This Digital Campaign Illustrates the Sexual Harassment Women Often Face Online

There's an online campaign underway to combat the sending of unsolicited photos of genitalia, which encourages people who have received such photos to mint the images into non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and sell them back to the senders. Upon learning that their genitals have gone digital—and public—men are encouraged to buy the NFTs if they want to "burn" them. This is not meant to be taken literally, explained Zoe Scaman, founder of London strategy studio Bodacious who co-created the campaign "NFT the DP" with Alex Morris and Oliver Finel, founders of creative studio Very Serious. In fact, the point of the initiative is that creating an NFT to sell back would actually mean recipient of the photo committed more of a criminal act than the online assault itself. She is also doubtful NFT minters would allow it. The idea came from a suggestion made within a Reddit forum about blockchain. Scaman liked the idea as a way of fighting back against the ongoing abuse she and countless other women face. Scaman estimated she gets one or two unsolicited photos every week, "and they are pretty horrific." “It’s a really frustrating tax that we pay as women for daring to build ourselves a platform on places like Twitter, and I know I’m not the only one," she said. "There are some well-known women both in the U.S. and the U.K. that I’ve been chatting to about it, and we get heaps of dick pics, abusive messages, we get rape threats—all of that." It’s a really frustrating tax that we pay as women for daring to build ourselves a platform on places like Twitter.—Zoe Scaman, co-creator, "NFT the DP" These photos are often coupled with threats of violence, a trend that became even more pronounced for Scaman as she launched "NFT the DP." "I’ve had lots of abuse, and I’ve had rape threats in the last couple of weeks," she said. "Because of this [project], I woke up to shitloads of dick pics in my DMs, threats against my life, all that kind of stuff. I knew that was going to happen because what I’ve done with this site is controversial." An online message to promote recipients of unsolicited dick pics turning them into NFTs A global problem with few penalties These types of unsolicited photos have become a common element in online sexual assault through social media and texting. In December 2020, Virginia's House of Delegates agreed to criminalize it, which was the only legislation related to the issue in the U.S., only to have the proposed law derailed by a state senate committee. In its 2019 report, "Ending Violence Against Women and Girls," the U.K.'s Home Office stated it plants to “explore issues of ‘online flashing,’ and consider options for next steps.” At the time, the proposals were to be backed with £100 million ($137,000,000) over the next five years. In January, British member of Parliament Fay Jones called for "cyber flashing" to be made a crime. While it has been an offense in Scotland since 2010, it remains to be prosecuted in England and Wales. 'You can't win' “NFT the DP” includes a list of bullet points that outline exactly how recipients of lewd photos can go about minting them as an NFT, which the sender would then have to buy back in order to prevent it from being sold and spread openly. “If you feel the urge to send a no-context jpeg of your junk, we’ll give it the audience you clearly think it deserves, by pinning its wrinkly ball sack to the blockchain,” explains the page. Scaman noted the instructions are not to be taken literally, however, and that it should be viewed as an illustration of what could happen if the power dynamic was flipped. She also admitted that NFT minters would not proceed with such a request even if it were attempted. They’ve won the minute they’ve sent it to you because they get off on the shock and the power, and you can’t do anything about it.—Zoe Scaman, co-creator, NFT the DP “The difficulty with dick pics is that you can’t win—they’ve won the minute they’ve sent it to you because they get off on the shock and the power, and you can’t do anything about it,” Scaman said. She and the site's other creators hope the project will help draw more attention to a problem that's widespread and disproportionally affects women. “I keep my DMs open because I get a lot of messages from women on a daily basis who want advice," she said. "But as a result of the platform, I just get torrents of abuse. And I know for a fact male thought leaders or strategists with big profiles don’t get any of this stuff. They don’t have to deal with what we have to deal with.” The ABCs of NFTs: A Guide to Non-Fungible Tokens, the Cryptomedia Trend Bringing Ownership to the Internet