Finally! A very clear guide for what to do if your naked photo winds up on the internet

If a naked photo of you winds up online without your permission, it can be very, very difficult to get it taken down. One site might remove the image, only for it to spread like a weed to a dozen others. The law is often unclear on how to deal with this, if it deals with it at all. Countless people, mainly women, have experienced the exasperation that comes with a naked photo gone viral.

But there are ways to mitigate the damage when this happens. A new guide from the legal advocacy group Without My Consent lays out exactly what to do, walking victims through the process of getting their images offline step-by-step.

The guide includes instructions on how to preserve evidence, how to file a takedown request and how to register an image’s copyright so that you have the legal authority to force websites to remove it.

All too often attorneys and law enforcement shrug off revenge porn, telling victims that nothing can be done, even though more than half of U.S. states have passed laws making so-called revenge porn illegal in recent years.

But, according to the guide, “if you follow these directions and take this information to your legal counsel, police precinct, domestic violence clinic, or family court self-help center, the answer will no longer be ‘nothing can be done.'”