'Collector culture': Thousands of non-consensual images of Irish women still being traded online

Thousands of pictures and videos, mainly of Irish women, were shared on forums, mainly the Discord forum, in November last year. File picture: PA Wire

There are still thousands of images of Irish women being shared online without their consent, despite the new law against image-based sexual abuse.

The Irish Examiner this week revealed that an assistant commissioner of An Garda Síochána is to spearhead an "urgent and prioritised" inquiry into the leaking of thousands of intimate images last year. 

Thousands of pictures and videos, mainly of Irish women, were shared on forums, mainly the Discord forum, in November last year.
Many of the images were taken without women's knowledge or consent in changing rooms or while they were sleeping, while others were taken from various platforms including Only Fans, Tinder, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

The passing of 'Coco's Law' this month means gardaí will now be able to crack down on those who have since leaked and shared the images.

However, Ceartas, a service which helps women have their images removed from sites, says the number of images being taken and shared without consent would take gardaí years to investigate.

Run by a software engineer named Matt, the service helped remove the Discord server from the internet, but says more have sprung up in its wake.

"People wouldn't believe how prevalent it is, back in November when the Discord server came to light, people were very shocked, but I wasn't," he said.

What happened in November was close to home because it specifically targeted Irish women and it was all in one accessible place, so you could search by county or age, it was disgusting.

"In the last two weeks, I've seen half a dozen Discord-type servers filled with images. I could get 100 together for you in an hour, it's a huge issue."

The Ceartas group says a prevalence of "collector culture" has taken over in the sharing and exploiting of women's nude images.

"Everything depends on how they value these women, they value them based on sexual acts or how they look and therefore how valuable they are, women are currency.

"For example they might message each other saying: 'I've got Louise, I'll share her pics for some pics of Emma'.

"Some pictures might hold a certain value because of who the woman is, or what she's doing. It's like trading stock, it reminds me of downloading illegal music and just like that, there's no accountability."

Ceartas now helps women and men have their images taken off the internet, both those who make money from their images like OnlyFans, and non-commercial victims of image-based sexual abuse.

They say they have around 120 people a week requesting their help. Matt says that even with the new laws, gardaí will have to work proactively to try and stem the issue.

"If the guards were to do this, it would take them three years to catch up," he said.

Someone will have to prosecuted eventually, some young fella being done for this will send shockwaves and we can hope there might be some lessons learned for the men who do this.

Megan Sims, whose images were shared in the Discord leak says she plans to return to the gardaí to make another complaint after the same images have been shared again.

We were made aware of another file sharing service and it had basically everything Discord had, any nudes they can get their hands on they use.

"People are actively sharing them using anonymous messaging sites, trading for other pictures.

"You see them saying: 'You're a legend' the more you can get, the better you are.

"They're saying where people are from and they know people and the women are categorised by county,"

Megan, who first spoke out in November, says she gets women messaging her every week for help, and encourages everyone affected by the issue to go to gardaí.

We need to be proactive in order to minimise harm. Instead of people coming to us and Ceartas shutting them down, there should be gardaí working to have them shut down. It would take extra work but would save a lot of heartache. if I can Google it, so can the guards.

A garda spokesman said: "An Garda Síochána have already commenced a number of complaints of harassment under this legislation."

Under the new legislation there are two image-based sexual offences:

• Distributing, publishing or threatening to distribute or publish an intimate image without consent with intent to cause harm. The penalties applicable can be an unlimited fine and/or 7 years’ imprisonment.
• Recording, distributing or publishing an intimate image without consent even if there is no specific intent to cause harm. That offence carries a maximum penalty of a €5,000 fine and/or 12 months’ imprisonment.