Listen: Italy’s digital misogyny website finally taken down

An explicit content website in Italy called Phica, a misspelt slang for female genitalia, was finally shut down on Thursday after it was circulating photos of women without their consent.

Among those targeted were some of Italy’s most high-profile figures like Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, opposition leader Elly Schlein, European Parliament member Alessandra Moretti and others. The images were often lifted from TV appearances or social media, then altered, sexualised, and accompanied by vulgar captions. But why are sites like this still operating with impunity?

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You can find the transcript here if you prefer reading:

An explicit content website in Italy called Phica, a misspelt slang for female genitalia, was finally shut down on Thursday after it was circulating photos of women without their consent.

Among those targeted were some of Italy’s most high-profile figures like Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, opposition leader Elly Schlein, European Parliament member Alessandra Moretti and others. The images were often lifted from TV appearances or social media, then altered, sexualised, and accompanied by vulgar captions. But why are sites like this still operating with impunity?

So, this site wasn’t new, it has been around since 2005, and at its peak counted hundreds of thousands of users. What’s new is that politicians began speaking up. Alessandra Moretti filed a police complaint after finding herself featured on the site, saying her photos had been stolen and manipulated for years. She called it part of a wider problem, which is sites like these operating “with impunity.”

And she’s not the only one. Several women, from local councillors to national MPs, stepped forward. Their public pressure, alongside an online petition with over 150,000 signatures, finally pushed the platform’s administrators to close it down, blaming, rather vaguely, “toxic behaviour” and a “wrong use of the platform.”

This isn’t an isolated case. Just weeks earlier, a Facebook group called “Mia Moglie” (My Wife) with 32.000 male followers that uploaded and exchanged intimate photos of women, was also shut down.
Now, Italy (like many other countries) is struggling with a persistent problem of gender-based violence. The country records high levels of femicide and campaigners argue it’s rooted in deeply patriarchal structures.

And the digital sphere has simply given misogyny a new platform making it easier to spread, harder to regulate, and, until now, often ignored by authorities. It took female politicians and influencers going public for the problem to be treated as serious. Meanwhile, ordinary women whose photos were stolen for years had been filing complaints that went nowhere.

So, what can we expect on this?

Italy has recently taken steps to address gender-based violence. A draft law approved in March would, for the first time, define femicide in criminal law and punish it with life imprisonment. The Senate has also passed tougher measures against stalking, sexual violence and so-called “revenge porn.” But critics warn: legislation is only the tip of the iceberg. Punishing crimes after the fact does not change the economic, educational and cultural conditions that allow misogyny to flourish. They argue that more preventative measures would more likely save women's lives.

The Phica scandal is now being called Italy’s “#MeToo moment”, a turning point where silence gives way to outrage, and outrage hopefully to reform. But the uncomfortable truth is that women in Italy (and in many other countries) whether they are prime ministers, actresses, or anonymous citizens are still not safe from being turned into digital objects for public consumption.

Until society treats this not as a glitch in the system or as a lone example but as the system itself, there will be more websites humiliating women and men, more petitions, and more scandals.