One patronizing Facebook page is outraging men and women alike by editing images of plus-size people to show how much 'better' they would look if they were thin.

Project Harpoon is the brainchild of a 4chan user who tasked other people with using Photoshop to digitally alter images of plus-size women, including well-known models, such as Tess Holliday and Ashley Graham, and celebrities like Melissa McCarthy and Meghan Trainor.

Using the hashtags #SkinnyAcceptance and #thINNERBEAUTY, the page compares side-by-side pictures of each plus-size person, then asks followers to weigh in on which one looks better - though the implied answer is that the thinner version is always preferable.

Offensively altered: The Facebook page called Project Harpoon edits the photos of women - including model Ashley Graham (pictured) - to make them look thin

Not so funny: An altered image of Bridesmaids star Melissa McCarthy was also featured

The page posts photos of women - and some men - without their permission. Someone digitally alters the original images to make the people in them look slimmer, thinning out their faces and bodies and even, occasionally, changing their bone structures to make them narrower.

Then, the page administrator polls followers on which version they prefer. To date, photos have been shared of Meghan Trainor, Melissa McCarthy, and plus-size models Georgia Pratt, Tess Holliday, and Ashley Graham.

'Meghan Trainor might be a lot more popular if she was what the industry wanted her to be!' the person behind the page captioned a photo of the Grammy-nominated All About that Bass singer.

The administrator also asks patronizingly whether the people who were edited without their permission would be happy to see their 'potential', and offers condescending compliments to the hypothetical thin people.

Lookinf for attention: The page has also included celebrities, like singer Meghan Trainor

If your lips are moving... Captioning Meghan's altered image, the page's administrator wrote that the 21-year-old Grammy nominee would be more popular if she was 'what the industry wanted her to be'

Maddening hoax? The idea for the project was first presented on 4chan, an online community with a history of trolling non-4chan users

Did you ask for that? The page has also featured Tess Holilday (pictured), as well as several other women, without permission

The page is likely to be an act of trolling, purposefully created and structured to get a rise out of people - like many other projects that have started on 4chan. And it has certainly has no trouble enraging many.

'No hate speech please,' the administrator has written, specifically calling out 'skinny haters' who have written in to disagree with the Photoshopping project.

'[They say] "This fat person is perfect, stop hating." "Oh no it's okay she's only double her natural body size, you hater." "I'm fat and I'm offended therefore this fatty is perfect,"' the admin wrote.

But the page, the person insists, is 'here to help these misguided women' realize their potential.

In fact, the page has shared altered photos of men, too, writing: 'Is this man objectively more attractive in the left picture, or right.'

The administrator's captions and invitations for feedback assume that beauty and sexual attraction are, in fact, things that one could objectively measure.

No choice: Followers are asked which of the images they prefer, with the implication being that the 'thin' version is always better

Who asked you? The admin also patronizingly notes that these women would likely be thrilled if they realized their 'potential'

Getting a rise: The page may be a trolling attempt crafted purposefully to make people angry

While the page has over 5,600 followers - and plenty of those followers supportively 'like' the images that are posted - many Facebook users who have visited have taken the creator to task for spreading a harmful message and violating the unwilling participants.

'Uh, you don't combat "skinny shaming" by turning around and shaming fat people,' commented one person, Natalie Rose Apar. 'It's not a zero sum game, you don't have to lift people up by putting others down. We could actually lift each other up, what a concept.'

Others called out a lack of photo-editing skills, with a woman named Mariah McGarvey saying: 'If Photoshopping women wasn't bad enough, you do it so drastically as to change their underlying bone structure. This isn't even her anymore.'

Back off: Many people have been outraged by the page, chastising the creator for fat-shaming

No haters: The creator has mocked those who have disagreed with the page

Unwelcome: Pictures are stolen from women's Tumblr accounts and 'disfigured', accordng to Straight/Curve director Jen McQuaile

Unfortunately, some of the very models featured on the page have stumbled across their altered images - and they are, to put it lightly, not pleased.

'I am sad that someone has gone to the effort to make this silly project about others their personal focus,' model Georgia Pratt, who appears on the page, told Daily Mail Online. 'I am actually worried for this person's mental health.'

Jen McQuaile - the director of Straight/Curve, a documentary about plus-size models and their rise in the fashion industry - was horrified to see some of the models featured in her film on the page.

'I cannot believe somebody would stoop so low as to disfigure some of the most beautiful women in the world,' she told Daily Mail Online. 'It is utterly appalling on so many levels. It is a personal attack on these women - who are some of the most famous plus size models in the world. This is a blatant manipulation of their image and personal bodies.

Beauty's subjective: Some men have also been included and altered, and the creator has argued that the slimmer versions are 'objectively' more attractive

Not such an artist: Some critics have called out the page for employing poor Photoshop skills

The documentary's producer, Jess Lewis, added: '[This] speaks brilliantly to the fact that there is still work to be done, and an army of healthy women ready to do it.'

Photographer and plus-size model Lily Cummings, who has not yet appeared on the page but finds it no less 'vile' and slanderous, said: 'This movement to "prove" that women look better thinner through the use of Photoshop emphasizes the body and beauty ignorance that has been enforced over the last couple of decades.'

However, she added, what the page's creator is doing is not, actually, all that shocking: 'Women's bodies are more often than not manipulated in the images we see everywhere and everyday, yet most do nothing to stop this dishonest representation. What this hateful group has done is simply an extreme of what mainstream media and fashion outlets do regularly and without shame.'

Stolen pictures: The site also altered an image of a model in Neon Moon lingerie; Neon Moon, a 'feminist' brand, makes a point not to airbrush models

Fighting back: Neon Moon's founder, Hayat Rachi, said she was 'shocked' and 'disappointed' to see the image on the site and made the creator remove it

Unfortunately, even some fashion brands that make a point not to manipulate the images of their models have been targeted.

Neon Moon, a 'feminist' lingerie brand which doesn't retouch images, found one of its own models featured on the page and demanded that the creator take it down.

Underneath the altered image, the page's creator shared the backhanded compliment: 'Wow, from a depressed chub to an elegant fox!'

'I am shocked at the blatant use of Photoshop by Project Harpoon to fat shame women,' Hayat Rachi, the founder of the brand, told Daily Mail Online. 'I was utterly disappointed to find a photo of our model Photoshopped [to look] unrealistically thin without any permission granted.'