Marine nude photo scandal has been going on for nearly a year
The scandal involving active service members and veterans posting nude photos of female Marines to Facebook is far worse than originally reported. It has been going on for nearly a year based on
the discovery of another image posting board where users traded photos of women from all service branches, even requesting some by name.
Sources pointed Business Insider to the site, called AnonIB. It apparently had a section dedicated to service members, which was used as a photo request-and-exchange forum since at least last May. Threads asking for revealing images of female service members — “wins,” as they were termed — specified by name, unit or where they were stationed. Photos were found across the internet, some self-posted from services like Instagram.
Business Insider had additional information on the brazen attempt to keep the nude photos circulation.
Brennan’s story also led to an apparent exodus of members from the private Facebook group, though some appeared to have found the publicly viewable message board soon after — with the express intent of finding the cache of nude images that Marines in the Facebook group were sharing.
“Come on Marines share the wealth here before that site is nuked and all is lost,” one anonymous user said in a post on Monday, two days after Brennan’s story was published. Follow-up replies offered a link to a Dropbox folder named “Girls of MU” with thousands of photographs.
Dropbox did not respond to a request for comment.
The Senate Armed Services Committee is due to hold a hearing on the issue next week.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) has launched an investigation and has asked whistleblowers to come forward with information.
On Wednesday, two women who said they were victims spoke out publicly alongside their lawyer, urging others to come forward.
“I can tell you that this exact behaviour leads to the normalisation of sexual harassment and even sexual violence,” said Erika Butner, 23, who served in the Marines for four years until last June.
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