Mar 07, 2017 03:55 AM EST By Ava Jones, UniversityHerald Reporter

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) has launched a preliminary investigation regarding a report about a secret Facebook group used as a channel to spread naked pictures of naked the US military's service women. According to reports, the pictures were spread through Marines United, which is open only to male members of the US Marine Corps, British Royal Marines, and Navy Corpsmen.

A retired Marine's Reddit account exposed the exploitative nature of the Facebook group, The Verge reported, and this was published at The Center for Investigative Reporting. The Reddit also revealed that this group has a history of this type of content with a huge chunk of it are pictures of girls without permission, or stalker-like photos, or revenge porn, racism, rape jokes, and the likes.

The Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that the naked pictures posted on the closed Facebook group garnered over 2,500 comments and has over 30,000 followings on Facebook. Additionally, some of the explicit pictures are of service women, whose names, ranks, and other key information were identified. Others were unidentified pictures of women in various stages of nudity, The Guardian reported.

Hundreds of members from the US Military are under fire and they are on the brink of being charged administratively. According to several reports, Marines who were in direct participation of the Facebook group incident are in direct violation of the Uniform Code of Marine Justice. One government contractor lost his job after posting a link of the photographs.

A Marine Corps spokesperson Captain Ryan E. Alvis said that the Marine Corps takes this matter seriously especially because of the lewd comments and massive sharing of salacious pictures over on the closed Facebook group called Marines United. According to Alvis, this behaviour not only destroys the morale, but it also destroys trust and degrades those who were victimized.

According to Sergeant Major Ronald L. Green, these lewd behaviors online are in contrast to what the represent. The US Military has also requested that Facebook and Google delete the account to support the victims who were unaware of what's been done to them online.

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