Sexually explicit images and footage of women is being uploaded and sold by men on the social media platform Reddit.
An investigation byBBC Panorama, due to air at 8pm on Monday, has unearthed online groups with thousands of members known as subreddits where men trade, sell and purchase personal photos of women.
While Reddit, which has around 50 million daily users, states the site blocks individuals from sharing or threatening to upload intimate photos or footage of individuals without gaining their consent, these groups were found to still be operating.
Tanvi Shah, a presenter and content creator, told The Independent of how she was shocked to discover a photo of herself on Reddit.
The 26-year-old, who lives in London, said: “I was sent a link from my family friend to this Reddit forum. When I went to click on the link, I thought it would be something positive.
“It was an image taken from a fashion shoot I did on Instagram. I was really shocked to see a lot of content of explicit images - predominantly of South Asian females.
“Beneath each piece of content, there is a comment section, where the men write their thoughts, write what they would do us if they had the chance, and use very derogatory language.”
She said she was “really angry” and “quite shocked” when she discovered the photo of herself on the platform - adding that the comments on her photo felt “traumatising” to read.
“Such as people trying to get personal information about my name and where I lived, and personal details like my phone number,” Ms Shah added. “There was a threat to my security and privacy, which immediately made me feel very on edge and at risk.”
She explained the remarks were “very sexually degrading" - with men discussing sexual acts they wanted to do to her.
“It is troubling because a lot of these accounts were sharing images when they were sent privately,” Ms Shah said. “The main issue is they are targeting women who are vulnerable and come from communities where they don’t have an ability to speak out. They are trapping women in very uncomfortable situations.”
Other women told BBC Panorama they were left highly distressed after discovering images and footage of themselves in these groups - enduring online blackmail as well as threats from groups of people they did not know.
The investigation, titled The Secret World of Trading Nudes and led by BBC News reporter Monika Plaha, refers to the phenomenon of sharing and exchanging images as “collector culture”. Men were found to be writing vitriolic, misogynistic remarks about the women - with rape threats unearthed.
Clare McGlynn, a law professor who specialises in this form of online abuse, tells the programme: “At the moment it's only a criminal offence to trade an image on one of these websites if you're doing it directly to cause distress to a victim.”
The academic, who is based at the University of Durham, added: “And we know that many men trading these images do not want the victims to even know so there's a huge gap in the law.
“The problem is the law only focuses on the kind of malicious ex-partner sharing an image, the kind of revenge porn and this only covers a small number of cases of intimate image abuse.”
Revenge porn – defined as revealing private sexual images or videos online or offline without the consent of the person with the aim of provoking distress – was made a criminal offence in 2015. Perpetrators of revenge porn face jail sentences of up to two years.
Reddit told the show it takes this phenomenon ”extremely seriously” - adding: “We know we have more work to do to prevent, detect, and action this content even more quickly and accurately, and we are investing now in our teams, tools, and processes to achieve this goal”.
