WEBVTT

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[This talk contains graphic language
and descriptions of sexual abuse]

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Let me begin with a question.

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Can I get a show of hands
who here has ever Googled themselves?

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I have.

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But what started off
as momentary curiosity

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very quickly turned
into an almost five-year horrific battle

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that almost ruined my life.

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Now, before I continue, I must point out

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that what I'm about to talk about
is very confronting and graphic.

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But there's no way out.

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This is a very confronting issue.

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This is me at 17 years old.

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An innocent selfie I took before a party.

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I Google Images reverse-searched myself:

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a function of Google
that allows you to upload an image,

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and it shows you
where it is on the Internet.

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In a split second,

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my screen was flooded with that image

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and dozens more images of me

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that had been stolen from my social media,

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on links connected to porn sites.

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On these sites, nameless,
faceless sexual predators

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had published highly explicit
sexual commentary about me

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and what they'd like to do to me.

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"Cover her face, and we'd fuck her body,"

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one person wrote.

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They also published
identifying information about me:

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where I lived, what I studied, who I was,

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but things got worse.

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I soon discovered
that these sexual predators

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had doctored or photoshopped my face

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onto the bodies of naked adult actresses
engaged in sexual intercourse,

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of me being ejaculated on by two men.

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Sperm was edited onto my face.

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I was edited onto the cover of a porn DVD.

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Perpetrators had edited my images

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to give the effect that my blouse
was transparent, or see-through,

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so you could see my nipples.

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Perpetrators ejaculated on images of me,

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took photos of their sperm
and penises on these images

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and posted them onto porn sites.

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"Cum on printed pics"
is what they call it.

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Now, you might be wondering

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what sorts of images
I posted on social media.

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This is me, at around 19
at the Claremont Hotel,

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just a few suburbs away.

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And they superimposed that face into this.

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And things got worse.

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Nothing was off limits
for these predators.

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They even posted an image
with my little sister on these sites too.

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Now, you might be thinking,

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"Well, you do dress provocatively,

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even a little sexually suggestive,

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attention seeking maybe."

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But just because a woman's body
gets attention,

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doesn't mean she's attention-seeking.

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And what is provocative anyway?

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What is sexually suggestive?

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In some parts of the world,
showing your ankles is provocative.

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It's just like,
no matter what a woman wears,

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it's always perceived
as more sexual than it is.

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For me, I just wanted
to feel pretty and confident.

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What's so wrong with that?

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Now, you might be thinking,

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"Well, can't you just set
your social media on private?"

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Well, these perpetrators were calculated.

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They befriended my friends
on social media

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under fake profiles.

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They followed the public galleries

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of the events and places
I regularly visited.

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Why should one have to retreat and hide

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out of fear that something
like this could happen?

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What I post and what I wear

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isn't an invitation
to violate and abuse me.

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The only person that should be
changing their behavior

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is the perpetrators.

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(Applause)

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Now, you might be thinking, "Why me?"

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Well I'm just one
of the thousands upon thousands

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of ordinary women
who are being preyed upon

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in these mass-scale, horrific,
online cultures, websites and threads

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that are dedicated
to sexually exploiting and doctoring

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ordinary images of women into porn.

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As I speak,

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there are women who are being preyed upon
and they don't even know it.

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In the beginning, I tried seeking help.

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I went to police;
I contacted government agencies.

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I even tried to hire
a private investigator,

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but they were too expensive.

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But there was nothing that they could do.

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I mean, what could you do

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when the sites are hosted overseas
and the perpetrators are from overseas?

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I was told I had to contact
the sites one by one,

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notifying the web masters

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to get everything deleted.

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And so, as you can imagine,

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in complete and utter fear and pain,

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I did.

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I contacted the web masters,

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requesting that they delete
the material shared without consent.

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And I had some successes,

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but I also had some major setbacks.

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The more I fought,

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the more sites I would discover,

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and with time, the more my images
were being seen and shared

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in the tens of thousands.

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I had one web master respond to me,

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saying he'll only delete the site

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if I sent him nude photos
of myself within 24 hours.

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And this went on for years,

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fighting against these dodgy,
disgusting sites.

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But I was fighting a losing battle,

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and I couldn't continue this 
any longer for my own mental health.

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But what could I do?

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Maybe, I thought,

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if I spoke out,

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I could reclaim my name,

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and I could rewrite my narrative
on my own terms.

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Maybe if I spoke out,
I could raise awareness about this.

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Maybe I could even try to change the law.

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And so I did.

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(Applause)

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I spoke out publicly late last year,

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and news of my story
reverberated around the world.

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But this was the response.

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"She's a fat, ugly slut."

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"She's a whore."

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"She's an attention-seeking
piece of trash."

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"Feel flattered, baby, it's a compliment."

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I was victim-blamed and slut-shamed

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and told I was deserving
of what happened to me.

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And quite frankly,

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that was more difficult for me to endure

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than my actual experiences
of image-based abuse.

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But I couldn't let
this criticism defeat me.

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I knew what the perpetrators
had done was wrong,

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and I knew what they were doing
to others was wrong.

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And so, I petitioned.

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I sent out impassioned pleas for support.

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But it didn't work.

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I think I got like 330 signatures,

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and that was really disheartening.

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But I then contacted
my state and federal MPs,

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and I was referred to the New South Wales
Attorney General's Department,

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who were already in the process
of drafting new laws

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to criminalize the non-consensual
distribution of intimate images:

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image-based sexual abuse.

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Some of you may know it as revenge porn.

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And soon, I became a spokesperson,
a public face for the new laws.

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But I must point out,

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I do not in any way, shape or form,
want to take credit

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for this change in the law.

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This is on the backs
of cybersafety experts,

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of researchers,

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of the Attorney General's Department,

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of so many people
who have fought for years.

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But for the first time ever,

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New South Wales was the first
state in all the world

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to specifically include a provision
on altering images.

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Something that happened to me,

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something you certainly
don't hear about very often.

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And now ACT has also criminalized this,

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also with a provision on altered images.

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And next year, WA
is introducing legislation,

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and hopefully, they introduce
a provision on altered images.

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And I urge every state and every country
in this world to follow suit

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because right now, there's no justice
for people like me.

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Despite it all,

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despite the hate
and despite the criticism,

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despite the fact that I'm never
going to get justice,

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because my experience has happened
before this movement of law reform,

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speaking out was the best thing
I've ever done,

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because I know for a fact
that it's helped people.

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And I just want to live in a world

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where regardless of what I wear
or what I post,

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that I'm still worthy of being treated
with dignity and respect.

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Respect.

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Now, that's an idea worth sharing.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)