Bella Thorne has leaked nude photos of herself in order to take back power from a hacker who threatened to release them.

The actress - best known for her role on the Disney Channel's Shake It Up - had her Twitter account hacked last week, and posted screenshots of a series of messages from an anonymous person threatening to leak her personal videos and selfies, saying: "YO BELLA! Got all the videos."

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Addressing her fans, the 21-year-old explained why she was leaking them first.

"Yesterday as u all know all my s*** was hacked," she began in a statement on Twitter. "For the last 24 hours I have been threatened with my own nudes I feel gross, I feel watched, I feel someone has taken something from me that I only wanted one special person to see. He has sent me multiple nude photos of other celebs, he won’t stop with me or them he will just keep going."

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Thorne then explained that she was sick of a man having control, and was taking the power back by releasing the photos, captioning her tweet with "f**k u and the power u think you have over me".

"Here’s the photos he’s been threatening me with, in other words here’s my boobies, [sic]" she wrote. "So here f*** u, and the last 24 hours I have been crying instead of celebrating my book while doing my book press. Oh yea, the FBI will be at your house shortly, so watch. Your. Mother. F***in. Back. [sic]."

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While there have been some less than respectful comments about the images, the general consensus is overwhelmingly positive, with @huntermoreonoo writing: "You took the power back from this piece of s**t. That’s real strength. I love you."

Twitter user @LegendDVash also showered Thorne with praise for her decision, stating: "Wow. I am speechless. Be strong Bella. I have follow you since Disney Channel Days. And glad to know you have grown to be as strong as you are. S**t that’s some mess up s**t [sic] that person did. Be strong, nobody deserves that."

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Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, the model said that while she is extremely upset at the hack, she believes her hacker is a teenager, and explained that she doesn't want to "ruin" him.

"This kid sounds like he’s 17, as much as I’m so angry and wanted to f**k him up over doing this to people I just wanted to teach him a lesson," she said. "He’s still a kid and we make mistakes, this mistake is a bad one. But I don’t want some 17-year-old's whole life ruined because he wasn’t thinking straight and [was] being a dumbass."

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She continued: "He’s obviously smart so if he got on the right side of the tracks he could actually possibly help our community and be an alliance. You can’t always tear someone down for their bad sides but more so build up their good sides."

Back in August of 2014, the world was rocked by hundreds of intimate and private celebrity photos after their iCloud accounts were hacked and the images were shared online for everybody to see. The extreme invasion of privacy not only questioned the safety and privacy of personal information, but also many people questioned who was to blame: the hackers or the celebs who took the pictures.

However, as a whole, I think most can agree that people should be able to take pictures of whatever they like and not risk having their privacy infringed upon. However, the very nature of these leaks has led to many celebrities being blackmailed after hacking their private photos.

Back in June, Bella Thorne "leaked" her own personal nude photos after revealing on social media that people were attempting to extort her in return for not sharing the private pics:

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Twitter / Bella Thorne]]

Addressing her followers, the 21-year-old explained why she had made the brave decision to leak them first:

"Yesterday as u all know all my s*** was hacked," she began in a statement on Twitter. "For the last 24 hours I have been threatened with my own nudes I feel gross, I feel watched, I feel someone has taken something from me that I only wanted one special person to see. He has sent me multiple nude photos of other celebs, he won’t stop with me or them he will just keep going."

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Now, comedian and actress Whitney Cummings has followed in Thorne's footsteps to share her own intimate pictures, after revealing somebody had screenshotted an image showing her bare breasts and threatened to post it online. Taking to Twitter last night, the 36-year-old posted the following to her fans:

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[[imagecaption|| Credit: Twitter / Whitney Cummings]]

In her tweets, the 2 Broke Girls creator said:

"In April I accidentally posted an insta story that showed nipple. Once I realized, I deleted. The people who took screen grabs are trying to get money from me, some said they have offers to sell them, some are asking for money to not post the photo.

"They all must think I’m way more famous than I am, but they also must think I’m way more easily intimidated than I am. If anyone is gonna make money or likes off my nipple, it’s gonna be me. So here it all is, you foolish dorks. [sic]"

In a series of follow-up tweets, Cummings commented on the extortion of women in the public eye, and that people were now messaging her saying they had access to her iCloud:

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In response to Cummings' brave decision, the hashtag "#IStandWithWhitney" started trending on Twitter, with people not only just sharing their support for the comedian, but also sharing their 'embarrassing' pictures:

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To cap off the eventful evening, Cummings even joked about the hashtag:

