An alarming trend: Sites that steal photos from Instagram accounts to cater to voyeurs

SINGAPORE — Like many other young women growing up in an age of social media, Anne (not her real name) chronicles her life on Instagram — her outfit of the day, friends’ birthdays, Chinese New Year with the family, the occasional mirror selfie.

But three years ago, she suddenly started receiving a constant stream of creepy messages from strange men.

Anne, now 20, discovered to her horror that several voyeuristic social media accounts, including a Tumblr page called sgsweeties2, had taken some of the photos from her Instagram without her knowledge or permission and reposted them, often accompanied by salacious captions.

Last year, another similar site, SgInstaBabes, gained notoriety when its founder began offering S$5,000 subscriptions to members in return for access to racy photos and yacht parties with young women.

The SgInstaBabes site has not been updated since, and its Instagram account has been deactivated. Tumblr blog sgsweeties2 has also been shut down.

But a TODAY investigation found that there are more than 70 Tumblr and Instagram accounts which are still actively reposting photos taken from the social media accounts of young Singaporeans.

TODAY is not naming any of them, so as not to give them any publicity. 

Among these, about 20 are accounts that collect and repost user submissions.

Four specialise in sharing photos of girls in school uniforms.

Another 15 or so focus on photos of young men.

For S$65 or S$100 depending on the mode of transfer, one Tumblr blog will sell you 185 gigabytes’ worth of pictures and videos of “xmm” (short for xiao mei mei, which means young girls in Mandarin).

Some of the victims who have discovered their photos on such sites are calling on the authorities to clarify if the actions of these account holders are legal; if they are not, to take them to task.

After all, as several of the eight victims TODAY spoke to would testify, the misuse of their online photos has real-life consequences that can last years.

When Anne realised what had happened, she started blocking followers on her Instagram account, while her then-boyfriend sent messages to more than 500 Tumblr accounts demanding that they take down her photos.

Still, the lewd messages kept coming.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) undergraduate, who declined to be named for fear of further harassment, said the incident caused her great emotional distress and strained her relationship with her boyfriend.
 

A FORM OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT?

“I felt really uncomfortable,” she said. “I feel that these people who posted my pictures without my permission were disrespectful towards me.”

Three years since receiving her first “creepy” message from a stranger, the harassment has not stopped.

Just last September for instance, some of her photos were reposted on a Tumblr blog, and her inbox received a spike in messages from strange men, some of whom also sent her photos of their private parts.

“What irked me the most was their attitude.These people don’t see anything wrong with what they’re doing,” she said.

One victim, Ms A L, was annoyed and embarrassed to find bikini photos taken from her Instagram account reposted on a Tumblr blog last year, accompanied by degrading captions.

The 23-year-old NUS undergraduate said these sites pick “the most ‘sexy’ photos of the person”, which make featured individuals seem promiscuous.

“My (account) doesn’t just consist of me in my bikini only, I post things with my friends and family,” said Ms A L who had men reach out to her directly with comments like “sexy” or “hot” after her photos were posted on those sites with a link to her social media account.

But she chose not to pursue the matter as her photos can be easily re-uploaded even if she managed to get Tumblr to take down one post.

Singapore Polytechnic student Lin Tzu Ching felt “really uncomfortable and anxious” when she found that her photos were misappropriated on Instagram, Tumblr and even dating app Tinder.

She reported the matter to Instagram last year, but the platform told her that her report was “not valid” as it had not found any illegal action to have taken place.

“I am sure there can be better online regulations,” said the 19 year old. “I feel like (the perpetrators) should be legally responsible… The reposting of photos without permission should be taken seriously.”

Ms Lin and other victims of these voyeur sites have simply learnt to live with the unwanted attention.

One 23-year-old man who declined to be named said he had learnt not to be emotionally affected, reconciling with himself that his photos that were reposted on a few voyeuristic Tumblr blogs were “not lewd in any way”.

“Generally, it hasn’t changed how friends or family look at me,” said the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) undergraduate.

Twenty-year-old Gia Lim filed a report after her photos were circulated online in 2015 along with her identifiable information, which even included her home address.

“It was not easy,” said the NTU undergraduate. “I felt that it was somehow my fault for posting my pictures online in the first place and it took me a while to step forward (to make the report).”

Through her own investigation, Ms Lim later established that the person who had been submitting her photos to the voyeuristic sites was a close male friend.

After confronting him, she decided not to pursue the issue with the police so as “not to blow the matter out of proportion”.

Her photographs, however, remained circulated on the Tumblr sites, and the #metoo movement prompted her to speak up in a video she shared on YouTube and Instagram in March last year.

“More spoke up and started sharing about their own experiences after I did,” she said. “We realised that it was a deep-seated problem that should not be trivialised.

“After I talked about my experiences publicly, people stopped sharing my photos on such sites.”

INSTAGRAM SAYS...

When reached for comment, a spokesperson from Instagram told TODAY that the photo-sharing platform practises “zero tolerance for sexual exploitation”.

“We encourage anyone to report offensive content or unauthorised use of their images via our in-app tools and our global team work 24/7 to review and remove anything that violates our community guidelines,” he said.

One of Instagram’s guidelines states that accounts are only to share photos and videos that they own or have the right to share.

“The safety of our community is our most important responsibility, and we invest in extensive controls, in-app reporting and technology to flag and block suspicious content and accounts,” he added.

TODAY has reached out to Tumblr for clarity on its policy towards voyeuristic accounts.

The micro-blogging and social networking platform has recently cleaned up its site, and no longer allows adult content, such as images of nudity and/or sex acts.