Jenna, who asked for her last name to be withheld, said she was concerned that some photos were posted on “Bendigo Hotties” without consent and several girls had contacted her with concerns over the page. 

“Someone said they’re going to be taking random photos of girls down the mall and posting them on the page without their consent,” Jenna said. 

“Some have had friends post pictures of them and then asked for them to be deleted, then the guy running it has said ‘the pictures are up now, too bad’, stuff like that. 

“There’s already a high suicide rate with children with self-esteem problems and people are going to be judged by their looks, purely their looks.”

She said while most of the pictures appeared to be posted with consent, some were not. 

“I posted on my Facebook page expressing concerns and they blocked me, so I’ve got my partner checking to make sure none of my family members are on there,” Jenna said. 

“It’s been reported to Facebook. 

“There have been numerous girls contacting me to ask if I’d reported it to Facebook. 

“If this was in Melbourne it would be a different story, there are so many people there and you couldn’t pinpoint it to one community, but Bendigo is different, it’s a tight-knit community.”

Police were not available to comment on the page. 

In the page description of “Bendigo Hotties”, the creator said it wasn’t about judging people. 

“This page is not about judging anyone,” they wrote.  

“It’s about having a giggle and maybe meeting fellow Bendigo hotties. 

“Don’t like it, change the page.” 

Several people identified themselves as underage in the pictures. 

Some Facebook users defended the page, with one person noting the page was different to the “Benders root rate” page, which was set up to rate the sexual performance of Bendigo residents.

“This is a page where people put their own photos in unlike the ‘root rate’ page, which people talked about others,” Bree Slattery said. 

“This is just a site where people in their own free will can show their beauty; shame on the haters.” 

Another user said it was a shame people got “all worked up about this sort of thing”. 

“It’s not just women whose pics are being posted on this site,” Geoff Martins said.

“If someone takes things too far, like into creepy territory, then that’s a different story, but in the meantime, harden up Bendigo.”