Stephen McDermott

LAST WEEK, A massive scandal broke in Argentina involving the sexual exploitation of dozens of women who were allegedly coaxed into making pornographic films that were later posted online.

It’s also been alleged that children may have been involved, which would mean some of the videos shared on the internet show child sexual abuse.

The case hasn’t been widely reported in the Anglophone world, but it’s yet another lurid reminder (as if we needed one) of how the internet reduces people to content.

The story emerged after a 30-year-old man was arrested in the city of Rosario over allegations that he ran a network that sexually exploited women by filming pornographic films with them and distributing them without their consent.

It’s alleged that the man lured victims by claiming he ran an agency that could get them work in the audiovisual industry, promising them international exposure, money and fame.

Confirming details of the case, Argentina’s national security ministry said it’s found more than 150 clips so far as part of its investigation.

The case is similar to an entirely separate one that concluded in the United States last year, when another man was sentenced to 27 years in prison for luring young women into shooting pornographic films before he posted the footage online.

At the end of that case, victims described how they were “exploited, coerced, raped, abused and trapped” and detailed trauma that included suicide attempts, depression, PTSD, lost jobs and relationships, having to deal with stalkers and harassment, and the “heavy burden of shame” that many of them still carry.

My introduction to the story in Argentina was a grim reminder of why, when something like this happens on the internet, that burden of shame and trauma will almost inevitably follow.

I first saw a mosaic of some of the women’s faces while scrolling on X in a post translated from Spanish.

The sheer weirdness of the caption was actually what drew me in.

“I’m going to teach you a new incel theory: the ClawPill or the claw theory,” it began.

The reference was to an online school of thought called Green Line Theory, which analyses the body language between couples in photographs for hidden meanings about the power dynamics in their relationship.

One part of the debunked theory suggests that if a woman is gripping a man’s shoulder (a move known as “the claw”), she is the dominant partner – which, to incels and other misogynists on the internet, is a terrible state for the world to be in.

The post I saw showed a couple of examples of women with their ‘claws’ around men and other images of women facing into a camera.

When I read the rest of the caption, the details started to emerge.

“All those girls decided to film a porn video with the same degenerate [...] in exchange for $200, while having a boyfriend and/or kids. What do the photos have in common? EXACTLY. The same pose: The claw on top of the man, showing dominance.”

I was soon fed more similar posts about the criminal activity, the result of an algorithm that is influenced by manosphere posts and far-right accounts I monitor as part of my work.

Everything I began to see was less geared towards the facts, the criminal investigation or the horrendous treatment of the victims, and more about who could post the most engaging ragebait or find the most shareable way to shame the women.

All of this was served up to me after X automatically translated it from Spanish, decontextualising the narrative and carrying the original form of harm into a new phase, built from the re-consumption and reinterpretation of what had happened.

Even seeing the initial posts and researching them for this piece felt like a form of participation, as I went looking for the facts amid a sea of posts that amped up voyeuristic curiosity and outrage.

Of course, to blame social media’s algorithms alone would let the darker impulses of humanity off the hook too easily.

People were the ones who started this, who wrote other posts I saw describing the Argentinian victims as “sluts” and “hookers”.

People, not X’s algorithm, went digging for the women’s social media profiles and put images that purport to show their husbands and children next to stills from the videos.

But X has provided an outlet for the women to be named and shamed and has facilitated them being turned into objects to be judged and critiqued.

I found multiple accounts that openly posted pornographic clips of the victims on X – including versions more than 20 minutes long – despite the fact that an investigation in Argentina has opened and accusations that some of those involved are children.

Grok, the AI chatbot on X, is even responding to users by giving the names and details of women and websites where you can find the videos when asked.

That raises more questions for X only months after the ‘nudification’ scandal highlighted how easily the platform can be used to spread sexualised material at scale, and how few safeguards are in place to prevent that happening.

This is exactly the type of thing that happens when you create a domain where free speech and technological progress are prized above all, as Elon Musk has so often articulated, to the point that moderation is seen as a burden.

The attention economy on X has played a further role by encouraging an extractive system whereby exploitation on this scale can become a social media gold rush. 

The platform is awash with accounts that repost pornographic posts, many of which are monetised so they can make money for high-performing posts without any consent from the women involved.

When those users turn to a scandal like the one in Argentina, harm becomes part of the product – which no doubt many people find easier to justify because they didn’t search for it (it was recommended to them after all) and nobody else knows they’re doing it from the comfort of their phones.

The scandal existed before social media, but algorithms gave it a different afterlife by reproducing it for attention, engagement and hot takes.

I had to find out the facts after I saw the story in a way that was geared more towards getting and keeping my attention, and framing the women as perpetrators rather than victims.

By that stage, the victims once again had no control over what the internet got to see about them.