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A mysterious Twitter account called @Scv_Purge popped up on July 16 and leaked several nude photos of high school students in Santa Clarita Valley, authorities said. The first "purge" account popped up on Wednesday and encouraged users to expose others by sending in nude photos and gossip, sheriff's officials said. The account then reportedly tweeted whatever nude photos it had received, and later threatened to reveal the names of both the exposed and the exposers. Twitter shut down the account once it received word of its content, but new ones kept popping up. The account has apparently moved on to Instagram now, KTLA reports. The account said that it would start sharing photos at 2:30 p.m. or when it got 300 (if it doesn't get shut down first).
It's not clear how all of the photos were acquired; some may have been submitted by the teens in the photos themselves, and others may have been submitted by a third party. Either way, taking or distributing explicit photos of people under the age of 18 is obviously illegal, so the creator of the account could be charged with a felony. If convicted, he or she could face up to 6 years in jail and have to register as a sex offender for life.
The account seems to be inspired by the film franchise, The Purge, the latest of which—The Purge: Anarchy—comes out today. The Purge takes place in a dystopian future where for one 12-hour period each year, nothing is illegal.
