetz, a member of George Gordon First Nation and an APTN panelist who has been speaking out about the chat room, said she gained access to the chat room that has been the focus of discussion on social media.
Laewetz noticed that many of the areas that were included were predominantly Indigenous communities.
"A lot of these communities in the north, some of which are remote, there's a lot of mental health issues and stuff like our youth and our young girls are struggling with in those communities," she said.
While she acknowledged that it's happening in other more urban areas, like Thunder Bay, Ont., there's an extra layer of concern in Indigenous communities given the high rate of missing or murdered Indigenous women.
According to the Government of Canada, "Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit and gender-diverse people are 12 times more likely to go missing or be murdered in comparison to non-Indigenous women in Canada."
Women supporting women
Some of those women who marshalled a response on the server were also looking for ways to communicate to each other in a location that wasn't available to the original server users.
To do that, Diaz said about 20 people are a part of their own, separate Discord server. It works as a support group that also has sections with links to mental health resources.
"Another woman mentioned, she was like you know what, it kind of feels like taking something bad and turning it into a good thing," Diaz said.
Jill Arnott, the executive director of the Women's Centre at the University of Regina, called using the same application a "brave act of resistance."
Arnott said people sharing intimate images without consent is a common issue, in an environment as seemingly lawless as the internet.
"We are disconnected more quickly and more deeply from the people that those images are of, right?" she said.
"They become images, they become tools and they become less about that actual person."
Arnott says that talking about the issue is one way to help victims and acknowledging that the problem exists.
"One of the things I think that is on all of us to do that can help victims is to talk about it, right, to bring the stuff out into the open, to acknowledge that this stuff is happening and to mark ourselves as places and people that are safe so that we can help to connect people to resources," she said.
If you or someone you know have been affected by online sexual violence or harassment, here are some resources to report the incident or get support. There are supports available whether you choose to report the incident or not:
- Saskatchewan Victim Service Units
- Cybertip.ca
- Saskatchewan RCMP: 310-7267
- Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers: 1-800-222-8477
- A Survivor's Toolkit by the Saskatoon Sexual Assault and Information Centre, or a crisis line: 306-244-2224.
- The Regina Sexual Assault Support Centre also offers counselling services or a crisis line: 306-352-0434.
- Canada's Suicide Crisis Helpline: Call or text 988.
- Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868. Text 686868. Live chat counselling on the website.
- Crisis Services Canada: 1-833-456-4566, or text 45645.
- Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime: 1-877-232-2610 or text 613-208-0747
- This guide from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health outlines how to talk about suicide with someone you're worried about.
- What to do if someone has shared or threatened to share your intimate images by Tech Safety Canada.
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