A woman who ran for local office in Virginia is speaking out against a national news site that released details about internet s*x films she’s in that she didn’t even know existed in September, saying the leak has “fundamentally” affected her, and that it was also unlawful.
Susanna Gibson, a 40-year-old nurse practitioner who campaigned for Virginia’s House of Delegates this year, told Politico that she was astonished to learn that the Washington Post had published an article alleging that she performed s*xual activities with her husband online in exchange for money.
“My entire life was rocked on Sept. 11, when the article ran,” Gibson told Politico, adding that she had no idea the films existed or were available online.
She said she got out about the tapes when a reporter from a national news organization contacted her campaign when she was working at the clinic a few days before the article was published.
“When you find out that there are s*xually explicit videos of you online, especially by being contacted by national reporters — it is a feeling that I would not wish on my worst enemy,” she went on to say.
She stated that she took a break after reading the article. Reporters from various publications “camped out” in front of her house for two weeks, forcing her to evacuate in order to get them to “leave my children and my family alone,” she added.
The videos were discovered by a Republican operative who told Post workers of their existence. Republican strategists, according to Gibson, “found these videos on the dark web and shopped them around to various news outlets.”
Gibson has hired an attorney since learning of the report, who informed the Post that the distribution of the recordings is a breach of Virginia’s revenge porn legislation and that Gibson never consented to these videos being filmed.
“Content that is initially made in a consensual context, which is then distributed in a non-consensual context digitally, is a crime,” Gibson stated that if she had not been a political candidate campaigning for office, the Post would have responded differently.
“It was a few days of feeling hopeful, then a few days of feeling devastated.” How is this possible? How can a major news organization decide to carry a report like this? “I believe that if I hadn’t been a candidate, the Post would have been outraged at the invasion of my privacy,” Gibson said.
She claims the Post should not have published the article because it violates her digital privacy.
“We know that when images, particularly that have to do with s*xuality and nudity, because of our society’s particular interest in those things — our prurient interest — the moment that an image like that or a video like that gets put on the internet, it’s like lighting a fire in a dry forest,” she said in an interview with Politico.
“It spreads rapidly and extensively until it causes irreversible damage,” she went on to say. “I believe that anything, especially anything related to s*xuality, requires a significant barrier because of the harm that it can cause.” It’s a betrayal of trust as well as a violation of dignity – the right to dignity, privacy, and s*xual autonomy.”
Gibson was defeated in the legislative contest by fewer than 1,000 votes. She claims her narrow defeat demonstrates that voters are uninterested in what she does online.
“You talk to voters and you can tell who knew and who didn’t know, and who knew and didn’t care.” “Very few people seemed to care — very few,” she explained. “I can count them on less than two hands.”
