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School kids' pictures in porn forum
Children from about 70 schools have had images uploaded onto a porn forum and police are investigating. Vision: ABC News 24
Laura Pilati fears she will never forget the moment she found a topless photo of herself circulating on an online forum.
The 22-year-old could hardly believe her eyes. She had never seen the photo of herself but she knew almost instantly where it had come from.
"I was so upset," she said. "I think I cried every day for a week."
The Wollongong waitress is one of hundreds of Australian women unwittingly targeted by a photo-sharing website on which men anonymously share and swap nude images, including those of underage schoolgirls.
The Australian Federal Police said on Friday that authorities had shut down the offensive website, but would not provide any further details such as when that occurred.
In the online forum, uncovered this week, users "hunt" for or "dump" photos of particular girls from particular high schools. There are reportedly more than 2000 photos of girls from 70 schools.
Ms Pilati, who works as a bikini waitress in pubs and bars, believes the photo of her was leaked by a Sydney photographer who did a swimsuit shoot when she was 17.
She believes he took shots as she was swapping outfits or changing poses and kept them without her knowledge.
However, when she reported him to Wollongong police after seeing the website three years ago, she was turned away. The site has operated with impunity since and Ms Pilati's woes have only continued.
Recently, some private photos from a prior relationship surfaced.
"You wake up every day and get another inbox from someone you don't know or a friend asks you, 'Did you know about this?' " she said.
"It just follows me everywhere. I feel like there is nothing private about me any more. If I'm walking around the streets, someone knows exactly what's underneath."
Fairfax Media spoke to several girls targeted by the site who revealed the crippling mental and emotional impact.
The users treat women like commodities who deserve to be "hunted" and shared for daring to bare their bodies to partners or friends, the girls said.
"I was sleeping with a guy and let him take the photos of me which in hindsight was a very poor choice," said a Sutherland teen, who requested anonymity.
"There's a side of me that is all for being sexually liberated and embracing my body and then the other side is like, 'Wait, there are some really nasty people out there.' It has upset me so much."
Two other women told Fairfax Media they tried to report it to police.
A 16-year-old girl from Melbourne, who believed her ex-boyfriend shared a photo of her in the shower, said the police told her it was her fault.
It was only this week, after widespread coverage, that NSW, Victorian, Queensland and the federal police said they would investigate and collaborate with overseas authorities.
They said at the time they were powerless to shut the site down because it was hosted overseas and allows users to post anonymously.
However, on Friday, the federal police said in a statement: "The AFP welcomes the recent removal of this website. Wherever material such as this is identified, the AFP will continue to work closely with its domestic and international partners to determine appropriate courses of action."
Some girls have posted messages, begging for photos to be removed and saying they were taken years ago when the girls were as young as 13.
"Darling, don't be a slut and you won't end up here," one user posted in reply. "Once a photo is on snapchat or the Internet, it belongs to the Internet."
When Ms Pilati stood up to users on the site, she was ridiculed, branded ugly and told she deserved it for taking nudes.
"I'm strong enough to handle it but what if there's another 16- or 17-year-old girl on there and she kills herself?" she said. "All that just to see someone naked."
David Vaile, co-convener of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Community at the University of NSW, said an online culture had developed that encouraged reckless sharing and spreading of one's information.
"We're talking about permanent, global publication," he said.
"Nobody wants to think twice and realise they may be hurting someone and hurting them for a very long time ... This is a natural consequence of a very disrespectful approach to personal information."
He said it would be possible for police to gather data and lay charges such as stalking, intimidation or the rarely used offence of publishing indecent articles.
With AAP