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| lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
| ARTICLE VIEW: | |
| Italy’s PM Meloni ‘disgusted’ over porn site allegedly showing | |
| doctored images of her and other high-profile women | |
| By Sophie Tanno and Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN | |
| Updated: | |
| 12:09 PM EDT, Fri August 29, 2025 | |
| Source: CNN | |
| Italian Prime Minister has voiced outrage over a porn site that | |
| allegedly featured doctored images of herself and other high-profile | |
| women, alongside sexist and offensive captions and commentary. | |
| The forum, known as Phica – a name based on a slang term “figa” | |
| for the word “vagina” in Italian – was shut down by its own | |
| managers on Thursday, following a widespread backlash. The site, which | |
| had hundreds of thousands of subscribers at the time of its closure, | |
| blamed users for breaking its rules. | |
| Subscribers of the adult forum allegedly harvested images of women from | |
| social media websites or public sources, before doctoring them and | |
| posting them along with misogynistic descriptions. | |
| As well as Georgia Meloni, the site also allegedly featured images of | |
| her sister Arianna, who is a prominent politician within the Brothers | |
| of Italy party as well as other Italian celebrities and politicians. | |
| “I am disgusted by what happened, and I want to extend my solidarity | |
| and support to all the women who have been offended, insulted, and | |
| violated in their intimacy by the managers of this forum and its | |
| users,” Meloni told Italy’s Corriere della Sera . | |
| She added, “It is disheartening to note that in 2025, there are still | |
| those who consider it normal and legitimate to trample on a woman’s | |
| dignity and target her with sexist and vulgar insults, hiding behind | |
| anonymity or a keyboard.” | |
| In an apparent nod to Italy’s current laws on revenge porn, Meloni | |
| said it has become apparent that “this no longer happens just out of | |
| ‘revenge,’ and that protecting our data and our privacy is | |
| increasingly crucial in our times.” | |
| Italy does have a “revenge porn” law in place, passed in 2019, that | |
| makes the “illegal dissemination of sexually explicit images” | |
| punishable by up to six years in prison. | |
| Her sister Arianna, also speaking to Corriere della Sera, blamed what | |
| she described as a “bad habit of a click-through society, where we | |
| intrude on private life, we offend, we peek through keyholes, we ruin | |
| lives, and we belittle the real, important things that women achieve | |
| and conquer with their work day after day.” | |
| Prime Minister Meloni, who from her long-term partner in 2023 after he | |
| was caught making sexist remarks, has previously been vocal on | |
| women’s issues including deepfake pornography and domestic violence. | |
| In 2024, she a father and son accused of creating a deepfake video of | |
| her. Seeking $108,200 (€100,000) in damages in a civil trial, she has | |
| pledged to donate any financial winnings to a state fund assisting | |
| women who are victims of violence. Both men have pleaded not guilty. | |
| The next hearing is scheduled for September. | |
| At the time, Meloni’s lawyer, Maria Giulia Marongiu, told Italian | |
| press outlets that the prime minister was hoping to set an example for | |
| other victims of revenge porn and deepfake porn to speak out against | |
| those who defame them. | |
| Deepfakes are digitally created and altered content that can bear the | |
| exact likeness of a real person. Meanwhile doctored images may include | |
| some original elements but have been edited to distort reality. | |
| The Phica scandal has reignited the feminist debate in Italy and comes | |
| a week after an Italian Facebook page where thousands of men posted | |
| intimate images of their female partners, sisters and unknown women – | |
| many of them without their consent – was closed down following public | |
| outrage and multiple complaints to police. | |
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