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A scandal that began with hundreds of Marines caught sharing nude photos of fellow female servicemembers on social media has expanded to include sharing of photos of males servicemembers on gay porn sites.Â
A scandal that prompted a Pentagon investigation into hundreds of Marines sharing nude photos of female servicemembers has now expanded to include gay porn websites featuring images of men in military uniforms engaged in sex, USA Today reported.
The original scandal that broke earlier this month focused on nude photos of female servicemembers that were shared in a private Facebook group among hundreds of Marines. The photos also included personal information about the women, including their name, rank, duty station, and social media accounts, according to NPR.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) began investigating hundreds of Marines who allegedly participated in the sharing of the nude photos without consent and subsequently cyberbullied some of the victims. NCIS has now called for a joint task force across all branches of the armed forces to investigate the scandal, and Air Force investigators are currently searching gay porn sites in order to identify victims, as at least one fully-clothed male victim's photo ended up on a Gay porn Tumblr site without his consent, according to USA Today.
While the investigators are tasked in part with helping to identify victims, they will also need to determine if active-duty troops were engaged in pornography, which is a potential violation of military law.
"The Air Force Office of Special Investigations is investigating information and photographs from websites hosting inappropriate photos of service members without prior consent," said Air Force spokesman Col. Pat Ryder. "As part of that ongoing criminal investigation, airmen identified will be contacted directly by AFOSI to determine whether they are victims."
Dozens of investigators have been assigned to the case to use facial recognition software in order to determine if the men in the photos, many involved in group sex, are active-duty troops, Ryder said.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat from New York and a member of the Armed Services Committee, has called for swift action in the face of the growing problem. "This scandal is out of control and the Department of Defense needs to get a handle on it immediately," she told USA Today in a statement. "Commanders have told us for decades that they can handle these issues, clearly they cannot, and Congress should step up and do its job and bring professionalism and accountability to the military justice system that has ignored predators for far too long."
