On the popular second-hand shopping app, Vinted, women are finding their images being exploited without their consent. What began as an app to sell clothes and reduce waste is now exposing women to digital sexual violence.
The digital marketplace has become a breeding ground for incels where users are under attack. According to a joint investigation by NDR, WDR, and the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), three major German media outlets, the act of sustainable consumption has turned into a form of digital exploitation.
Investigative journalists from NDR, WDR, and Süddeutsche Zeitung uncovered an online platform where images of women from Vinted (usually uploaded to show the sizing and fit of a garment) were being saved and shared without consent. Links to the profiles were also shared, including addresses and personal information. The uncovered Telegram channel titled “Girls of Vinted” was flooded with misogynistic and sexual messages regarding the women. Its membership swelled from 1,600 to over 2,000 members, predominantly men, in just a few weeks.
The non-consensual spread of images and personal data represents a failure to protect women in digital spaces and illustrates how quickly our digital presence can be weaponised against us.
The scale of the problem
One Vinted user, a 26-year-old student whose profile was targeted, described how the messages she was receiving on the app changed overnight. “It’s so many [messages] that I can hardly find the real buyers anymore,” she told NDR. “It makes me feel small, like I want to hide.”
Another Vinted user, on the platform since 2011, said she now receives “inappropriate messages daily”. Though her face and background are not visible in her profile pictures, she discovered her images had still been saved and shared. “It feels like a digital version of street harassment,” she commented.
The administrator of the Telegram channel, posing as “Sara”, a 29-year-old woman from Milan, shared images daily and even advertised sexual services in exchange for in-app currency. Whether “Sara” was a real person or part of a larger exploitative network remains unclear. But the channel had over 2,000 members, almost all men. The women featured were largely from Germany, France, and Italy, which reflects the regions with some of the highest Vinted usage.
Journalists who were part of the investigation attempted to contact the administrator, but it resulted in automated responses and paywalls, with messages costing up to €113.99 each. After the journalists confronted her with their findings, she announced she would delete the channel. Telegram later confirmed that both the channel and its administrator’s account had been removed for violating platform rules.
Corporate responsibility
When contacted, Telegram claimed it had removed both the Girls of Vinted channel and its administrator’s account for violating its community standards. In a statement, the platform insisted it complies with the European Union’s Digital Services Act and that it “routinely removes illegal content” and processes complaints that are properly submitted.
However, Telegram has no official headquarters within the EU. There is a designated contact for authorities based in Brussels, but this leaves victims with little help and regulators with limited reach. “There’s a glaring legal loophole here,” said Max Dregelies, a legal scholar specialising in media and personality rights. “Platforms like Telegram continue to evade real accountability, while users are left exposed.”
Vinted acknowledged awareness of the ongoing issues. The company stated it maintains a “zero-tolerance policy” for unwanted, sexually explicit communication on the platform. Users can report inappropriate messages, and Vinted says it typically blocks offending accounts within a week of such reports. But for many users, the protections feel insufficient. After one account is suspended, new harassing messages often arrive from different users, creating a never-ending cycle. When it comes to photos being saved and shared on third-party platforms like Telegram, Vinted places the responsibility on the victims, advising them to contact the platform directly.
In other words, once an image is stolen, Vinted’s responsibility ends.
What’s happening on Vinted isn’t just about moderation failures or Telegram users. It’s about how women’s bodies are made into commodities online and offline. The logic of these platforms depends on visibility: our clothing, our body, and our willingness to model the clothes we sell. That visibility is gendered and is coming at a cost.
What we are seeing is a digital form of sexual exploitation. Women offering secondhand clothes are forced to navigate the same sexualised aggression they would on the street, but this time, it is through their phones, in what should be our personal safe spaces. And when violations happen, corporations like Vinted brush them off, suggesting users simply report or block. But blocking one account in a sea of burner accounts is hardly impactful.
For now, the Telegram channel has been taken down; however, there is no reassurance that the channel does not exist elsewhere or under a different name. Until online platforms are built with women’s protection at their core, with clear guidelines, these violations will continue.
