Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed fury on Friday over an adult website that published unauthorised pictures of women, including herself, amid a national outcry over online misogyny. Administrators of the site took it down Thursday following widespread condemnation and legal complaints. World
Italy’s PM Meloni ‘disgusted’ over porn site allegedly showing doctored images of her and other high-profile women
Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, pictured in March, has voiced outrage over a porn site that allegedly featured doctored images of herself and other high-profile women.
Italian Prime Minister Georgia …
Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni 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 newspaper.
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.”
