The Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) was founded by Holly Jacobs, PhD.  Dr. Jacobs was once a victim of nonconsensual porn (NCP), commonly known as “revenge porn,” the distribution of sexually graphic images of individuals without their consent. After running into so many dead-ends in her efforts to get help from police, FBI, lawyers, and Internet specialists regarding her case, she eventually took matters into her own hands in August 2012 and started End Revenge Porn (ERP), a campaign to advocate for the criminalization of NCP and a place of refuge for victims of it.

ERP eventually grew into a hub where victims could get information about NCP, receive support from other victims and victim advocates, be referred to pro or low bono services to help them regain control of their search results and lives, and support the passage of legislation against NCP. A year after ERP’s inception, in August 2013, Dr. Jacobs optimized the work she had achieved through ERP and incorporated it into CCRI, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization serving victims and advocating for technological, social, and legal innovation to fight online abuse. CCRI’s name was inspired by Professor Danielle Citron’s 2008 Boston University Law Review article entitled “Cyber Civil Rights.”