If someone posted intimate images of you without consent, you have more power right now than at any point before. Publishing non-consensual intimate imagery, NCII, is a federal crime in the US, a crime in most states, and a crime across the UK, most of the EU, Canada, and Australia. Covered platforms now operate under a federal 48-hour removal deadline, search engines delist this content on request, and a free tool blocks re-uploads before anyone sees them. Revenge porn removal used to mean pleading with strangers; today it is a sequence with deadlines attached.
Run the sequence in order: report to the platform, cut the pages out of search results, fingerprint the images, then use copyright and host escalation for whatever survives. Two rules run through everything below, never pay the person who posted, and never warn them before the takedowns are in.
Step 1: Collect Evidence Without a Second Exposure
Screenshot every page with the full URL visible in the frame, and write down the date you found each one. A simple log, URL, platform, date found, date reported, ticket number, carries you through every channel in this sequence and through a police report if you file one.
You do not need to download the images to prove anything. URLs and screenshots are enough for platforms, search engines, hosts, and investigators; law enforcement captures its own forensic copies. Stay away from public archiving services too, they preserve a third public copy that then needs its own removal request. Keep the evidence folder offline and out of any cloud album that syncs.
Preserve the threats along with the posts. A message demanding money, or even just threatening to share more, is blackmail or extortion in every US state, a separate crime sitting in your inbox. Screenshot it with the sender's username and timestamp visible.
Don't keep revisiting the pages, either. Some leak sites display view counters, and repeated checking is the part of this that wears people down. Capture once, then put your energy into removals.
Step 2: File the Platform NCII Report and Start the 48-Hour Clock
Every major platform runs a dedicated non-consensual intimate image report, separate from its copyright channel and faster. On Facebook and Instagram it appears as "non-consensual intimate image" in the report flow; TikTok, X, Reddit, Snapchat, and Discord all have equivalents in their help centers. NCII sits at the top of their severity queues.
The deadline is federal. The TAKE IT DOWN Act, signed in 2025, makes publishing NCII, including AI-generated "digital forgeries", a federal crime, and requires covered platforms to remove reported content within 48 hours of a valid request, with reasonable efforts toward identical copies. Small platforms are exempt, so a niche forum may sit outside the law. The major networks do not.
A valid request is short: the URLs, a statement that you are the person depicted or someone authorized by them, a statement that you never consented to this disclosure, contact information, and a signature. Name the Act in the free-text field; it makes the legal duty explicit for the reviewer.
The Act also accepts requests from an authorized representative, the provision our personal takedown service is built on. When the uploader knows you personally, a compliant request can go in under our name, and yours never touches anything the uploader can read.
Step 3: Cut the Pages Out of Search Results Today
Google delists pages carrying explicit imagery of you, real photographs or AI fakes, on request, regardless of what the hosting site does. The request lives under Google's remove-explicit-imagery policy: select the category, submit the specific URLs, confirm you are the person depicted. Microsoft runs an equivalent form for Bing. File both; together they take minutes.
Know what delisting does and does not do. The page stays live on its host, but it stops appearing in search results, for most victims, the single biggest relief in this sequence. The content stops being one query away from your name while the slower removals crawl through hosts.
The form wants specific URLs, so include every copy you have found and return to add new ones as they surface. If some of the images are also your copyrighted work, a selfie you took, the copyright route runs in parallel: a Google DMCA removal request is a separate form with separate reach, and nothing stops you from using both.
Step 4: Fingerprint the Images to Block Re-Uploads Before They Land
StopNCII, run by UK charity SWGfL, the organization behind the Revenge Porn Helpline, is the best preventive tool available, and it is free. You submit an image through their tool, it creates a hash, a digital fingerprint, on your device, and the image itself never uploads anywhere. Participating platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit, block or remove uploads matching that hash, usually before anyone sees them. The hash matches the file, not a username, so it works across new accounts and re-uploads. One fingerprint buys network-wide prevention.
Its limits are real: it only reaches participating platforms, and it does nothing about offshore leak sites.
If any image shows you as a minor, everything changes. Those images are child sexual abuse material regardless of who took them or why they exist. Do not keep copies, and do not route them through adult channels. NCMEC runs Take It Down, an equivalent on-device hashing tool for minors, and its CyberTipline handles reports. The legal machinery behind those images is far stronger.
For appearances that keep surfacing beyond the platforms' reach, scheduled monitoring catches new URLs as they appear and captures evidence for each finding, which feeds straight back into the forms above.
Step 5: Use Copyright Where You Hold It, and Respect Its One Trap
If you took the photo yourself, a selfie, a mirror shot, you own the copyright the moment the shutter fires. You do not need to register anything to send a DMCA notice; 17 U.S.C. § 512 lets you demand removal from the host, its CDN, and search engines at once. Offshore sites that ignore NCII complaints often still honor DMCA, because their safe-harbor protection depends on it. The mechanics are in how to file a DMCA takedown notice, and the channel-by-channel walkthrough is in our guide to getting pictures removed from a website.
