Social media users talk after being threatened with legal action

• Khloé Kardashian’s team contacted social media users this week to demand that they remove a photo of her.
• Insider spoke to representatives for three accounts contacted by Kardashian’s team.
• One said their message with the photo was less than an hour when they received a DM to take it down.
• Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.

It’s been a busy week for the Kardashian team. After a bikini photo of Khloé Kardashian began circulating at the pool on Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, her team confirmed to Page Six on Monday that they are actively working to get it scrubbed off the internet.

The Kardashian team said the picture, which apparently was not brushed in the air or digitally altered, was processed into color and accidentally posted by an assistant.

“Khloé looks beautiful, but it’s within the copyright’s right not to take an image that does not want to be published,” Tracy Romulus, chief marketing officer of KKW Brands, told Page Six.

By Thursday, virtually all of the original versions that posted the photo had been asked to take the picture, and only screenshots – and the conversation that caused the incident – remained.

Insider spoke to the people behind some of the social media accounts who posted the photo of the reality TV star and were asked by Kardashian’s team to remove it.

“I never really thought I would get involved in something like that, to be honest,” the person behind Problematic Fame, who has more than 100,000 followers on Instagram, told Insider.

A Kardashian representative declined to comment when Insider reached out.

Some accounts said they only had the bikini photo on their feed for a few hours before Kardashian’s team had it taken.

Cindy Ord / Getty Images

The people behind the accounts told Insider that they had been contacted through various channels – some via Instagram’s direct messages from Romulus, others via long emails.

Problematic Fame, an anonymously managed account by a user who describes himself as a ‘broken college student who started this account just to spend time in quarantine’, spoke to Insider about the condition of anonymity to prevent harassment.

The person behind the account told Insider that they had previously received ‘death threats and other horrific, threatening messages’ from fans of celebrities highlighting them on their account, who mainly share reports on plastic surgery and photo editing.

The student said that the morning after they posted the photo on their account on Saturday, they heard from the Kardashians’ longtime representative Romulus.

Around the same time, Instagram also notified the account holder that the post had been removed, referring to ‘IP infringement’, in respect of an infringement relating to another person’s intellectual property.

“We have removed your content because a third party has reported infringing their intellectual property rights,” reads the Instagram notice, which was seen by Insider.

But before it was removed, according to the Problematic Fame, the report attracted quite a few eyeballs in the short period that it was live on the feed.

“My post has had a pretty good engagement, and I believe it holds almost 10K in less than a day,” the person behind the account told Insider via Instagram instant messaging.

Denise Truscello / WireImage

The Good the Bad and the Fake (TGTBATF), an Instagram account that also reports on celebrity edits, they said. After the Instagram user who manages the account shared the unauthorized photo in their network on Monday, he said he heard about Romulus almost immediately.

“I would say the photo was less than an hour before I received the Tracy DM,” the person who runs TGTBATF’s DMs told Insider.

According to the person behind the account, their post was eventually removed by Instagram, which cited an IP violation, similar to the notification that Problematic Fame received.

On Twitter, Krystal Green, a plastic surgery consultant who also posted the unauthorized picture, said she let identical emails from both Kardashian’s team and Twitter know that her post had been removed.

“Twitter deleted it for me and closed my page until I agreed not to post it again,” Green told Insider.

The Twitter announcement also contains the initial request of Kardashian’s team directed to the social media account to remove the photo. The message, obtained by Insider, said the photo was “taken in a private place” by Kardashian’s grandmother MJ Shannon and “illegally posted online without permission.”

Some of the Twitter and Instagram notifications shared by Green, TGTBATF and Problematic Fame with Insider attributed the copyright of the photo to Shannon, while one said Kardashian owns the copyright.

When Insider reached out, Kardashian’s team declined to comment to explain who the copyright owner was.

Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images

Kardashian’s team threatened legal action if users did not take the photo

In a screenshot of the private message Insider viewed, Romulus told TGTBATF that she would report the ‘bullying and harassment’ account and involve lawyers in it if they did not remove the photo from their account.

The person behind Problematic Fame said Romulus also threatened legal action against them for posting screenshots of her initial outreach to the bill that asked for the photo to be removed.

“I do not have the money to defend myself,” said the person behind Problematic Fame. “I certainly do not have the money to hire lawyers against the Kardashians or anyone.”

A Kardashian representative declined to comment on Romulus’ comment to the two Instagram users.

Meanwhile, Green called the whole ordeal “ridiculous and honestly very sad”.

“The lengths [Kardashian is] go after, to maintain a false perception of her face and body is relative, ‘she added.

Amy Sussman / E! Entertainment / NBCU Photo Bank

Kardashian responded to the noise surrounding the photo by filming an Instagram Live video showing her abs on Wednesday

Insider reporter Libby Torres reported earlier that Kardashian is repeatedly accused of photographing her Instagram posts. In recent years, users on social media have said a “new Khloé has just fallen” and that she has edited her face for what they call ‘Beyoncé cosplay’.

In response to the fact that her unauthorized photo was widely shared, Kardashian went live on her Instagram page on Wednesday to share what she said was her ‘pristine and unfiltered’ body. She also shared a long message in which she opened up about the struggle with body image issues.

“As someone who’s struggled all her life with her body image, when someone takes a picture of you that is not flattering, in bad lighting, or does not capture your body as it is after working so hard to achieve it no point, “Kardashian wrote,” you should have every right to ask that it not be shared – no matter who you are. “

A post shared by Khloé Kardashian (@khloekardashian)

She added: “For those who feel the constant pressure to never feel perfect enough, I want you to know that I see you and I understand.”

Kardashian’s sisters Kim and Kendall and Kylie Jenner made supportive comments, as did many other celebrities, such as Ariana Grande.