SYNOPSIS
Imagine you're in a crowded tube carriage during rush hour, fighting for standing room on a bus, or maybe even just passing the time in a coffee shop and your phone vibrates.
Is it the reply you've been waiting for, an important email? No, it's an unwanted, unpleasant, explicit image and you don’t know who it’s from.
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Aimed at the BBC's File on 4, No Flashing Matter is a radio documentary that will explore what it's like to be a target of Cyber Flashing, when an unsolicited explicit image is 'Airdropped' to your mobile device. The action has been illegal in Scotland since 2010, but a new review of the law in England and Wales has set its eye on Cyber Flashing.
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But is it enough to just keep putting out a fire that's already started, or should work be done to ensure a fire doesn't start in the first place? There have been calls for immediate action against an issue that's affecting women now and can't wait for action until 2021, when the review is due to be published.
The documentary will hear from those who have been cyber flashed, the Law Commission and others to answer the questions What is it, What is it like and What is being done?
aboutme
While working at Sky News over the Summer in 2019 I wrote an article for their Snapchat channel, all about Cyber Flashing.
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It was a topic that I'd never heard anything about, and yet it was the subject for a Government-ordered law review and continues to affect many people every day.
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It felt wrong to leave my research into Cyber Flashing at just the one article, and then when pitches for my final year major multimedia project came around, it seemed like the ideal focus. Awareness is low, but the motivation among targets and academic experts to make a change is high.
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I hope that No Flashing Matter will not only educate, but also raise awareness and ensure that Cyber Flashing is an issue that is taken seriously, and not just laughed off.