Now the trap. A DMCA notice carries your real name and contact information, and hosts forward it to the uploader. If the uploader answers with a counter-notice, the host can restore the content within 10 to 14 business days unless you file a court action, what happens after a counter notice explains the sequence. When the uploader knows you, that exposure is a real cost. NCII channels preserve your distance; DMCA spends it. Use NCII first, copyright where NCII does not reach.
Two cautions keep this lane safe. Do not claim copyright in photos someone else took, if your ex shot the photo, you do not own it, and a knowingly false claim carries liability under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f). And do not expect copyright in AI-generated fakes of you; you did not create them, which is exactly why the NCII route, covering digital forgeries, is the right one for those.
If the images came from leaked paid content, the same two-lane logic applies to creator accounts, see leaked OnlyFans content.
Step 6: Take It to the Host When the Site Itself Ignores You
When the images sit on a leak site with no big platform behind it, you are not reporting to an app anymore, you are reporting to the companies keeping that site online. Identify the provider with how to find out who hosts a website, then send an abuse report to that host; how to report a website covers what an effective one contains.
Hosts act on NCII even when they ignore everything else. Criminal content threatens their own upstream contracts, and publishing it is a crime in most US states, federally, and across the UK, most of the EU, Canada, and Australia, every reputable host's acceptable-use policy bans it. File at every layer you can identify: the host, any CDN or protective layer in front of it, then the registrar. Each report costs minutes, and redundancy works.
Abroad, escalation is formal. The UK's Online Safety Act 2023 criminalizes sharing intimate images and threatening to share them. Australia's eSafety Commissioner runs a reporting scheme for image-based abuse with enforcement behind it. EU platforms must act on notices about illegal content under the Digital Services Act. Country-by-country detail is in our takedown guide by country.
In the US, a police report costs an afternoon and strengthens every other notice you have sent, it turns a request into a criminal matter with a case number.
What Never to Do
Never pay. "Pay or I post more" is sextortion, and payment converts a threat into a subscription, it marks you as someone who pays and funds the next demand. Block the account, keep the screenshot, and report to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, or your national cybercrime portal if you are outside the US.
Do not warn the uploader before you file. Every head start is spent scattering copies to new accounts, new platforms, and hosts you have not found yet. The correct order is: every report submitted, then silence.
Do not engage at all. Each message confirms you are watching and teaches the sender your pressure points. If contact has to happen, it goes through a representative or an attorney, never from your accounts.
Do not hire "reputation hackers." Guaranteed same-day worldwide deletion is the second scam aimed at people in this situation; no legitimate operator promises it, because hosting realities do not work that way. Real services describe scope, process, and timing. Before paying anyone, read how to choose a takedown service and what takedowns actually cost.
Questions People in This Situation Ask
How long does revenge porn removal take?
For covered platforms, the TAKE IT DOWN Act sets a 48-hour removal clock that starts when your valid request lands. In practice the major networks often act within hours, since NCII sits at the top of their severity queue. Search delisting typically follows within days. Offshore sites take longest, they usually fall to host pressure rather than their own compliance.
Can I report without the uploader finding out it was me?
Yes. Platform NCII reports do not identify the reporter to the uploader, the content simply disappears, and your name is not forwarded the way it is in the DMCA process. That is why the NCII channel is the right first move when the uploader knows you personally. Representative filings extend the same distance: someone authorized submits on your behalf, and your identity stays out of everything the uploader can see.
What if the images are AI-generated deepfakes of me?
The NCII channel covers them. The TAKE IT DOWN Act explicitly includes "digital forgeries," Google's explicit-imagery policy includes synthetic images, and major platforms apply their NCII rules to AI fakes. Copyright usually is not available, since you did not create the fake, so stay on the NCII route and hash the images with StopNCII as well. The full playbook is in deepfake removal.
Do I need to register my copyright before sending a takedown for my selfies?
No. A notice under 17 U.S.C. § 512 requires a statement of ownership and a signature, not a registration certificate, the takedown lane is open to you the moment you create the image. Registration matters only if the dispute escalates into federal court, where it affects what damages you can claim. For getting the images down, it changes nothing.
What if I was under 18 in the images?
Then those images are child sexual abuse material under US law, regardless of who took them or why they were shared. Don't keep copies, and don't use adult channels. NCMEC's Take It Down tool fingerprints them on your device, and its CyberTipline handles reports; platforms are legally required to report what they find. Removal priority and criminal exposure are both far higher here.
Your First Hour, in Order
- Screenshot every page and message, URLs and usernames visible, and log the dates. No downloads, no public archives.
- File the platform NCII report everywhere the images appear, citing the TAKE IT DOWN Act by name.
- Submit Google's remove-explicit-imagery request, then Microsoft's for Bing.
- Fingerprint the images through StopNCII, or NCMEC's Take It Down if any of them show you as a minor.
- Block the uploader. If they demanded money, file at ic3.gov before the night is over.
- For whatever survives the platforms, offshore sites, mirrors, repeat re-uploads, a service that files under its own name is the calm way through. Cost and scope are on one page: our pricing.
The forms in steps two and three are open right now. Tonight can be the night the content starts disappearing instead of spreading.