Naga Munchetty has spoken out after fake nude images of her were shared on social media as part of an online scam. The BBC journalist, TV presenter and author is one of many high-profile women who have been targeted in this way.
As part of our Stop Image-Based Abuse campaign, GLAMOUR is calling on the government to introduce a comprehensive Image-Based Abuse Law, including stronger legislation to stop tech and social media companies from hosting this harmful content on their platforms. To get involved, you can sign our petition.
Here, GLAMOUR's Purpose Editor, Lucy Morgan, interviewed Naga Munchetty about her experience with this form of image-based abuse, exploring how it disproportionally impacts women, the difficulty of getting these images removed, and why we should never underestimate scammers.
When Naga Munchetty first discovered that fake nude images of herself had been shared online earlier this year, she was bemused. It may not be the reaction you'd expect, but as a high-profile BBC journalist and presenter, Naga is somewhat used to often seeing misleading articles about herself online. These images, however, were something else entirely. “I just thought, what ridiculous pictures,” Naga tells GLAMOUR. “I didn't think my reputation would be tarnished because they were so obviously fake.”
When Naga's team at BBC Radio 5 Live investigated, they found the images were connected to a scam cyber trading website, which has since been taken down. Those who clicked on the images would be taken to a fake BBC article, which contained links to the scam trading page, whereupon users would be encouraged to enter their bank details.
“I'm very thick-skinned,” Naga tells GLAMOUR. “In this industry and as a brown woman, I'm used to crap on social media, so that didn't bother me, but it was the consequences of my image as a BBC journalist being used. That's when I got angry.”
Read on for the rest of GLAMOUR's interview with Naga Munchetty…
GLAMOUR: Can you remember how you felt the first time you saw one of these fake nude images?
Naga Munchetty: A neighbour got in touch and said, ‘Are you okay? – I've just seen these images of you.' And I was like, oh, more clickbait. People come up to me all the time [and say] 'I've seen this article about you…' I rang my neighbour and said, ‘What was it’? And he just said, 'They're pictures of you naked'. And I went, well, they're not pictures of me… I can tell you that much.
I was a bit worried about it. Literally about five days later, he messaged me again and showed me the screenshots, which I've got. I sent them to my team at BBC Radio 5 Live. We'd been talking about how Stacey Solomon's gone through this, and Martin Lewis has been faked.
First of all, [the team] were just like, are you okay? And I said, yeah, I'm fine. But this is happening. We need to talk about this. We need to talk about what's going on.
In your article about this experience, you describe the images as “crudely mocked-up images of me naked – my face badly photoshopped onto someone else's body”. Does it make a difference at all than if the images were hyperrealistic?
No, it makes absolutely no difference. How dare anyone take my image and manipulate it? Someone asked me, ‘Were you worried about pictures of you naked being on the internet?’ I'm like, no, there are no pictures of me naked, not since I was a baby. I know there are no pictures out there of me naked. So no, I wasn't concerned, but whether they're realistic or not is kind of irrelevant. It's just the sheer bloody cheek of someone thinking they can take a woman's image and manipulate it.
And I had so many messages from friends saying, ‘This is horrific. Are you okay?’ after I spoke about it on 5 Live, they were just like, 'I know you are absolutely fine. You are a tough cookie, and you put these things in their place, but it is bloody horrible. It's insulting, it's misogynistic, it's abuse of your image.' And genuinely, I don't feel hurt, but I am angry.
You mention that these scams have impacted other high-profile individuals, such as Chris Packham and Martin Lewis. But to my knowledge, they haven't had these crude, fake nude images of themselves being shared…
That's so interesting. I haven't looked for those. The way I protect myself is I don't look for stuff. And I'm very fortunate; my production team would've looked into those, but I didn't know that Martin Lewis, Steven Bartlett or Chris weren't impacted by fake nude images. But, of course, women are the easy targets. Look at all the latest AI tools… I was watching Vicky Pattison's documentary on deepfakes the other day, and the thing I found most fascinating was when she put her husband's image through a [nudification app]. It put his head in on a naked woman's body.
It's fascinating. They haven't got the technology to deepfake men yet. There's no market for it. Is it too obvious a question to ask why there is such an extra sexualised layer when it's women who are targeted over men? Obviously, in both scenarios, it's horrific, but there does seem to be this additional need to humiliate women.
