A final insult
A woman in Italy killed herself after a terrible year of revenge porn and social media shaming.
Tiziana Cantone, 31, was found dead at her aunt’s home in Mugnano, close to Naples in the country’s south, on Tuesday. Her funeral procession was televised as commentators grappled with the tragic outcome of her torment.
Cantone’s death came a year after she sent a sex video of herself to some friends including an ex-boyfriend .
The video was subsequently posted on the web and viewed almost a million times. The phrase “You’re filming? Bravo”, spoken to her lover in the video, became a derisive joke online and was printed on T-shirts, smartphone cases and other items.
She quit her job, she moved, she tried to change her name.
After a long court battle she won a “right to be forgotten” ruling ordering the video to be removed from various sites and search engines including Facebook.
But she was also ordered to pay €20,000 in legal costs, in what several Italian media outlets dubbed a final insult .
And now she’s dead.
My heart goes out to this woman, and nothing can justify the abuse heaped on her. But I’m afraid my first thought was “Why did she share the video?” It must be clear enough now that any digital image or video that isn’t under your direct control can find its way onto the internet.
But why bother to say that? Yes clearly it’s not a good idea, for one’s own safety and happiness, to share sex videos, but so what? Why bother with “But” and then reprove her?
If she’d been filmed hitting a child, or yelling racial slurs at a Trump rally, or stealing from the till at the coffee-shop, would she have suffered anything like these repercussions? As soon as Big Bad Ebil Sex appears, all judgment and sympathy vanish.
Yes, even among ‘enlightened, sophisticated’ Euro-trash.