IT HAS EMERGED that photographs of a number of young women and teenage girls from Cork have been posted on a pornography website without their permission.
The website is a forum that allows users to create threads, upload content and post comments.
In an interview with Neil Prendeville on Cork’s Red FM, one of the women, 19-year-old Katie Kirwin, said images taken from her social media profiles from the age of 14 to 19 had been uploaded to the site. She only learned about it yesterday.
She said she wanted to point out from the offset, and before any victim-blaming started, that the photos were all of her face.
“A 14-year-old child’s face,” she added.
I can’t contemplate some of the comments, they’re absolutely disgusting.
In one particular comment under one of the photos of Katie, a user said: “I love girls like this, they look so young and probably aren’t even 18”.
Most of the images of Cork women and girls have been uploaded by a user called ‘Irish exposed’. Looking through the site, Kirwin said she found several Cork women and many of them were teens between the ages of 13 and 15.
Most worrying for her, and for other women whose images have been posted on the site without their permission, is that many of the men leaving graphic, sexually demeaning and sometimes violent comments appear to be based in Cork themselves.
Some mention living near the women, while one says he drinks in a bar one of them works in.
The 19 year old described the content on the website as “depraved” referencing the “rape threats” made against some of the victims and discussions about other violent acts.
She said she and other young women featured on the site have been in contact with one another and gardaí have been notified.
“We all have a mutual feeling of disgust,” she told Prendeville.
The full story will be aired on The Neil Prendeville Show from 9am tomorrow morning.
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