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The people who Photoshop friends and family onto porn

Including wives, girlfriends and relatives

Kashmira Gander
Thursday 13 October 2016 11:18 BST
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The court was told the man blogged about the attack afterwards in an online 'pick up' forum. File image
The court was told the man blogged about the attack afterwards in an online 'pick up' forum. File image (BrianAJackson/iStock)

In the dark underbelly of the internet, thousands of people are asking for photographs of their friends and family and acquaintances to be Photoshopped onto porn.

On the Adult Requests section of the notorious imageboard website 4Chan, anonymous users share photographs, often taken from Facebook or Instagram, and make detailed and explicit requests to members with “x-ray” - or nude Photoshopping - skills.

“Can you please x-ray this MILF? It's my mom,” wrote one user. Photoshopping cousins, meanwhile, is a more common request: “Help a brother out,” pleaded one member in search of an image of his family member.

The most popular requests involve women 4Channers know, including their partners, or that they claim they used to date.

“Remove her top: Please nudeshop my friend's mom,” posted one user.

Another said: "Please nudeshop my friend's girlfriend. I have a thing for average-looking girls.”

One asked if someone could manipulate an image of his friend’s cousin.

Some went as far as asking for images of their own wives and girlfriends to be manipulated: “Can someone help me photoshop this screenshot of my chubby girlfriend?"

“This is my wife I love her body but I love what u nerds can do to pics,” wrote another.

Others explicitly ask for revenge porn: “Revenge Shop Request: This b**** told everyone my girl's a slut. Somone make her ***** out please.”

Last year, the UK Government introduced a law to crack down on revenge porn, which is defined as “photographs or films which show people engaged in sexual activity or depicted in a sexual way or with their genitals exposed, where what is shown would not usually be seen in public." The offence is punishable by up to two years in prison.

4Chan started out as an anonymous anime image messaging board in 2003, But, as users can conceal their identity it has grown into one of the most free yet controversial parts of the internet, and gave birth to activist group Anonymous.

Highlighting how multifaceted the website is, it has both been at the centre of the iCloud nude celebrity photo hack but more recently attracted thousands of people to a livestream from a webcam at a traffic stop in the small Wyoming town of Jackson Hole.

If you have been a victim of revenge porn, contact the Revenge Porn Helpline on 0845 6000 459.

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