Women across the UK have fallen victim to a website which allows users to share intimate images, the Daily Mail reported.
Explicit photos and videos of thousands have been leaked to Mega.NZ — although the site has since removed the link to the material — with content categorised according to the town, cities and counties the women featured live in. Some were even named.
Mikala Monsoon, a 23-year-old from Glasgow, discovered her photos were on the site after being sent a link by an old school friend — speaking to London's Metro newspaper, she said someone uploaded intimate photos of her when she was 17 and they have resurfaced online over the last six years. Since then, Monsoon has changed her name and moved away from home in a bid to escape the shame.
"I've been so mortified, upset and anxious but now I am just angry. I've done my best to separate myself from it but last Wednesday I got a message from a girl I went to school with. She told me I was on this website. My pictures have been on Reddit and porn sites but this website was the biggest collection I've seen. The whole thing is appalling. So many people are driven to such anxiety and a lot of people are finding out about the pictures for the first time. They're in deep pain," she said.
Campaigners argue even threatening to share images should also be classified as a crime, after Alice Ruggles, 24, was murdered by her former boyfriend Trimaan Dhillon in 2016 — he'd threatened to share explicit images of Ruggles online, and her mother believes she would've sought help from authorities sooner had he not done so.