‘Uni Sl*ts’ and ‘C*m tributes’: Inside the sleazy Twitter accounts sharing photos of uni girls without their consent

CW: Discussions of sexual assault, abuse and revenge porn.

A hidden community of sleazy Twitter accounts have been sharing images of female uni students – as well as minors – and asking their followers to “cum tribute” them. This means masturbating on an image until completion, taking a photo of the result and sending it to the account owner.

The Tab can reveal these accounts – some of which have over 10,000 followers – have been posting these images without the consent of the women and girls involved, going largely unnoticed by Twitter until now.

Thousands of identities are being stolen to solicit sexual comments and favours from men all over the UK. Some of their victims haven’t even hit 16 yet, while uni students are among the oldest. The account posts multiple times a day, and the (inherently non-sexual) images often feature women on nights out, at the beach or during the summer, while they’re wearing minimal clothing. Occasionally, the images can get explicit, with one leaked private video showing a woman masturbating.

Many of these young women are totally unaware their images are being used in this way, while the accounts encourage their followers to “wank” over them, send the reposters money or – in some cases – contact the girls directly.

Hot Girls On Insta, a Twitter account dedicated to non-consensually sharing images of UK-based women and girls for their 1,881 followers to “rate,” was created in November 2021. Their bio states: “Sharing the love of hot girls! Accept submissions. Girls only, please.” 

The Tab spoke to the account owner, who did not give up their identity, about the process of obtaining and posting these pictures: “A lot of men (send in images of their ex-partners),” they said. “It all depends on what they’re into.” They refused to elaborate further. 

Regardless of content, captions vary from: “Send in your dirty, young chavs” to “when you get caught taking a creep shot, but she doesn’t mind.” 

I’d been told by Hot Girls On Insta that some of the women featured had consensually sent images of themselves in – often due to a “humiliation fetish,” or the desire to promote their own social media channels. Though I’d seen a number of images with the girls’ Instagram handles cropped in, I felt the need to investigate this statement further. 

Caitlin*, an 18-year-old uni student, had her identity stolen by an account called Hot Scottish Girls. Also created in November 2021, the account stated their intention to “behave better and not get suspended again” in their bio. Despite the account sharing her Instagram handle widely on Twitter; Caitlin was unaware they’d used a number of her photos when The Tab contacted her.

“The comments under the posts make me feel so disgusting, knowing grown, anonymous men from all over are looking at me,” she said. “There was no consent given in my case at all, and I’d never give permission for my photos to be used on accounts like that.” 

As well as non-consensually using images of uni students to solicit sexual comments, the account is infamous for tweeting “schoolies” – images stolen from children – and making explicit comments about the way they look. With The Tab’s help, Caitlin discovered further stolen images of her, dating back to when she was at secondary school. 

“I find it all quite gross if I’m honest,” she told me. “Especially as there are old photos of me in school uniform. It makes me want to change all my socials to private.”

Caitlin has since privated her Instagram account and reported the Twitter accounts responsible for sharing her images. 

The Tab reached out to two other victims of Hot Scottish Girls; friends, Amber* and Georgie*. Both girls were featured in images together, as well as in separate posts. On finding out their photos had been used, Amber (branded a “uni slut” by the account) felt too distressed to talk about the issue further – but wanted to highlight the images had been posted without her consent.

Georgie stated: “As my friends and I were looking through the tweets, we saw a few of them had also been included. We all just started feeling really uneasy and sick. I got my friends who have Twitter to report the account, but sadly I don’t think it’ll make a difference. These apps never take action against these people.

“It should be some sort of criminal offence. It’s crazy that someone can take your pictures and caption them with disgusting things on gross pages with little-to-no repercussions.”

Currently, accounts like Hot Girls On Insta are seemingly able to avoid detection by mostly sharing images of fully-clothed women and girls. But according to Twitter’s policies on child sexual exploitation and abusive behaviour, the accounts in question should’ve been banned a long time ago. The policy states: “We prohibit unwanted sexual advances and content that sexually objectifies an individual without their consent.” 

In the case of children, it reads: “Any content that depicts or promotes child sexual exploitation including, but not limited to… sexualised commentaries about or directed at a known or unknown minor and… sharing fantasies about or promoting engagement in child sexual exploitation.”

There is currently no law against reposting non-sexual images of adults or children – despite any captions beside it or intentions behind it. Online safety forums recommend victims deal with the matter internally.

The Tab spoke to Professor Fiona Woollard, a Philosophy Of Sex lecturer at Southampton University, to gain insight into why these accounts have such a wide appeal. 

“The person has eroticised the thought of enjoying the victim’s body against their will and the humiliation the victim would feel if they knew; of the victim’s powerlessness,” she said. “There is also another element of punishing women. In some cases the person posting is seen as punishing the victim for rejection or other perceived mistreatment; in other cases, the victim is being punished for not wanting the person to look at the picture. 

“The attitudes of taking pleasure in women’s pain, humiliation and powerlessness are deeply misogynistic.”

Revenge porn was successfully criminalised in 2015, and currently carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison for anyone found guilty. But in 2021, law firm Slater and Gordon found one in 10 people have admitted to sharing (or threatening to share) explicit images of someone, without suffering any repercussions. 

Shockingly, the idea of an entire revenge porn-based community simply slipping through numerous loopholes is less distressing than the fact that Twitter *could* wipe these accounts from existence – but flimsy policies and a long-broken reporting system means they won’t. 

The recently-drafted Online Safety Bill fails to suggest consequences for this kind of image-based sexual abuse. The victims may be fully clothed, but to be overtly sexualised without their knowledge or permission is no different to violence in the real world – such as being flashed, catcalled or masturbated at. 

In the middle of it all; tangled between meaningless legislation and anonymous sexual deviants, are the victims. Crushingly young, irretrievably paranoid and inexplicably violated. Twitter is failing to quickly spot and remove these accounts – allowing hundreds of anonymous people access to unwitting young girls. 

It appears, at least for now, the war on image-based sexual abuse is far from over. 

In a statement to The Tab, Twitter said: “Twitter has zero-tolerance for any material that features or promotes child sexual exploitation. We aggressively fight online child sexual abuse and have heavily invested in technology and tools to enforce our policy. Our dedicated teams work to stay ahead of bad-faith actors and to ensure we’re doing everything we can to remove content, facilitate investigations, and protect minors from harm — both on and offline.

“The accounts referenced have been permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Rules.”

If you believe your image has been stolen without your consent, you can report the account to Twitter for abuse. If you or someone you know has been affected by this story, please contact the Revenge Porn Helpline on 0345 6000 459. 

Hot Scottish Girls did not respond to our request for comment.

*Names changed to protect people’s identities. 

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• The Metropolitan Police ‘breached rights of Sarah Everard vigil organisers’, a High Court rules
• Uni is meant to be about sexual freedom, so why are girls still being slut shamed?
• The government’s inquiry into spiking shows they really are clueless

Featured image via Twitter before edits.