‘What you put on the Internet stays there for ever.’

You’ve probably heard people say this on Reddit or elsewhere. 

It couldn’t be further from the truth.

The vast, vast majority of things uploaded to the Internet will never be copied or reproduced - meaning that if you delete them, they truly are gone for ever. Add to this the fact that the average lifespan on a website is only 2 years, and that over 80% of websites are inactive, and you realise just how ephemeral things really are.

As a case in point, this guide (which I strongly recommend you read if you’ve uploaded porn or nudes to Reddit) lists scores of websites that it’s possible your nudes have been copied by bots. At the time of writing, this guide is a redraft of a guide that the poster made about 3 years ago. Already about a third of these websites have shut down. In another 3 years that number will likely be two thirds. Of the websites I found my own porn on, more than half have closed since I started trying to scrub the web. This number will only increase over time.

Now, of course, if you don’t nip it in the bud, it is possible that the opposite will happen and they will multiply…so the faster you act, the better. (This is pretty unlikely, however. Reddit nudes get a decent number of views, but when they’re reposted by bots they get hardly any - sometimes none - so don’t worry too much!)

The specifics will change depending on which sites you’ve used, but the meat of the matter is largely the same. 

I have uploaded nudes to Reddit (several different subreddits), porn to Pornhub and even cammed a bit on Chaturbate in the past. I’m quite certain I’ve located all copies, and of the copies I have found I have succeeded in having 99% of them removed from the web. (The only exception is one picture from my camming days which isn’t even compromising, and which I could get removed if I really persisted).

Finding your stolen images and videos

Before deleting your porn videos, make sure you download a copy of each one. Note down as many details as you can, including the time stamp, the title of the video and your username. Get screenshots from different points within the video too. 

Now, open the page with your porn videos in Google Chrome and right click on each thumbnail and do a reverse image search. (Firefox allows you to do the same with different search engines, so try that too.) (If the videos are already deleted, then upload the screenshots into Google reverse image search. If you don’t have screenshots, then move on to step 2, and if you should locate any reuploaded videos in your search, make sure to download/nab screenshots/reverse image search the thumbnail before getting them removed).

You’ll probably find the video appearing on several different sites. Don’t panic. 99% of the time this just means the video is embedded, which means once you delete the source video, these will disappear too. (In some cases the thumbnail might remain for a while, but it’ll be blurry).

Now, reverse image search the thumbnails and any screenshots you’ve taken. It’s a good idea to reverse image search screenshots as sometimes when a video is reuploaded, the thumbnail changes. Fortunately, if the camera angle doesn’t change during the video this shouldn’t matter too much.

Jump ahead to the guide to the different reverse image search engines at the bottom of this post for more details.

Of course this also works for images, and is the best way of finding any images of you that might have been reuploaded.

Now for step 2: try searching for the video manually. Enter its title into Google, both normally and surrounded by speech marks. For example, say your video is called *Jenny sucking a lollipop*. Type in Jenny sucking a lollipop and then also try “Jenny sucking a lollipop”. Speech marks allow Google to find the exact wording, but sometimes it backfires, so it’s worth trying both ways.

Next do the same with Bing and Yandex. Again, enter the title normally, and then try and be more specific. You can do this by affixing a at the start of a word, such as Jenny, or if it’s a series of words, Jenny-sucking-a-lollipop.

Last of all, try entering your username and seeing what comes up.

Depending on how much porn you’ve produced, using these methods you should be able to find pretty much all records of it. 

Of course, there are exceptions.

For instance, sometimes sites that steal videos scramble or simply rename the title. But reverse image search should still be able to find them. And in my experience this is fairly rare. I've done some research into this and most reuploads will keep the original title.

If the title returns nothing, and neither does reverse image search, then it almost certainly hasn’t been reuploaded. But it is technically possible that it’s out there somewhere. The good news is that the reason it’s not returning is because none of the search engines have indexed it, which means probably no one has clicked on it. And if no one clicks on the video when it’s new, then it has no chance of ever being clicked on (and sites like that tend not to stick around for long anyway).

Reverse search engines

Google reverse search - Should be your go-to. Highly effective. Remember to use both 'image source' and 'exact matches'.

Yandex reverse search - Not quite as effective but will sometimes find things that Google misses, and also finds similar images - meaning it might find other images of you.

Pixsy - Not the best, but has succeeded in finding a few of mine. However it also has a strong chance of finding false positives, so don’t fret if it ends up returning loads of ‘matches’.

Pimeyes - Terrifyingly exhaustive - and accurate - service that scours the web to find any and all pictures of you based on facial recognition. My initially reaction upon discovering this website was panic - and I promptly asked the database to remove my face from the system. However I would not recommend doing this, as it allows you to see if any pictures of you have been uploaded, even if you don’t have the exact photo at hand. 

Like I say, it’s extremely exhaustive, but with the caveat that it doesn’t search social media. Luckily, most social media doesn’t allow porn. Twitter is an exception, which I address below.

Tineye - pretty much useless I find but can find some of the more popular pictures

Bing - don’t bother with Bing as it doesn’t look for nsfw images

Note on Twitter/X

I was told that one of my images was on Twitter, but when I reverse searched the image nothing came up. This suggests that the Tweet wasn’t indexed, meaning it didn’t get much traction (phew). But even if a Tweet with a picture of you does get a lot of traction, the nature of Twitter means it’s virtually impossible to search for old photos. The only way to do so is to go on the account in question and scroll down, but these accounts tend to post hundreds of Tweets a day, meaning that after a year or so passes, nobody can see the offending Tweet anyway. So, again, don't worry too much.

It's also worth searching your username/captions/video titles *within* Twitter, because you may be able to find something that Google hasn't indexed.

How to get your images/videos removed

So you’ve found your images/videos (or you haven’t, in which case, good for you!) Now here’s how to get them removed.

If you come across your images in a forum or something like that, I'd suggested asking the poster (nicely) to remove them, and just let them know you don't want them reuploaded again. Whenever I've done this they've been very kind about it.

For videos, most tube sites will have a DMCA button at the bottom. This should provide you contact details to message the site owner to have the photo/video removed. In my experience they are usually obliging. Sometimes you might need to be persistent. They’re weirdos, but they’re (mostly) not evil.

If that doesn’t work, try to find an email address for the webmaster through Whois. Message them and tell them it’s ch*ld p*rn or something, or just claim copyright infringement - after all, it is against the law for them to steal your content in this way. No webmaster wants the headache of dealing with that.

It might be that Whois hides their contact details, but you can ask their domain provider to contact them on your behalf and pass on a message.

Failing that, you might want to resort to a paid service. I’ve used Repscan in the past. This subreddit has some suggestions for other services too. The services aren't cheap, but I know Repscan will give you your money back if you fail. I had a really tough cookie who wasn’t replying, but somehow they managed to get him to delete my video. There are other similar services out there. If that doesn’t work, then in all likelihood the webmaster is just dead, or ignoring their emails (including emails asking them to renew their domain), and the site will die shortly too.

Of course, in addition, some people may have downloaded your images and may reupload them in the future. It’s a possibility. So keep an eye on them, and keep reverse image searching. If a year passes and nothing shows up, however, then you’re probably in the clear. Moreover, I'd suggest putting a hash on your images so that they'll be automatically removed on social media. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the service that provides this, but have a look around and see what you find. This is the service I was thinking of.

I might have missed some stuff. If you have any questions or concerns or would like some help, feel free to DM me, and I’ll do my best.

Edit: u/Onladep, the author of the guide I mentioned above, has created a subreddit for assistance with removing nudes, so keep an eye on that too!