The Italian prime minister has been left outraged after an grownup web site posted unauthorised and altered photographs of ladies together with herself.
Giorgia Meloni – Italy’s first feminine PM – mentioned on Friday that she is “disgusted by what’s happened”.
The photographs have been posted on phica.eu, an grownup website with a reputation that performs on a vulgar Italian slang time period for feminine genitalia.
It hosted 1000’s of manipulated photographs and movies of feminine public figures, typically accompanied by violent and obscene commentary.
The web site had been working since 2005 and had greater than 200,000 registered members. It was taken down on Thursday amid widespread condemnation and authorized complaints.
“It is disheartening to see that in 2025, there are still those who consider it normal and legitimate to trample on a woman’s dignity and make her the object of sexist and vulgar insults, hiding behind anonymity or a keyboard,” Ms Meloni mentioned.
In addition to the Italian PM, the positioning printed photographs of public figures together with EU lawmaker Alessandra Moretti, who filed a prison criticism and mentioned such web sites “incite rape and violence”, and influencer Chiara Ferragni.
Picture:
Italian Democratic Get together lawmaker Alessandra Moretti was additionally focused. Pic: AP
It’s removed from the primary time high-profile girls have been focused by folks utilizing expertise to create faux however typically practical specific photographs.
Taylor Swift fell sufferer to deepfake sexual photos being circulated on X final 12 months, with a spokesperson for then-president Joe Biden describing the scenario as “very alarming”.
One faux picture, believed to have been made utilizing synthetic intelligence (AI), was considered 47 million occasions earlier than the account was suspended.
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Former Love Island contestant Cally Jane Beech beforehand mentioned she felt “extremely violated” when she discovered AI-generated photographs of herself on-line.
Her feedback got here because the British authorities introduced a crackdown on specific deepfakes.
