Tiziana Cantone: Sex tape suicide fuels revenge porn debate

The suicide of an Italian woman who faced months of humiliation over a sex tape posted on the internet has fuelled debate about revenge porn and the "right to be forgotten" online.

Tiziana Cantone, 31, was found hanged at her aunt's house in Mugnano, close to Naples, three days ago.

Her name was well known in the country after an explicit video she had sent to an ex-boyfriend was uploaded to the internet last year. It subsequently went viral and triggered a torrent of abuse and jokes at her expense.

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"In a bid to escape the humiliation, Tiziana quit her job, moved to Tuscany and tried to change her name, but her nightmare went on," reports The Local.

A quote from the video, translated as "You're making a video? Bravo", was printed on T-shirts, smartphone cases and other items for peoples' entertainment.

Cantone eventually won a "right to be forgotten" ruling, which ordered the video to be removed from specific sites and search engines, but she was ordered to pay €20,000 in legal costs and the video can still be found online, according to the Naples daily Il Mattino. "In the Wild West of the internet, the orders of a judge have the same effect as shooting blanks," says the newspaper.

Her mother, Maria Teresa, told La Repubblica: "She suffered from everything she saw and heard, and in particular from the lawsuit, because she believed justice had not been done."

According to local reports, prosecutors in Naples are exploring "incitement to suicide" charges, with four men under investigation.

Most often, victims of revenge porn are women, says Bustle, and this case "specifically challenges" the sexual objectification and violence against women that is prevalent when explicit material is shared online without an individual's consent: "Cantone's suicide exemplifies how deadly misogyny can be."