An Italian Facebook page where thousands of men posted intimate images of female partners, sisters and unknown women – many women disagree and were shut down due to public anger and multiple complaints against the police.
Since its launch in 2019, hundreds of thousands of women have been posted to the Facebook group Mia Moglie (my wife) with the aim of eliciting comments and propositions by almost 32,000 members of the male group.
The posts ranged from a couple of swingers to photos of women shared with their partners, which were later posted on the site. According to Italian Postal Police, which is responsible for digital law enforcement, many of the photos were taken during sexual intercourse and most were posted without the consent of the woman depicted.
More than 2,000 complaints have been filed with Meta and local Italian authorities since the start of MIA Moglie, according to Italian Postal Police.
“All comments will be submitted to our information system,” Barbara Strappat, deputy director of the Rome Postal Police, said Wednesday, announcing its closure. “Crime ranges from honor losses to the spread of intimate material without consent. I acknowledge that I have never seen such disturbing phrases in social media groups. Our office has worked 24 hours a day (a day) to block pages.
The last post before the page was deleted was an invitation to join the group in a new format, and perhaps a telegram, Strappato said. “We just created a new private, secure group,” an unappointed administrator posted. “Goodbye, and f**k you’re a moralist.”
The group page closure comes after making several formal complaints to Facebook owner Meta, instigated by feminist activist and author Carolina Capria. She posted on her Instagram page that she filed a complaint with the Postal Police. “There are dozens of groups where people exchange photos of women (wifes, girlfriends, sisters, step-sisters, strangers). I did some visits yesterday that flagged you,” she posted.
Among the most disturbing entries, the man said that the man is offering a wife photo for money, including those who cite age, weight, breast size and number of sexual partners. Some commentators praised her breasts, while others said they wanted her to be wearing the thong, police said.
“Place your hands between her thighs and see if she wakes up,” one commenter hints at the fact that the victim was asleep when the photo was taken, according to information shared with the public by police.
A MetaItalian spokesman said in a statement shared by the Postal Police that the site was removed because it “violated our policies against sexual exploitation of adults.”
“We do not allow content that threatens or promotes sexual violence, sexual abuse, or sexual exploitation on our platform,” Meta’s statement said. “If you notice any content that incites or endorses rape, you can disable the groups and accounts that post it and share this information with law enforcement.”
The incident prompted a comparison with the French gang rape case involving Dominique Perricot.
In an online comment to CNN, Capria said that the example of Mia Moglie highlights how the case of Pelicot is not unusual, and warned that there are many more sites like it.
Mia Moglie is not the first such sexually exploitative site to be removed from social media by Italian authorities. The group called “Dipreisti,” with nearly 16,000 members among those seeking sexual favors in exchange for nude photos of women, has been closed dozens of times, changed names on WhatsApp and Telegram, all tied to paid sites, Postal Police said.
Members can sign up anonymously using pseudonyms, making it difficult to press the fee without the assistance of a site administrator. “Dipreisti was previously called “La Bibbia 5.0” (Bible 5.0, Il Vangelo del Pelo (The Gospel of the Hair) and Stupro Tua Sorella (The Raped Sister).
Italy has a “revenge porn” law passed in 2019, punishing the “illegal spread of sexually explicit images” that can be punished in prisons for up to six years. Many sites appear on Telegram, but this has not been cooperative in helping to crack down on crime, police said. “We have noticed a lack of cooperation with law enforcement regarding Telegram, as we claim that unlike other platforms, we do not retain user data,” Strappato told the La Republica newspaper.
“Citizens can report false groups to the postal police, but without a truly effective internal removal tool, the results will remain temporary. It is only a temporary suspension for developers to immediately block accounts that replicate them until they implement steps that allow developers to eliminate channels, bots, mirrors and cloud services.”
Once the postal police have completed an extensive investigation into Mia Moglie, they will hand over the case to the Roman Prosecutor’s Office, including reaching out to women they can identify, and decide what to file, if any.
