An international forum that posted thousands of sexually explicit images of underage girls and women appears to have been shut down overnight.
On the site, anonymous users traded ‘wins’ (image-based abuse) of women from all across Australia and often shared information about their location, full names and social media accounts.
Several users boasted about their extensive catalogues, sharing screenshots that showed alphabetised folders of women’s photos from all across the country.
The site was initially removed by Dutch authorities and the FBI in 2018 but resurfaced mid-2020 and included an extensive archive of naked images.
The Feed has spoken exclusively to dozens of Australian women who featured on the forum.
Some of these women told The Feed they had down-blousing images of them taken in public and uploaded onto the site without their knowledge or consent.
Others said images of them fully-clothed were ripped from their social media and photoshopped into explicit images.
Jade - not her real name - had several images of her posted on the forum. One composite image shows her wearing a school uniform next to an image of her fully naked.
She told The Feed she was just 15 years old when a boy she liked shared sexually explicit images and videos of her in a high school group chat.
“That ended up spreading around like wildfire and before I knew it, it was all over the internet,” she said.
Jade, now 21, said she had to move high schools three times because the bullying was “so bad” and that even today, she still receives messages from “old men”.
A survey found 1 in 3 Australians have had intimate images of themselves shared without their permission. Source: AAP
“They even message my family members and friends. My friends have gotten photos sent of me. It’s really messed up,” she said.
The videos and images of Jade - which are classified as child pornography - along with images of Jade fully-clothed, have been posted to subreddits that have hundreds of thousands of followers.
Under , it’s an offence to transmit, or threaten to transmit, an intimate image of someone without their consent, carrying potential penalties of three years’ imprisonment.
Sharing sexual images of someone can result in seven years’ imprisonment, and accessing those images can result in 15 years’ imprisonment.
Jade said she never reported these images to the police but has been successful in getting Google to remove some of the links on its search engine.
“It’s so sad, if you look up my name, it comes up with so much,” Jade told The Feed.
Similarly to Jade, Tessa - also not her real name - had a topless image of herself posted onto the forum.
Tessa, now in her early 20s, said she burst into tears when a friend contacted her to inform her that the image was on the forum.
“My gut dropped, I was in shock when I found out,” she told The Feed.
After searching the site, Tessa discovered images of her friend in her underwear had also been uploaded.
The Feed has spoken to dozens of women who are victims of image-based abuse and have had images uploaded onto the forum Source: Getty Images
The eSafety Commission has seen a 172 percent increase in reports of image-based abuse since this time last year.
A survey by found that one in three participants had experienced at least one form of image-based abuse.
Back in August, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant told The Feed she’d known of the forum since 2015.
She said her team had been tracking the new version of the site but it was like a game of “whack a mole” trying to get images taken down.
However, following The Feed’s investigation, and with the help of the e-Safety Commission, fake images of one woman were successfully removed from the site.
The woman, along with other victims interviewed by The Feed, was elated to hear of the site being taken offline.
It is unclear as to why the site was taken down and whether the forum will stay offline or reappear in the following days, weeks or months.
The Feed has contacted the AFP, site administrator and site host for comment.
You can report image-based abuse to the eSafety Commission at .
You can report child online sexual exploitation via the Report Abuse Button on the or websites.
You can report child online sexual exploitation via the Report Abuse Button on the or websites.
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault or family violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit www.1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.
