The hacked photographs were originally thought to have been posted on a 'deep web' forum a week ago, but it was only when the images were subsequently uploaded to the 4chan anonymous image-sharing forum on Sunday that they were circulated widely.Īccording to online news organisation The Daily Dot, the Reddit community r/TheFappening has become the main hub for sharing the stolen photographs, because Reddit is one of the few mainstream websites that is not deleting links to the photos. The images so far released online are believed to represent only a fraction of a vast archive of explicit photographs that a group of hackers has been amassing for months, possibly by compromising the stars' iCloud accounts.
But her lawyer has reportedly sent a letter to several pornography sites that have reposted the images, demanding that they remove them because Maroney was underage in several of them. Maroney, an Olympic gold medallist and world champion gymnast, tweeted that the photos of her posted online this week were 'fake'.
