Maddie Kowalski was 19 years old when anonymous men on X posted a pornographic video of her without her consent. It…

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Summary

A 19-year-old woman named Maddie Kowalski had a non-consensual pornographic video of her posted and shared 8.5 million times by anonymous college football fans on X, causing severe psychological trauma and harassment. She launched her own investigation with police to identify and expose the men behind the accounts who were part of a broader community dedicated to doxxing and humiliating women.

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#1
Maddie Kowalski was 19 years old when anonymous men on X posted a pornographic video of her without her consent. It went viral nationally, and was viewed 8.5 million times. For months, she had no idea who did it or why. So she made it her mission to find out. 🧵
#2
The men were part of the SEC burnerverse, a community of anon college football fan accounts. For years, many of these burners have been focused on a singular mission: doxxing and sexually humiliating college girls, and making them go viral nationwide.
#3
Maddie and her family were harassed nonstop. Men called her dad, a stage 4 cancer survivor, calling her a whore and saying she gave them AIDS. She had to leave school. She developed rashes on her face, lost hair, and was diagnosed with PTSD. The goal the whole time was to make her name go viral. “They take pride in that," one burner told me. "Getting their stuff on Barstool and ESPN is the goal.”
#4
One guy who posted the video made a cryptocurrency out of Maddie's name, which was allegedly worth $11k. X did very little to curb the spread of the video, even making Maddie's name a national trending topic. “They’re financially incentivized by followers, by views, by clicks … they’re making money off this," her lawyer told me.
#5
The whole time, Maddie had no idea who had posted her video, or why, or how they had found it. She didn't even remember it being made, as she was visibly intoxicated at the time. "I didn't recognize myself at all," she told me. Her school, the University of Florida, launched a Title IX investigation, but it was dropped within a month, she says: the video was shot off campus, and their hands were tied.
#6
Deeply traumatized, Maddie was furious no one had been held accountable. Her life was ruined, and no one — not the men who shared the video, nor the ones who filmed her without her consent in the first place — was facing the consequences. "No one gives a fuck," she told me.
#7
So Maddie decided to fight back. With the Gainesville Police Department and with a lawyer, she tried to find out the men behind the anonymous accounts — and what she learned stunned her. You can read my full investigation about the community of anonymous men who try to destroy girls' lives, and the one girl who fought back and unmasked them, at @WIRED: wired.com/story/burnerve…