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It Has More Names Than You Think — Here's Every One of Them
Most of it isn't revenge, and none of it is porn — porn implies willing participants. Researchers now use image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) as the umbrella term, because it names what's actually happening: abuse, using images, without consent.
Here's every form it takes. This list isn't ranked — legal scholars Clare McGlynn and Erika Rackley, who coined the term IBSA, are clear that no form of this abuse is worse or more “real” than another. They're all points on the same continuum.
Creation
How the images get made or taken
- Non-consensual sharing (“revenge porn”)
- Real, consensually-made intimate images or videos, shared without the consent of the person in them — most often by a current or former partner.
- Deepfake abuse
- Sexual images or videos fabricated with AI, placing a real person's face or body into content they were never part of. Nothing about the original image needs to be real.
- Nudify apps
- A specific, fast-growing category of deepfake tool: upload a normal, clothed photo, and the app generates a fake nude in seconds. Built for exactly one purpose.
- Upskirting / downblousing
- Secretly photographing or filming under someone's clothing in public, without their knowledge.
- Spycamming / hidden camera abuse
- Hidden recording devices placed in private spaces — changing rooms, bathrooms, bedrooms — to capture people without consent.
- Sexualized photoshopping
- Editing a real photo to place someone in a sexual context, without AI — the lower-tech predecessor to deepfakes, still common.
Use
How it gets used against someone
- Sextortion
- Threatening to share intimate images unless the victim pays money, sends more images, or complies with some other demand.
- Cyberflashing
- Sending unsolicited sexual images to someone — over AirDrop, text, or social media — without consent.
- Doxxing with intimate images
- Publishing someone's private images alongside their real name, address, workplace, or other identifying information, to maximize harm.
- Collector culture
- Online communities built around trading and cataloguing non-consensual intimate images, often of specific named individuals, sometimes for years.
A note on terminology
You'll still see “revenge porn” everywhere — in headlines, in older laws, in casual conversation. We use it only when naming what a law or article originally called it. Otherwise, we call it what it is.
Glossary
Words you'll see everywhere
IBSA (Image-Based Sexual Abuse)
The umbrella term for every form above — the non-consensual creation, sharing, or threatened sharing of intimate images.
NCII (Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery)
A closely related umbrella term, often used interchangeably with IBSA, especially in US law and tech-platform policy.
Hashing
Turning an image into a unique digital fingerprint (a “hash”) so platforms can automatically detect and block it, without anyone having to view or re-upload the actual image. This is how StopNCII.org and NCMEC's Take It Down service work.
Takedown request
A formal ask to a platform or website to remove specific content — the mechanism behind most image-removal work, including DIF's.
TAKE IT DOWN Act
The federal law (signed May 2025) that makes it a crime to publish non-consensual intimate images, including deepfakes, and requires platforms to remove reported content within 48 hours.
DEFIANCE Act
Proposed federal legislation that would let deepfake victims sue for civil damages. Passed the Senate unanimously; has not yet passed the House as of this writing — not yet law.
Protect Privacy AI
The detection and removal technology, built by our tech partner, that powers DIF's Aster Ellis Fund.
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