SAN JOSE — A 17-year-old Lincoln High School student has been criminally cited after he hosted an Instagram account that featured nude photos of underage girls, authorities say, including some from Lincoln.

The teen, whose identity was withheld by police because he is a minor, is suspected of misdemeanor distribution of child pornography, San Jose Police Sgt. Enrique Garcia said. The social-media posts, reported Monday afternoon, “solicited nude pictures of underage females,” and labeled some with “derogatory names” in the captions, according to police.

It was not immediately clear if the teen is still in school.

The Instagram account, titled “SJUSD BOPS” displayed 58 nude photos and had 1,198 followers as of Monday morning, before it was shut down, according to a student who received a screen shot of the page. The student, who was not a follower and not involved in the page, asked not to be identified.

While Lincoln Principal Matt Hewitson notified parents that Instagram took down the photos after school administrators contacted the social media site, students said that the photos simply have been transferred to other Instagram accounts and are still circulating.

Authorities said they didn’t know if the photos depicted only Lincoln students, or teens elsewhere as well. Administrators at several San Jose Unified high schools have alerted parents of the nude-photo account, said Jorge Quintana, school district spokesman. Social media, he said, doesn’t differentiate by school-attendance boundaries.

On Monday, Hewitson told students of the Instgram site, and offered an unspecified cash reward for information identifying the site’s owner, students said. He also sent an email and phone message alerting parents to the site, and urged them to use the incident as an opportunity to discuss safe online practices with their children.

Instagram is a social media site, similar to Facebook, where users post photos.

The incident is part of a mushrooming phenomena of youths, mostly boys, posting nude and sexually explicit photos online. In Colorado, it was discovered recently that hundreds of students were posting nude photos online. As at Lincoln, a student tipped off authorities to the photo exchange.

Two years ago in Saratoga, 15-year-old Audrie Pott committed suicide after cellphone photos of her partially nude body — following her sexual assault at a house party — were distributed among a circle of students. It spurred a national conversation about cyber-bullying and inspired the passage of Audrie’s Law, which in California strengthened penalties in cases of sexual assault of an incapacitated victim.

According to studies, from 16 percent to 25 percent of teens engage in sexting — the exchange of nude or sexually explicit content. But those estimates are unreliable, said Darri Stephens of Common Sense Media, the San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to maintaining media safety for children. Sexting “is the digital currency of trust,” Stephens said, “kids say, ‘you share yours and I’ll share mine’ or ‘If you really love me, you’ll share your (nude) photo.'”

What too many kids don’t realize, she said, is “the minute you press ‘send,” you’ve lost control of that image.”

Common Sense runs workshops for children and parents on Internet and social-media safety.

Last spring, the Lincoln High PTSA hosted one such Common Sense session, PTSA President Jennifer Thesing said. It is planning a similar one on Feb. 1.

Contact Robert Salonga at 408-920-5002. Follow him at Twitter.com/robertsalonga. Contact Sharon Noguchi at 408-271-3775. Follow her at Twitter/com/Noguchionk12.