Revenge Porn Facebook Page Returns As Private Facebook Group Chat
The Melbourne's Men's Society Facebook page, used by Melbourne-based men to share revenge porn, has been moved to a series of private Messenger group chats after the page was shut down by Facebook for a second time.
The group chats, which BuzzFeed News has seen, have a 24-hour lifespan before a new chat is formed. Members of the group are required to submit a naked photo of a girl before "naming and shaming" if they wish to be invited to the next day's group chat.
The Messenger chats are full of men asking others to identify the women in the photographs and to share videos.
In one instance, members of the chat encourage another member to threaten a girl with the possibility that her pictures would be shared within the group if she didn't confess who had told her about the group chat.
The men in the group acknowledge that some of the women pictured are under 18.
The chat has also become a forum for members to ridicule the bodies of the women in the pictures.
Some of the men boast about having their own personal "vault" of photos saved to their phone and that they have names for the women in hundreds of the photos.
The men believe the group chats are a safer option for sharing images than a private Facebook group, because it is much more difficult to report private group chats to Facebook. Users are required to fill out a form to report a Messenger conversation.
A Melbourne woman who knew of the group chat's existence told BuzzFeed News she had tried to research how to report a group chat and had found that you can't.
"There is an option to report as 'abuse' but it's an old feature," she said. "It doesn't work when you click it.
"It really is disgusting. I felt sick reading some of the messages."
Members of the group can be seen rapidly fleeing one of the conversations when a user says "the cops are on to us".
BuzzFeed News has contacted Victoria Police for comment and reported the activity to Facebook.
via BuzzFeed - Tech http://ift.tt/2cD4RSi
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