By Globe Staff,Updated March 20, 2024, 4:46 p.m.
When Katelynn Spencer discovered in 2020 that two videos of her had been uploaded to a pornographic website, they had already been online for a decade. By then, she said, the videos — both recorded when she was 18, one without her knowledge — had spread far across the internet. One clip alone had amassed 970,000 views, the Fairhaven resident said.
Yet, lawyer after lawyer told her she didn’t have a case despite her having “lost everything” because of the videos, Spencer said — friends, family, her marriage. Unlike in 48 other states, Massachusetts doesn’t outlaw people from sharing sexually explicit images or videos online without another person’s consent.
“Because there is no law,” Spencer, 33, said, “no one wants to help you in this state.”
After years of inaction and disagreement, Massachusetts lawmakers finally appear poised to change that. The state Senate is expected to vote Thursday on a bill criminalizing “revenge porn” that hews closely to a proposal that unanimously cleared the House. Both bills would also extend the criminal ban to sharing so-called deep-fake pornography using computer-generated images.
With more than three months until lawmakers wrap up formal sessions, legislators, survivors, and advocates say they’re hopeful — some for the first time — that after floating around Beacon Hill for years, the legislation will finally reach Governor Maura Healey’s desk and close a loophole that nearly every other state long ago addressed.
“It’s taken too long,” said state Senator John F. Keenan, a Quincy Democrat who has pushed to fix the issue. “For all those that have come forward, it will show that they’re being heard. . . . We also hope we send a message that this behavior is not acceptable.”
Revenge porn is a form of abuse that advocates say follows survivors for years on social media and online, yet for so long carried none of the same penalties as other crimes. Dozens of states, plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam, have acted in recent years, creating laws that make it illegal for former partners and others to disseminate sexually explicit images of another person without consent.
It’s an ignominious designation that former governor Charlie Baker repeatedly wielded as part of his push to outlaw revenge porn during his final year in office. But while the House passed language in May 2022, the measure stalled in the Senate, incensing survivors. The chamber later embraced its own version in the final days of the legislative session, but lawmakers gaveled out in January 2023 without a deal.
Lawmakers appear more aligned this time. Both chambers’ version would make it a crime to knowingly distribute sexually explicit video or images — including “visual material produced by digitization” — either with the intent to harass, coerce, intimidate, or cause emotional distress, or to do so with “reckless disregard for the depicted person’s lack of consent.”
Those convicted would face up to 2½ years in jail and a $10,000 fine, while those guilty of second or subsequent offenses could face up to 10 years in prison and $15,000 in penalties.
The legislation would also expand on past proposals by adding “coercive control,” to the definition of abuse, making it illegal to limit a person’s activities, isolate them from friends or family, or threaten to publish sexually explicit images.
Yet, it only takes a single image or video posted online to sabotage someone’s life. Alex Hagerty, a former Abington selectman, said he felt “lower than dirt” when a former partner posted an explicit video of him the day they broke up roughly eight years ago. He didn’t consent to making the video, and only learned it was online after a stranger messaged him on Instagram.
But after Hagerty went to local police, he said investigators told him they could do nothing because “revenge porn is legal.” That, he said, devastated him.
“I went out to my car, and cried and cried,” Hagerty said. “And I just thought of different ways I can take my own life.”
Hagerty said it was his father and his friend, Alyson Sullivan — now a state representative — who “saved my life.” He has since testified at a legislative hearing on the need to update state laws to outlaw revenge porn, and has spoken to Keenan about the legislation. Hagerty, who was elected to the GOP state committee earlier this month, is planning to attend Thursday’s vote.
“The biggest thing people thought for a long time was, ‘It isn’t an issue.’ And it really is,” said Hagerty, adding that many who fall victim to revenge porn suffer in silence. “I’ve heard of people who have taken their lives because of this; I nearly took my own life because of it. The idea that this isn’t a problem, it’s close-minded.”
Hema Sarang-Sieminski — deputy director for Jane Doe, Inc., an advocacy group that works against domestic violence and sexual assault — said when the legislation collapsed at the finish line of last session, the feedback she and other advocates got from lawmakers “was that there wasn’t enough survivor outrage or input into why this is so necessary.”
That surprised her. “Honestly, from what we saw, there certainly were survivors who spoke up early and often about this issue throughout that session,” she said.
Nonetheless, she said there has been “real mobilization” behind a bill this year. “It felt like we’re at a place where survivors are leading the demands for these protections,” she said.
Spencer, the Fairhaven woman who discovered videos of herself a decade after they were posted, has appeared on national television and podcasts, hoping her story could help spur legislative changes. Should it finally happen in her home state, “I’ll probably break down and cry,” she said.
“It’s not going to do something for me. I get no justice,” she said. “But if my story helps a little bit for this to pass, at least what happened to me made something happen.”