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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Emily Retter

‘They were comparing me to Bonnie Blue’: the disturbing rise of ‘nightlife content’

A blurred pink and purple image of a group of women laughing in a street.
‘It just feels so creepy’ … the videos fall into a legal grey area. Composite: Guardian Design; Posed by models; RyanJLane/Getty Images

‘My friend just sent me this video, told me she’d found me in it,” read the text. “As I was looking for myself, I noticed you’re in it too. I didn’t know I was being filmed, guess you don’t either, just wanted to let you know …”

When Nancy Naylor Hayes received the message in November 2023, she felt a twinge of fear. It was from an acquaintance she hadn’t heard from in years. “I was panicking,” she says. The text pointed her to a Facebook link, which led to a montage of clips of women filmed on the streets of Manchester during nights out.

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