ebay rep says it's ok to sell revenge porn on ebay

[benneedsstuff]

Sorry for the clickbait title but it is accurate. I was browsing items ending soonest the other day and noticed a seller selling pornographic photographs. I looked a bit closer, for research purposes and found that they also sell naked photographs of Reece Witherspoon. The photographs are clearly Ms Witherspoon's head on someone else's naked body. That's really not okay. I don't care about consenting adults getting up to whatever but there is no way there was any consent involved here.

I reported it to ebay. Eight hours later i got a reply from ebay:

"We looked into your report and didn’t find the listing to be in violation of our policy. This determination was made by a customer service agent."

So either the agent didn't look past the first photograph (which is fully clothed), or the agent thinks the bars placed over the breasts will be in the final item, or it's okay to sell revenge porn on ebay. Ebay's policy seems quite clearly against this but also I'm pretty sure this is illegal in my country. Maybe if I can get other people to also report it, it might end up with a better agent.

[*vyolla* · Accepted solution]

Actors/Musicians have teams of people they pay to keep an eye on this kind of stuff, it's nigh on impossible to report this to eBay via their reporting system.

I'd just leave it be or, you could Google for their agent and email them with a link to the listing. 

[firstgardencity]

I messaged eBay when I read your message and they have replied stating the listing will be removed.

[*vyolla*]

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@firstgardencity wrote:

I messaged eBay when I read your message and they have replied stating the listing will be removed.

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Great, let's hope it is.

It's technically an IP infringement. 

[benneedsstuff]

That's great news, thank you so much. Regardless of any ebay policy it's just plain wrong and likely illegal.

[benneedsstuff]

Technically an IP infringement indeed. If someone finds naked photos of themselves on ebay, they will probably not be thinking about intellectual property.

[*vyolla*]

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@benneedsstuff wrote:

Technically an IP infringement indeed. If someone finds naked photos of themselves on ebay, they will probably not be thinking about intellectual property.

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Then they probably should, as that would be the route for getting them removed in law. 

[marco@ebay]

Hi benneedsstuff, thanks for your post.

If the listing in question is still live, could you please PM me the item number, so I can request a manual review for it?

Thank you,

Marco

[benneedsstuff]

Thanks Marco. Item numbers sent. Good luck.

[lighting_signs_and_vintage]

This thread is about reporting things, hopefully a spiteful mod won't remove this in a hissy fit. Celebrities would seem to get gold treatment but when we report BLATENT use of a private account to sell multiples of the same goods for clear profit / trading we get told our report has been reviewed but nothing has broken 3bay rules? I have unwittingly bought an item from a 'private' account that only has 1000 or so more of the same identical brand new item left. Reported it and got told 'no issue here, move along'.

[london-mac]

I think the problem is that the customer service bots in India or the Philippines weren't even born when Reece Witherspoon was famous, and haven't a clue who she is.

Item numbers?

[benneedsstuff]

Apparently “shaming” the seller is not allowed. I’m not sure how much shame this seller can feel. Rather than posting the item numbers just search eBay for “11 sexy photos” and several of the offending items appear.

I found an article from earlier in the year showing that this is endemic on eBay. Looks like eBay still haven’t got a handle on how to deal with this.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2024/03/12/ai-nudes-of-celebs-like-margot-robbie-and-s...

The CPS in the UK advised earlier this year that they will prosecute people distributing deep fakes so eBay should get it sorted. 

I’d appreciate other people reporting these items.