Diana Di Meo: Italian soccer referee, 22, 'locked up' at home after her revenge porn scandal
Diana Di Meo, a soccer referee from Italy, has locked herself in her house after explicit photos and videos from her phone were hacked and posted on WhatsApp and Instagram. She reported the incident to the authorities, and the culprits can face up to six years in jail for sharing the content without her consent.
"I've been locked up at home, I've been crying and throwing up for two days," Di Meo told the police, as reported by The Sun. She posted a video on her Instagram explaining the situation and said, "These are private videos that have been stolen from me. Someone must have managed to get into my mobile phone. Otherwise, I have no idea how they were taken. I have filed a complaint and the authorities will take care of everything. I thank all the boys and girls who are writing to me from all over Italy. It is a situation that I do not wish on anyone, I am trying to resist but not everyone succeeds. We must report these videos and the people who continue to share these things."
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The English translation of the caption she posted says, "Revenge porn, also defined as "non-consensual pornography" and also sexual abuse through images, is the act of sharing a person's intimate images or videos without their consent. I'm here to talk about it, many of us can't do it and they hide. I hope to give a voice to all those victims who are blamed, when in reality the culprit is on the other side of the screen, who is either shooting or 'just sharing'. Today the victim is me, tomorrow it could be a person close to who maybe now is watching the videos and smiling. It is never the victim's fault, remember that. Always with your head held high, guys, always."
The 22-year-old, who hails from Italy's coastal city Pescara, hopes to inspire other victims to come forward and says that it is never the victim's fault. She revealed that she has been having a very hard time, and has kept herself "locked up." Di Meo has also been "crying" and "throwing up" since the leak. She has 114K followers on Instagram, where she shared the video and thanked people for their messages of support.
