YouTube star raises $42,000 in crowdfunding campaign for revenge porn lawsuit

Through an online fund-raising effort, an American singer and video blogger has reached over US$30,000 (AU$42,000) to take her ex-boyfriend to court for revenge porn.

In what could be a landmark case of revenge porn in England, Chrissy Chambers seeks both a civil action for damages and criminal prosecution for her former partner. The 25-year-old YouTube star accuses her ex-boyfriend of secretly recording a video during their intimate moments and posting it on an amateur pornographic site in the UK. The explicit footage, she said, was made when she was just 18 and it clearly identified her as the woman in the video.

Chambers said that the she first learned of the videos through a YouTube channel that she shares with girlfriend Bria Kam, called BriaAndChrissy. “I clicked the link and saw someone stripped of her dignity,” Chambers shared in her crowdfunding website. “Naked, violated, and exposed for the world to see. I couldn’t believe it was me.” The videos, she said, have now generated tens of thousands of views and have been shared to more than 35 pornography sites.

She alleges that they tried to file criminal charges in the US and in the UK, but they were denied. Chambers hopes to get the rights to the copyrights to explicit videos so she could take them down. However, she cannot afford the legal fees, which drove her to launch the crowdfunding campaign.

“My girlfriend, Bria, and I have been involved in our pursuit of justice for over two years now. We have faced mountains of red tape and numerous dead ends. The police have turned us away. The legal system does not do enough to protect its victims. This may be our last opportunity for justice,” Chambers said in the site.

More than 700 individuals donated to Chambers’ crowdfunding efforts, which ranged from a pre-release recording of Kam and Chambers’ new song “Can’t Break Me” for US$5 (AU$7) to a Skype call worth US$10,000 (AU$13,960).

Revenge porn, or the act of sharing explicit images or videos of a person without consent, has been criminialised in the UK in 2015. Offenders are punishable by up to two years in prison, according to the Independent. However, Chambers said she the law does not apply to her because it was implemented years after her videos were uploaded.

To date, Chambers’ ex-boyfriend has not been named, even by The Guardian who had an exclusive interview with Chambers in June 2015.