Content & leaks

Plan for leaks the way you'd plan for a flat tyre — not as a catastrophe, but as a thing that happens to everyone eventually and is much less painful if you've prepared. The two questions worth answering in advance are: how quickly can you get it taken down, and can you tell who leaked it?

Strip metadata before anything leaves your device

• Photos carry GPS coordinates by default. A single unstripped image can contain the exact spot it was taken. Turn off location access for your camera app entirely rather than relying on remembering.
• Metadata also carries device details and timestamps, which link separate files to the same camera.
• Screenshots and most platform uploads strip metadata, but direct file transfers usually don't. Never assume — check one file properly and learn what your workflow does.
• Check the image itself, not just the file. Reflections in glass, mirrors, screens and eyes survive at full resolution.

Watermark so a leak points back at someone

• A visible handle watermark does two jobs — it deters casual reposting and it advertises you when the repost happens anyway.
• Use a unique per-buyer mark on customs. A subtle code, a slightly different crop, a small variation placed differently for each buyer. When it surfaces, you know exactly which copy it was.
• Keep a log of which variation went to which buyer. The system only works if you can look it up.
• Never send customs unmarked. Custom content is the most leaked category there is, because the buyer feels ownership over it.

Deliver content carefully

• Platform-native delivery beats file sharing. It keeps a record, applies the platform's protections, and doesn't expose an account of yours.
• Cloud storage links can display your legal name to whoever opens them, depending on the account. This catches people out constantly.
• Avoid anything that lets the recipient download and redistribute silently where a streaming option exists.

Getting content removed

As the person who created the content, you generally own the copyright in it, which gives you a takedown route that doesn't depend on anyone agreeing that leaking was wrong.

• Go to the host, not the poster. Hosting providers and CDNs respond to formal notices; the person who posted it will not.
• Ask search engines to deindex. Removing a page from search results cuts most of the traffic even when the page itself survives.
• Filing a takedown can expose your legal name. Notices are frequently published in public transparency databases. Where possible file through an agent, a service, or a business name rather than personally — this is the single most important thing to know before sending your first one.
• Consider a takedown service if leaks become routine. It's a recurring cost against a recurring problem, and it keeps your name off the paperwork.
• Hash-matching services exist for intimate images shared without consent — notably StopNCII.org, which creates a fingerprint of the image on your own device and shares only that hash with participating platforms, so you never upload the image itself.
• Search engines also run specific removal processes for non-consensual explicit imagery, separate from copyright. Use both routes.

Reduce local discovery

• Use geoblocking where your platform offers it. Blocking your own country or region won't stop anyone using a VPN, but it stops the person who casually recognises you — which is the discovery route that actually damages lives.
• Block by postcode or city too where the option exists.
• Understand its limits and don't let it make you complacent. It raises the floor; it isn't a wall.

Monitor and keep records

• Reverse image search yourself on a schedule. Monthly is plenty. Finding a leak in week one is a very different problem from finding it in year two.
• Set alerts on your stage name so you see mentions as they appear.
• Document everything — URL, screenshot, date, where it was hosted. You'll need it for repeat takedowns, for any legal step, and for showing a pattern if one person is responsible.
• Keep proof you created the content: originals, raw files, dates. It settles ownership questions instantly.

If a leak happens

• Document first, react second. Content disappears and reappears; your evidence shouldn't.
• Check your watermark log and identify the buyer if you can.
• Don't confront publicly. It draws attention to the leak and multiplies the audience.
• Send takedowns to hosts and search engines, in that order.
• Tell someone. This is genuinely upsetting and handling it alone makes it worse — that's part of what the buddy system exists for.

Related: accounts & payments and if you're doxxed.