Nude pics of hundreds of Dutch girls on revenge porn network: report
Over 2 thousand young men and boys are sharing revenge porn of hundreds of Dutch girls on a private network. The network contains over 30 thousand photos and videos, which are sorted by the victims' full name and address, and with links to their social media profiles, RTL Nieuws reports based on its own research.
RTL went undercover to get access to this network. According to the broadcaster, the network contains nude footage of at least 400 Dutch girls, many of whom look to be underage. In a chat room the boys on the network describe the girls as "wins". They exchange nude photos, add it to the large collection, and also ask for certain girls to be hacked so that footage can be stolen from them. The network is still active. An online folder already containing 40 gigabytes of revenge porn - nude images shared without the victim's consent - is supplemented daily with new photos and videos.
The revenge porn collection can be found on secure New Zealand cloud service Mega. You can only become a member of the network with an invitation, and only if you add photos or videos to the network. In the collection, victims are sorted by their full name and address. Links to their social media pages are shared, so that they can be identified even if their faces can't be clearly seen on uploaded footage, according to the broadcaster.
The thousands of members chat on online service Discord. They discuss potential victims. Photos of girls are regularly shared with the question whether someone has nude photos of them, in exchange for original content - nude photos that are only in the possession of the person who shares it. Some members also offer to hack girls by request. According to RTL, they do so by checking if the girls' passwords were in data leaks and then trying to log in to their Google and iCloud accounts. There is also a discussion on how to extort girls with their nude photos.
RTL spoke to a number of the girls who can be seen on this network. They were shocked and had no idea that their photos were online. One victim told the broadcaster that she emailed nude photos to her former boyfriend a few years ago. She is devastated to find out these are shared online, she said. Another victim took photos of herself, but never shared it with anyone, she said. She is afraid that the photos were stolen from her phone or laptop, but has no idea how that could have happened. "It really hit me very hard", she said.
The Dutch police told the broadcaster that they are familiar with this type of network. The police call on victims to press charges.
Currently in the Netherlands, the distribution of revenge porn is punished under libel, slander, or child pornography if the victim is under age. The government is working on a law to make distributing and viewing revenge porn punishable.
