Users of secondhand clothing websites such as Vinted are warning about the danger their images will be used against their will on pornography sites, and sounding the alarm about the spread of sexually charged harassment under their posts.
The potential for hijacking photos posted on the internet for real or faked erotic content has long been known, but victims and their advocates say culprits appear to have zeroed in on Vinted with targeted campaigns.
Founded in 2008, the Lithuanian online marketplace for buying, selling and originally swapping secondhand and new clothing has developed into the most successful website of its kind in Europe, with more than 65 million registered users.
Its popularity, particularly among young women, appears to have also made it a draw for misogynist trolls, image thieves and unwanted sexualised content.
In Germany, the EU’s largest economy, there has been a wave of recent complaints, prompting media scrutiny of the website as users in France, Italy and Britain have also reported problems.
One young female Vinted user identified as Mina went on social media last month to recount her ordeal and caution others. Her Instagram post has been watched more than 1.7m times and is captioned with a plea: “Please share so a lot of women will see it!”
In the tearful video, Mina said pictures she had put on Vinted had apparently been copied and then posted on “porn sites”. She said a Google search of her name now brought up links to that content, just as she was applying for jobs.
The Guardian could not independently confirm her account. In the Instagram video, she said she had reported the matter to Google and the German police, who do not comment on individual criminal complaints.
This week the German news outlet Der Spiegel published an interview with Mina, saying she was 22 years old, lived in Cologne and wished to keep her surname private. It said she had used Vinted for “several years”.
“The idea of a secondhand platform for clothes is super and important, also considering climate change,” she said. But she lamented Vinted was no longer a “safe space” for her, calling her experiences there “creepy”.
She said she had received a barrage of abusive messages via Vinted’s messaging system including: “Hello, I’d like to buy this item of clothing but I’d like you to try it on without underwear first”, and: “Can I also buy you?”
Others demanded “more intimate” pictures than the ones she posted.
Mina said even more disturbing was the fact photos in which she posed in clothing she was trying to sell including bikini tops and summer dresses had resurfaced on other websites depicting her as an “erotic model” and saying she was a “naked OnlyFans star”.
She said she had never posted nude photos online and had no account on the amateur pornography site. Spiegel said it found her name and images on sex-focused German-language forums, with links back to her Vinted and Instagram accounts.
Several investigations have turned up similar complaints.
In April, a joint report by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and public broadcasters NDR and WDR exposed a public Telegram channel called Girls of Vinted launched in June 2024, and featuring more than 1,000 pictures taken from the marketplace platform and placed in a sexualised context.
The report said the Telegram channel featured women who appeared to be selling sexual services based on information included in their profiles, while most were there as legitimate Vinted users and showcased involuntarily.
Several of the more than 130 women shown, many of them from Germany, Italy and France, reported then receiving lurid messages on their Vinted accounts. Before the Telegram channel was shut down earlier this year, it had accumulated 2,000 mainly male subscribers.
In October, the UK broadcaster Channel 4 revealed a comparable website called Vinted Sluts.
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The German joint-investigation highlighted the case of a 26-year-old student from Berlin identified as Bella who had been spotlighted against her will on Girls of Vinted, sparking a deluge of crude come-ons and insults in several languages.
Under one of her posts, a user asked in a Vinted chat with her: “Is it still available?” about an item of clothing, followed by: “And the underwear underneath?”
“It felt disgusting,” Bella said. “Creepy.”
Sonja, a 32-year-old lawyer who has been registered on Vinted since 2011, said she started receiving “offensive messages” daily after she was unwittingly listed on Girls of Vinted with photos of her body from the neck down wearing clothing she had aimed to sell. “It feels like a digital version of the street” with its cat-calling and sexual objectification, she said.
Vinted said it exercised a “zero-tolerance policy” for unwanted sexually explicit communication via its site, removing such content as soon as it is notified. In its updated online help centre, it allows users to report inappropriate behaviour and content.
This was an option used by Bella and Sonja, who said Vinted then shut down the offending accounts after about a week. They soon received new offensive messages from other accounts, however.
Vinted said if users found their photos on third-party sites, it would contact those platforms to request removal “where possible”.
“We have already reported such cases to Telegram via various channels and, in connection with the Channel 4 documentary, achieved the shutdown of a named website,” a company spokesperson said.
Vinted advises its members in its community standards not to share photos in which their face is visible and to keep personal information such as full names, addresses and bank details out of private messages, while minimising data included on shipping labels.
“We are aware of the challenges online platforms face in addressing inappropriate behaviour and take our members’ negative experiences very seriously. Safeguarding our members is an ongoing priority,” the spokesperson said.
“We will continue to review and evolve our systems to prevent incidents and to respond swiftly whenever issues arise.”
Legal experts advise users whose images have been hijacked for sexualised content to report it to the authorities in their country as well as the websites where they are posted. The EU’s Digital Services Act has required online platforms since February 2024 to delete illegal content that is flagged to them.