Ladies…About your Private Nudes… (talking to you too, Bella Thorne)

Before I start, I shouldn’t have to say this, but this is the world we live in where I have to explain every little thing I say: Whoopi Goldberg DID NOT victim shame Bella Thorne or anyone about nude pics. When you are in the public spotlight you DO become a bigger target to hackers and they will work hard to get at that private content. That is what started off The Fappening and that is what Whoopi was actually saying.

The Fappening wasn’t that long ago either - we all remember it and I’m pretty sure some of you even have that content (I DON’T BTW). Let us not make an obvious fact into some fresh new bullshit that just happened. I’m also not going to tell you to not post your pics online — you’re all adults on the internet and I’m not your parents. That is NOT what this article is about in any way. I’m mainly here to instill some common sense and help silence nimrods. An impossible task, I know, but I have time and I’m willing to make the effort.

With that out of the way, I begin.

Nude Pictures. I fucking LOVE them as many of you do too. There are pics that people put out there of their own choosing, as a means of expressing their sexuality and their passion and admiration for the human body. It’s awesome. But the downside to this is that people want more than they deserve, thus resulting in some random unknown asshole resorting to hacking and grabbing those personal pics that are either for your eyes only or for that special someone in your life.

To the hackers that do this: FUCK. YOU.

This is also more prevalent if you are in the public spotlight: Celebrity, Spokesperson, Public Figure — no matter what title you wear in the public spotlight, it sadly DOES increase the chances of your personal digital life, in the form of Pics, texts, audio clips, etc… of becoming a big target for prying eyes. So, how can we fix this? By doing these 3 things.

1. Catch the Hacker, and throw him in Jail.
   While I can respect Bella Thorne’s decision to not contact the FBI, I think that was the worst thing she could do. When it comes to making a mistake, no matter how big or small, the important thing of all, is that you learn from it. That means that you’ll have to suffer the end results of said mistake or “mistake” (crime). In this case, even though this guy shouldn’t have even remotely thought of doing this, he still needs to be punished for it. By not allowing justice to be served against him, this will only enable him to commit the same act again. It creates the illusion that he can get away with it, even if they get caught, and if any of us have paid any attention to the news in the last 2–3 years, allowing an abusive person/criminal/all-around bad person to get away scot-free after a committing a crime DOES NOT WORK. I hope what happened to Bella Thorne and celebs from The Fappening NEVER happens to you, but if it does, PURSUE LEGAL ACTION and call the proper authorities. I can’t stress that enough. Bad guys belong in jail, not free as a bird. And no, that shit is not easy to deal with, but it has to be done.
2. Treat your cloud storage like Fort Knox…RIGHT NOW.
   The major flaw in using cloud storage is that security is only as powerful in its usage. The less security you use, the easier it is for you to access your content — and the easier it is for hackers to get access to it as well. The fix is to use complex passwords on EVERYTHING and change them frequently. NEVER use the same password on more than one account at a time. If you have a lot of accounts and you need to keep track of them, you can use a password keeper such as LastPass or 1Password. Use 2-step verify on every account that has that feature. Your digital life is just as important as your private life: Security has to be just as tight online as it is offline.
3. Treat your Phone like it’s the President of The United States.
   Yes, I know that one sounds weird and to some might sound awful, given the current political climate, but it really doesn’t matter who the current president is: it is about securing your phone and all its contents. Backing up your data to cloud storage is a good thing, but just securing it alone isn’t enough — you also need to secure your phone. The most common ways a hacker can assess a phone with ease is if encryption is off. A lot of newer phones have built-in encryption in them, especially Android phones, and they are easy to set up. If you have a pin/pattern lock you can use, enable it and make sure its set to be required to unlock your phone if you power it on/off and lock it. This makes the phone hard to access from sticky fingers.
   And make sure to turn Bluetooth OFF when you can. Believe or not the Bluetooth standard really hasn’t changed much at all over the last 2 decades, so unless it's currently paired to something, turn it off. and finally, and this is something I do every time: If you are taking a picture on your phone, or video for that matter, as soon as you can get to your PC, transfer the files to it. The whole idea is that if your phone should ever get taken or hacked, the bad actors won’t have access to anything. It’s like the movie “Air Force One”, where the terrorists take over the plane and that one person says “We don’t negotiate with terrorists” — Someone takes/hacks your phone, they won’t have any threats to make to you about anything.

In closing: there is nothing wrong with taking personal pics for yourself and sharing them with whomever you choose to share them with. Whether it's to the general public or someone privately, it should always be on your own terms and not by somebody else’s demands. Securing your personal accounts is a necessity, now more than ever. Many don’t do this because it means that you have to take extra steps to log in, but if it is one thing that I have learned from personal experience is that convenience should never overtake priority over security.

Everything that I have written here, the steps and practices, are things that I myself have installed into my daily routine for years. It may sound like overkill to many of you, but nowadays it can and should become the standard, more so if you are in the public eye.

Stay safe out there on the internet.