Mapping the Interdisciplinary Research on Non-consensual Pornography: Technical and Quantitative Perspectives

Abstract

The phenomenon of the non-consensual distribution of intimate or sexually explicit digital images of adults, a.k.a. non-consensual pornography (NCP) or revenge pornography, is under the spotlight for the toll it is taking on society. Law enforcement statistics confirm a dramatic global rise in abuses. For this reason, the research community is investigating different strategies to fight and mitigate the abuses and their effects. Since the phenomenon involves different aspects of personal and social interaction among users of social media and content sharing platforms, in the literature it is addressed under different academic disciplines. However, while most of the literature reviews focus on non-consensual pornography either from a social science or psychological perspective, to the best of our knowledge a systematic review of the research on the technical aspects of the problem is still missing. In this work, we present a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) of the literature, looking at this interdisciplinary phenomenon through a technical lens. Therefore, we focus on the cyber side of the crime of non-consensual pornography with the aim of describing the state-of-the-art and the future lines of research from a technical and quantitative perspective.