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Many fans end up with unhealthy obsessions for the celebrities they respect, admire, or simply find attractive. But it's a phenomenon that has only accelerated in the 21st century, with the photos taken by paparazzi and others easily spread across the internet, bringing every detail of the rich and famous' lives to our screens through a click or two. While this can often be the innocuous (but still, pretty weird) habit of fan blogs posting photos of actors they like heading out for their morning coffee, or walking down the street with their new partner, sometimes it can take a far darker route. You no doubt remember the event in 2014 which was later referred to as "Celebgate", wherein hundreds of celebrities, primarily women, had their nude photos leaked to the world after a breach in Apple's iCloud service. Gained through targeted phishing attacks and exploits found in the company's online storage platform, a collection of almost 500 private pictures were made available online. This wide range of photos, usually involving nudity, were leaked or put up for sale on August 31 of that year, including many celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton. The FBI launched an investigation and a number of arrests were made, including a 36-year-old American who plead guilty and received 18 months in prison. "Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it," Jennifer Lawrence said at the time, "It’s so beyond me. I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity." Now, a similar fate has befallen Sia, the Australian singer-songwriter known for such hits as Chandelier and Cheap Thrills. At least, it nearly did, as she found an inventive way to get ahead of the leaks. Now, we think Sia deserves all the traction she gets from this body positive message, so head over to her Twitter to take a look at her post. Sia revealed a nude photo of herself, on Twitter no less, after finding out that someone was trying to sell the photo to her fans. The photo was taken from afar with her back to the camera, rather than the selfies that were leaked in 2014, but rather than see a subset of her fans buy into the scheme, she released a screenshot of the photo to her 3.38 million followers. "If you make the purchase it will be unblurred and you receive and additional 14 images," the seller's message read. As part of her reply, Sia wrote: "Someone is apparently trying to sell naked photos of me to my fans. Save your money, here it is for free. Everyday is Christmas!" Part of the appeal that people find in these thoughtless invasions of privacy is the taboo aspect, so putting out there in such a outrageous way shut the seller down, and Sia's fans absolutely loved it: [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/AdeleUnion/status/927726740272594944]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/steenfox/status/927733554603106306]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/CGGuy44/status/927731486714773504]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/bolaji_0/status/927730392408494080]] After seeing so many of these photos getting out there just because some hacker wanted to make a little money or have a laugh, it's great to see a response like this. Good on Sia!

As we endure some of the hottest weather of 2020, many people are understandably stripping down to keep themselves cool. However, as is always the case when removing clothing, there is a line for what's publically acceptable.

Now, one woman has come under fire for the impromptu risqué photoshoot that she staged in a public pool.

Footage of the scantily-clad woman being photographed by a friend was posted to Twitter by the account Influencers In The Wild, which, as its name suggests, was created to mock the bizarre things that people do for online clout.

Watch the video below: 

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In the clip, the woman looks to be naked, but she is actually wearing a very small bikini.

She can be seen raising the top half of her body in and out of the pool with her derriere raised in the air. Meanwhile, her friend stands above her, presumably taking pictures for her Instagram account.

In the foreground of the footage, there are a number of children playing on pool floats, causing social media users to debate whether or not this woman was right to expose herself in such a public place.

One Twitter user commented: "It's never appropriate for adults to expose themselves to children in a highly sexual manner. This woman should face charges."

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A second wrote: "Where is this? That's obviously illegal right. Also gross."

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A third remarked: "If she were a man she would be arrested and tried for indecent exposure with minors present and then forced to be listed as a sex offender."

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However, not everyone thought that the woman was wrong.

One Twitter user wrote in her defense: "Yes. She has a body and is existing with it in a pool. Kids won't pay any mind. Let her feel her damn oats."

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A second added: "She is wearing a bikini top and bottom, it looks like something else because of the angle and the pose for half a second in this edited video. If the video was longer 2 seconds before and after, perception would be totally fine. This is not an influencers in the wild video."

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What do you think? Was this woman acting inappropriately in a public pool or was she simply enjoying herself for Instagram within reason?

If the last few weeks have taught us anything, it's that sexual abuse is rife in the world - whether we notice it or not. Often, abusers are people in positions of power. Some big Hollywood names have been outed as perpetrators of harassment and inappropriate behavior recently, but these types of actions are by no means limited to high-status positions. This week, news emerged of a Columbian school teacher who forced her underage pupils to have sex with her in return for good grades. The teacher, who has been identified only as 'Yokasta M', is set to be formally charged after it emerged that she was blackmailing her students into sleeping with her, and had threatened to fail them if they refused to comply. The 40-year-old woman asked for her students' numbers in order to "help them with their studies", but then groomed the teenagers by sending them hundreds of explicit pictures via Whatsapp. After her arrest, one of her victims posted some of the images online. Along with the pictures (some of which depicted the woman almost entirely nude), the student provided a statement showing exactly what he thought of the woman. "This is the teacher Yokasta, who tells us that she disapproves of us if we do not have relations with her," he said. It is believed that Yokasta asked up to 40 young boys for their numbers and invited dozens of them back to her flat, where she ordered some of them to perform sex acts on her and said she would give them failing grades if they declined. Yokasta's perverted activity was only discovered when the stepfather of one of the victims noticed some X-rated snaps on his son's phone. Amongst the pictures were shots of the teacher in her underwear, in a bikini, in sexually-suggestive positions, and even one with her using a stuffed toy to cover her exposed genitals. The woman had been bombarding her students with pictures non-stop, manipulating them into doing things they did not want to, and showing complete disregard for their wellbeing. As a result of her disgusting behavior, the teacher could be facing up to four decades behind bars. Not only that, but her husband has abandoned her, and filed for divorce after finding out about Yokasta's treatment of her students. Worryingly, many reactions to the story have not been ones of condemnation and disappointment - but rather approval. "If i had to chose [sic] a way of being threatened this would be it. I would have had a field day bumping my grades up with this," said one commenter. "Why couldn't I have had teachers like her lol," wrote another. One of the problems with abuse from women against boys and young men is that it is not taken seriously enough. The pupils in this situation were forced to act against their will and perform sexual acts under duress, and, had they been female, this story would probably be received a lot differently. Perhaps, if we recognized the true severity of incidents like this, we would not have such large-scale problems such as the ones we are seeing in Hollywood right now.