Is Susanna Gibson a Victim of Revenge Porn?
In case you missed it, Susanna Gibson is a candidate for a seat in Virginia’s House of Delegates. Her campaign grabbed the public’s attention when it was revealed that she streamed sex acts online in exchange for tips. Here are all the details, as reported in The Washington Post:
A Democrat running for a crucial seat in Virginia’s House of Delegates performed sex acts with her husband for a live online audience and encouraged viewers to pay them with “tips” for specific requests, according to online videos viewed by The Washington Post.
Susanna Gibson, a nurse practitioner and mother of two young children running in a highly competitive suburban Richmond district, streamed sex acts on Chaturbate, a platform that says it takes its name from “the act of masturbating while chatting online.”
Chaturbate videos are streamed live on that site and are often archived on other publicly available sites. More than a dozen videos of the couple captured from the Chaturbate stream were archived on one of those sites — Recurbate — in September 2022, after she entered the race. The most recent were two videos archived on Sept. 30, 2022. It is unclear when the live stream occurred.
Gibson, 40, can be seen in the videos soliciting “tips” for performing specific acts — in apparent violation of Chaturbate’s terms and conditions, which say: “Requesting or demanding specific acts for tips may result in a ban from the Platform for all parties involved.”
In at least two videos, she tells viewers she is “raising money for a good cause.”
In multiple videos, Gibson interrupts sex acts to type into a bedside computer. Speaking directly into the screen, she urges viewers to provide tips, which are paid through “tokens” purchased through the site. In at least two videos, she agrees to perform certain acts only in a “private room,” an arrangement that requires the viewer to pay more.
“I need, like, more tokens before I let him do that,” she responds to a request that they perform a certain act. “One token, no. More. Raising money for a good cause.”
Almost immediately, as tips apparently arrive, she says “thank you” five times and tells her husband she will agree to that act.
Gibson takes the lead in addressing viewers on videos viewed by The Post, but in one case her husband, an attorney, chimes in with, “C’mon, guys,” to echo her entreaties for tips.
So now the scene has been set for the legal analysis.
She performed the sex acts online with no reasonable expectation of privacy. In such situations, the argument is sometimes made that there is an expectation of privacy, because the acts are performed for a limited number of paid members, and not for the internet at large. But this argument seldom withstands scrutiny because, as the saying goes, “the internet is forever.” Anything streamed out to the internet can be captured by anyone watching, who can then display it to others. This is even clearer in this case because, according to the Washington Post article, although the videos are initially streamed live, they are posted on other sites following the live stream, available to any subscriber. (Although it appears that these particular videos were removed after their existence was revealed.) Continue reading
