Beware Naked Doctor Who Fangirls

[UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF PAGE] RogueCyberman, TimeGirlKatie, CyberBabeChloe and friends: a cautionary tale for the Twitter age

Investigative journalism isn’t SFX ’s usual beat, but when something smells fishy, we think it’s only right to address it – and right now there’s a very odd whiff emanating from one corner of the internet. The ingredients in this peculiar tale: Twitter, naked pictures of young women, and Doctor Who fans.

4 January 2012: A new website – roguecyberman.com (we won’t link to it, as that would increase its hits) – is registered with WhoIsGuard. WhoIs is a site which allows you to find out who’s the registered owner of a website, and view their contact details. WhoIsGuard is a service that protects site owners’ details by acting as a middle man. There are perfectly sensible, legitimate reasons to use WhoIsGuard – you might be fearful that your admin email will be inundated with spam, for example. But it’s also useful for those who wish to hide themselves.

@TimeGirlKatie, @CyberBabeChloe and all the rest aren’t really clothes-shy young fangirls who enjoy watching “The Sensorites” at all. It’s even possible that all the conversations that take place between them and @RogueCyberman are being carried out by one person – that kind of thing is quite easy to fake with a Twitter client like Tweetdeck. Their photos might have been taken by @RogueCyberman, but they might have been taken from other sources. If that’s the case (and proving it for certain is very hard), everyone who is following them is being misled.

Why go to all the bother? Well, fans of @TimeGirlKatie and the rest can ogle some of their photos – rather cheesy ones, in which they cavort with whipped cream and strawberries – on the blog for free. But other photos – “naughtier” ones – can only be viewed in a “members' area”, which is “tucked away so kids can't see it”. To get access to these, you have to prove your age by signing up to an “adult verification system” called SexKey, using your credit card details. Readers are assured this is free to join and “there’s no subscription”. This is true: but as ever, you need to check the small print.

When you sign up to SexKey, you’re also given a free trial password to a site called PornKing.com. If you don’t cancel that membership within the trial period (three days), you will end up being charged. PornKing’s monthly rate is $39.95 a month – every month, until you cancel. To stress: these terms and conditions are made clear when you sign up, but not exactly in six-inch-high flashing neon letters. These kind of sites make much of their money from people who naively don’t read the small print, or don’t cancel in time. Sites that use SexKey are themselves paid a referral fee for everyone they get to sign up.

These were our questions:

RogueCyberman's first response was this:

He made many responses after that, but these were his key answers to the second and third points:

And in response to being asked (three times) if he could post a photo of one of the girls holding up their Twitter username, he replied:

Now, if people want to look at naked pictures of young women on the internet, and pay for the privilege, that’s their prerogative. Hell, 50% of the internet is dedicated to it. What troubles us here at SFX is the thought that someone’s fandom might be used to draw them into doing that, to make money. Particularly if there is any dishonesty in that process.

To clarify: we do not believe that @RogueCyberman is doing anything illegal. The signup for the member’s area of his site does make clear the terms and conditions. The question that remains unanswered, for us, is whether the girls depicted in the photos really are young Doctor Who fangirls. And that’s something we can’t prove with 100% certainty one way or the other. You must decide for yourself how to interpret all these facts. We don’t know for certain what the correct interpretation is.

But here’s some common-sense guidance we can give you:

If someone you don’t know follows you on Twitter, ask yourself whether you are 100% certain they really are who they say they are.
If you’re going to hand over your credit card details on the net, always make sure you read the small print.
Passionate fandom is – just like lust – a powerful motivator, that can sometimes make people do foolish things. Be aware that there are people out there who might be looking to push your fannish buttons for their own personal gain

UPDATE (8.20pm, 12 March)

Both the RogueCyberman and TimeGirlKatie Twitter accounts have now been shut down. Initially they were locked, then it appeared as if all the tweets had been deleted, and now the accounts have disappeared completely.

All the images and posts on the website www.roguecyberman.com have also disappeared, leaving just the default installation screen for WordPress. SFX had already taken the precaution of screengrabbing tweets and blog pages in case they were needed in the future.

We assume this is the last we will hear of either of these accounts, but the common-sense guidance above remains pertinent. Be careful out there, people.

UPDATE (26 March)

Several readers have contacted us to say that the Twitter accounts concerned are active again, with the photographs on a new site.

Ian Berriman twitter.com/ianberriman

Ian Berriman has been working for SFX – the world's leading sci-fi, fantasy and horror magazine – since March 2002. He's also a regular writer for Electronic Sound. Other publications he's contributed to include Total Film, When Saturday Comes, Retro Pop, Horrorville, and What DVD. A life-long Doctor Who fan, he's also a supporter of Hull City, and live-tweets along to BBC Four's Top Of The Pops repeats from his @TOTPFacts account.