A documentary following TV personality Georgia Harrison as she investigates the world of revenge porn, image based sexual abuse and deep fakes is coming to ITV this week.
Ms Harrison was a victim of image based sexual abuse herself, which is what led her to make this documentary.
On The Hard Shoulder, Ms Harrison explained her experience of image based sexual abuse.
“I was with an ex-boyfriend of mine and, unfortunately, he filmed us having sex without me knowing, which is deemed as voyeurism, and he then went on to sell it on the internet,” she said.
“Because both of us had somewhat of a celebrity status… unfortunately, it went extremely viral and to this day it's being viewed by 10s of millions of people.
“I then took him to court [and] I was very lucky to win my court case and go on to have, I would say, one of the most high profile image based sexual abuse cases in the UK.
“That went on to change legislation in the UK and do some really powerful, positive things in the end, which then meant that I'm now a campaigner for violence against women and girls and I just do my best to help cover any subjects that affect females, predominantly.”
Love Island's Georgia Harrison is seen in Downing Street after attending a meeting with Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology on the Online Safety Bill. 12 Sep 2023. Credit: Justin Ng/Alamy Live News.Finding out that a video of her in “that state” was available online was felt humiliating, Ms Harrison said.
“I was humiliated, I was mortified that individuals were seeing me in that state but I didn't think it was ever going to get to the point that it did,” she said.
“I was very, very physically affected by the issue - I don't even think I managed to call the police for a few days, because I was just so emotionally exhausted from what I'd experienced.”
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"See some positive"
Ms Harrison said she has “definitely come to terms with” the abuse she faced.
“Obviously it's been years now, so I've healed a lot and I'm in the best place I've ever been in my life,” she said.
“I'm a big believer in things happen for a reason and now I know that I can basically use my platform to help other people, I have to somewhat see some positive in what happened to me.
“My case definitely helped accelerate evoking change within image based sexual abuse, and I can't question that.
“The only thing that obviously still does really bother me is the fact that even though nonconsensual footage has been spoken about so much, especially my case, it is still circulating online - that's the only thing that really still drags me down.”
Georgia Harrison poses for photographers upon arrival at the Glamour Women of the Year awards on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in London. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)Despite knowing that it is more likely that people will view the sexual content online of her when the documentary comes out, Ms Harrison said she is worrying more about helping other women in the future.
“When it comes to this documentary… I feel like if I just face it head on now, there may be some chance that I can stop it circulating in the future, when it will have a lot more of a damaging effect on my family life,” she said.
“Also I can have a chance to hopefully stop it happening to other victims in the future because it's not just me that I'm fighting for, I'm fighting for so many other women whose lives are being torn apart by this.
“It isn't just like the individuals that are doing it, it is the high tech companies that are allowing this to happen on the internet and making money out of it.
“I hate it when higher up people have power over individuals - that isn't how the world should work - it should be a fair place for everyone and no one should be monetising off of the violation of someone else.”
Embarass and humiliate women
Ms Harrison said artificial intelligence apps are also hugely impacting the amount of image based sexual abuse that exists.
“AI has so many amazing benefits especially when it comes to the medical sector and stuff like that, it is doing so much good,” she said.
“But things like these ‘nudify’ apps or these deep fake websites, they have absolutely no reason to exist apart from to embarrass women, to humiliate women, or to take the consent away from women when it comes to showing men their naked body.”
Reality star Georgia Harrison giving evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee in the House of Commons, London, on the subject of non-consensual intimate image abuse. Picture date: Monday March 20, 2023.Ms Harrison said she hopes her documentary will “raise some awareness” and “evokes some change”.
“I hope people are going to understand just how bad the issues are because I tell you what, I had no idea how bad they were until I really got stuck into it,” she said.
Ms Harrison also said she hopes her documentary will encourage Governments to move faster against deepfake porn apps so there are less victims.
Watch Georgia Harrison’s documentary titled ‘Georgia Harrison: Porn, power and profit’ on ITV on February 18th and 19th.
Listen back here:
Main image: Split image of Georgia Harrison (R) and man looking at a phone (L).
