Photos of hundreds of teenagers and young women from the island have been taken from their social media accounts and uploaded without their consent on to a disturbing porn website.
The images, which include students in their school uniforms, are of Manx youngsters aged as young as 14.
Some of the images include their names and locations.
The website describes itself as a ’moral-free file host where anything legal is hosted forever’.
It bears the logo of a child being led away by an adult with the words: ’Go ahead, she isn’t looking.’
Images of at least 230 teenagers and young women from the island have been posted on the domain.
They believe that an island resident who had attempted to befriend them on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram is involved.
One Manx resident, aged 25, said she was mortified to discover through a friend on Saturday that photos of her have been on the site since 2015, including an album of photos just of her.
She knows of about 20 pictures of her on the site, which include photos of her while she was on holiday.
’I was really upset,’ she said.
’I felt almost comforted to know that I wasn’t the only one targeted but it’s horrible being associated with it.
’It’s a really horrible porn website with links to rape and paedophile rings.’
The victims were first made aware that their pictures are on the site at the weekend.
The 25-year-old said a group of 47 of them have jointly contacted the police and others have contacted the police individually.
She said they were told by officers there is nothing they can do because the pictures are not explicit or sexual.
explicit
But she said: ’It doesn’t matter if it’s sexual or explicit if it’s going on a site like that.
’No one seems to think it’s much of an issue because the images were online anyway. We haven’t done anything wrong but are being told it’s our fault.’ They were later told police would investigate if the victims themselves could find hard evidence of a link between the site and the person they suspect is involved.
A second victim said the site features one photo of her, among others, when she was just 15.
The 18-year-old told the Manx Independent: ’I am repulsed at the idea that this sick person has been viewing and saving my content from social media and uploading them to a porn website for a number of years, to which I had no idea.’
She added: ’I have now changed all of my privacy settings on social media - I do not feel safe online anymore.
’This was always something that you heard about but you don’t ever think it will happen to you, within your own community and on this scale.’
A third victim said there are photos of her on the site from when she was aged 17.
The 20-year-old said: ’My photos were in no way provocative and some were just me in jeans and a top sat on my bed.
’All of the photos had explicit hashtags written underneath.
’This made me feel extremely uncomfortable and violated that someone felt like they had the right to take my photos and use them for their own sick pleasure.
experience
’After this experience I definitely will reconsider what I post onto my social media but why should I feel like I’m not able to post photos of myself in case they get uploaded on to a porn site?’
Many of the victims have contacted the website to ask for the photos of themselves to be removed but have received no response.
On the domain it states: ’All content posted to this site is 100% user contributed. All illegal uploads will be reported. If you want to blame someone for the content on this site, blame the freaks of the world - not us.
’Feel free to join the community and upload your goodies.’
A police spokesman said: ’The Isle of Man Constabulary had been asked to look at this matter.
’We have linked in with people that have had their pictures used and given suitable advice.
’It is a timely reminder that once images are placed onto social media sites or shared with people they can be used by anybody for a variety of reasons.
’Please stay safe online.’