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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Anthony France

Peloton users bombarded with images of naked women from spam accounts

One of Peloton’s signature spinning classes

(Picture: Peloton)

Peloton users have been bombarded with pictures of naked women on spam accounts set up on the fitness platform.

The lewd images featured on new profiles that have been set up and have followed existing users on the app.

The company immediately took action after users across Britain were left with lewd images on their exercise bike screens.

One married man, 54, from Queen’s Park, was approached by topless user mila30317. Her newly-created account is followed by no others.

He told the Standard: “It was completely unsolicited and she had pictured herself naked.

“I could see she’s never done a single ride on Peloton. I don’t know why she contacted me, but it’s clearly not for exercise.

“On Peloton, you can become friends and join people for rides and challenges. It’s international so you might meet someone from Toronto or Miami. But this is unacceptable”.

The fitness giant, valued at $3billion, apologised and warned him not to click on any links or reply to the profile.

On Reddit, other fans of the fitness bike and treadmill that became popular during the Covid pandemic complained about being targeted.

One rider said: “Has anyone else seen spam users? I just had a notification to say I had a new follower. (I have zero followers as I haven’t linked to socials).

“The profile photo is a nude girl and the bio includes a link to her online spaces.”

That comment received dozens of responses, including a user who added: “I got one too. Didn’t think nudity could go in a profile picture.”

Another wrote online: “My husband got two naked lady requests today.”

Peloton says it now has over seven million members worldwide. Live classes with instructors are run from studios in New York and London that people can stream on their screens.

A spokesman said: “Peloton is taking active action against accounts being intentionally created with inappropriate content, including explicit imagery in their profile picture.

“These explicit images are a direct violation of our standards and terms of service.

“We are actively working to block these accounts and continue to moderate explicit images associated with user profiles.

“Please do not accept or reply to these follow-requests.

“We apologise to those who received these follower requests and were exposed to this content. This is certainly not the community experience we expect for our Peloton members.”

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