I was going to say it's about humiliation, isn't it? And power. If a man's head was faked onto a body, the way I think you would humiliate them is by not putting a nice body underneath. But for women, it can be anybody, any shaped body. And it's just the fact, oh, have you seen her naked on the internet already? We're shamed, aren't we? I choose not to accept or feel that, but so many people would, and it is about humiliation.
And there is a layer of this that says, let's take her down. Let's humiliate her. Let's ruin her reputation. If I'm a trusted figure and you're going to use the BBC branding, why would you not have me pictured when I'm doing my job, my day job, with clothes on? Why do I have to be naked? And I get the whole clickbait thing. I get that. But if the entire point is to go to the same site, why did I have to be naked and not [Chris Packham, Martin Lewis, etc]?
The documentary sees Vicky Pattison create and release a deepfake sex tape, but some survivors think the stunt is a step too far.
Do you think women who experience this kind of image-based abuse are less likely to speak up about it for fear of drawing attention to the images themselves?
Of course, if fake nude pictures of me went out and if a naked picture of my male colleagues went out, I can tell you right now the criticism of my body would be immense, and it would not be nearly the same for a man. The narrative would be so different because women have been conditioned through the centuries to hide their bodies, to be ashamed of their bodies, for their bodies to be solely for their partners, to not flaunt themselves, to live up to an ideal of whatever your breasts should look like, etc.
Women have always been put up there to be torn down. And what it means is that tearing women down is normal. So people don't feel they're doing something wrong when they're criticising a woman's body, be it or her face, if she's wrinkly or she looks tired, they don't feel they're doing anything wrong because everyone's done it and the media's done it. Magazines have done it all the time. So it's learned behaviour, isn't it? We don't criticise men's bodies in the same way, and men are not put up to a higher standard. It's an old trope, isn't it? Men grow more handsome; women grow haggard. The rules are different.
Have you or your team explored whether there's any criminal or civil recourse in this area?
Chris Packham made a very good point in our interview on 5 Live; he said that you need someone with very deep pockets if you're going up against [tech companies] with the best legal teams in the world.
What responsibility are the social media companies going to take? We've seen young girls be victimised at school by usually boys who have taken their images and thought it would be funny to circulate them. But these are young girls. We know how damaging it is. Being told anything when you're a teenager about your body is irreparable, there's irreparable damage, you carry it with you through womanhood, you don't let go of, it sits in the back of your mind. There's damage being done. I don't know who will take [the tech companies] on.
The government has announced plans to make it illegal to create explicit deepfake images, but we still need more information.
People are falling victim to this scam and potentially losing some of their earnings. How do you reconcile that with the fact that they're losing money, having clicked through to something promising nude images of you? Is that hard to get your head around?
That's what makes me angry. So these very clever, manipulative, wicked people are targeting people who, in a moment where common sense is lost, have clicked through. Now I get that people are curious. I'm not saying it's right, but I get that people are curious and click on stuff. You're bored, you're sitting there scrolling through your phone, and it's someone you may be familiar with in your day-to-day life. You listen to every day on the radio or whatever, you're curious, but you get sucked in. And so these people were vulnerable to some extent.
When Which? looked into it, one of their journalists put their details in the site and they were bombarded by calls. And to the point where the journalist said, 'I'm a journalist, what do I need for you to stop calling me?' And they went, 'Just give us some money and we'll stop.'
As journalists, we're very fortunate; we're in an environment where we can talk to people who are wiser than us. Not everyone has that. For my image to be connected to someone losing their livelihoods or losing such a significant amount of money, being emotionally scarred or ashamed… people don't report scams easily because they're ashamed that they've fallen for it. They might think they're stupid, and they might be kicking themselves for being scammed, but scammers are bloody clever. They're so smart; they're ahead of the game in every sense. They see a trend, and they pick up on it, and they grasp it. Do not underestimate scammers.
This article has been condensed for clarity.
GLAMOUR is campaigning for the government to introduce an Image-Based Abuse Bill in partnership with Jodie Campaigns, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Not Your Porn, and Professor Clare McGlynn.
Revenge Porn Helpline provides advice, guidance and support to victims of intimate image-based abuse over the age of 18 who live in the UK. You can call them on 0345 6000 459.
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