The Italian prime minister has been left outraged after an adult website posted unauthorised and altered images of women including herself.
Giorgia Meloni – Italy’s first female PM – said on Friday that she is “disgusted by what’s happened”.
She was quoted by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera as saying: “I want to express my solidarity and closeness to all the women who have been offended, insulted, and violated in their intimacy by the administrators of this forum and its ‘users’.”
The images were posted on phica.eu, an adult site with a name that plays on a vulgar Italian slang term for female genitalia.
It hosted thousands of manipulated images and videos of female public figures, often accompanied by violent and obscene commentary.
The website had been running since 2005 and had more than 200,000 registered members. It was taken down on Thursday amid widespread condemnation and legal complaints.
“It is disheartening to see that in 2025, there are still those who consider it normal and legitimate to trample on a woman’s dignity and make her the object of sexist and vulgar insults, hiding behind anonymity or a keyboard,” Ms Meloni said.
As well as the Italian PM, the site published images of public figures including EU lawmaker Alessandra Moretti, who filed a criminal complaint and said such websites “incite rape and violence”, and influencer Chiara Ferragni.
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It is far from the first time high-profile women have been targeted by people using technology to create fake but often realistic explicit images.
Taylor Swift fell victim to deepfake sexual pictures being circulated on X last year, with a spokesperson for then-president Joe Biden describing the situation as “very alarming”.
One fake image, believed to have been made using artificial intelligence (AI), was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended.
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Former Love Island contestant Cally Jane Beech previously said she felt “extremely violated” when she found AI-generated images of herself online.
Her comments came as the British government announced a crackdown on explicit deepfakes.
