Over the past few years, and it seems to becoming more prevalent, photographers are being 'outed' as perverts, creeps, molesters and more. Now in some cases this is justified and court cases have ensued and some have been convicted of offences.

What happens when a photographer finds themselves being accused of something they have not done?

In the past, someone might tell a friend that such-n-such photographer tried to touch them up, or something and the generally accepted protocol was to report it to the police or authorities. Now, they tend to get online and post on Facebook etc first, then maybe go to the police as the second, third, fourth thing...if at all!

Recently, I have had a friend accused of doing just this as a photographer. Even though he has been very careful, ensuring he only photographed models as part of a group, with both other photographers and models present at all times. He has had a facebook page made about him, calling him a 'photographer creep' and naming a series of things he has supposedly done to models. He is being defamed and had malicious gossip spread about him. Some of his models have gone onto the page to state they have not experienced anything but professionalism, but their posts get removed by the page owner. He and others have reported the page to facebook but as it supposedly does not breach Facebook's "community standards", at this time the page still exists.

So this thread is to discuss how we as photographers can protect ourselves from accusations, and also give up ideas for ways to deal with, responses etc, if someone decides to call us (and it could be any of us) a pervert, creep etc.

Please feel free to offer suggestions, report experiences and more in this thread. But please do not name a photographer unless you can link to specific legal action taken etc. We do not want to be part of the rumour mill here.