Google announced last Friday that it will begin removing nude or sexually explicit images posted without the subject's consent from search results upon his or her request. While John Oliver acknowledged that this, along with Twitter and Reddit's bans of revenge porn a few months ago, is a step in the right direction to stop this practice from ruining people's lives, he used his top story on Sunday night's episode of Last Week Tonight to show why the Internet is still an altogether horrifying place for women.
While the Internet has given us many wonderful things, like the ability to learn about dinosaurs and meet some kayaking buddies, as an early AOL commercial shows, or Rick Roll others when they least expect it, as Oliver gets a lot of joy from during this week's segment of Last Week Tonight, it has also given us the ability to harass anyone anywhere in the world anonymously.
Sometimes, comments can be mean but ultimately harmless, such as when one YouTube user said that Oliver's fingers look like "creepy spider legs." However, online comments can quickly cross into harassment territory, which women experience in particular. This can include bomb, rape and death threats as well as being the target of revenge porn.
Though online harassment can be scary, dangerous and life threatening, Oliver shows that it's still difficult to prosecute with law enforcement that doesn't understand it, victim blaming from the media and no federal law to protect the targets of revenge porn. The least AOL could have done in those early days of the Internet was warn us about what it would become. Thankfully, Oliver shows us what that might have looked like, and it's not pretty.
Check out the full Last Week Tonight segment below.
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