Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney reportedly has taken legal action over the internet posting of nude pictures, allegedly of her and allegedly hacked from her account.
An attorney for Maroney, TMZ reported, claimed that she was under the age of 18 when they were taken and demanded that the website Porn.com remove them immediately. Another attorney who contacted other sites claimed that Maroney, who turned 18 last December, owns the copyright on the pictures. The photos, a representative for the website told TMZ, were taken down.
On Monday, Maroney tweeted that the photos were “fake” and fended off a Twitter backlash.
the fake photos of me are crazy!! was trying to rise above it all, and not give the creator the time of day.. BUT.. pic.twitter.com/hceQcOxYkJ
— McKayla Maroney (@McKaylaMaroney) September 1, 2014
shout out to my fans for defending me all day long.. even when things got weird u stood by me. and that meant the world
— McKayla Maroney (@McKaylaMaroney) September 1, 2014
Reddit moderators warned users that photos of the gymnast would be deleted, Buzzfeed reported. “It is considered CP [Child Pornography], and breaks reddit’s site-wide rules (in addition to international law, age of consent is different than child pornography guys), and will get this subreddit banned if we were to allow them to be posted [not to mention the fact again, that it is child pornography],” moderators wrote.