Threat To Leak Nude Photos Of Emma Watson Was Actually A Twisted Hoax
At first, seen as a backlash against Emma for her powerful speech at UN, it now appears the whole stunt was just that: a stunt!
After Emma Watson delivered a speech at the United Nations on 20 September about gender equality, there were reports that 4chan users threatened to leak nude photos of Emma on a site called EmmaYouAreNext.com.
Well, the whole thing actually turned out to be a viral marketing stunt by a site calling itself Rantic Marketing. Rantic is claiming that it wants to shutdown 4chan, but, as Mashable reports, the "social media marketing enterprise" may itself just be a hoax.
While an attempt by Mashable to reach out to Rantic via the email address on Rantic's website failed, Business Insider attributes Rantic to "the most notorious gang of pranksters on the Internet"
In an open letter addressed to Barack Obama, Rantic states:
Rantic lists "Brad Cockingham" as its CEO and founder. According to Business Insider, rantic.com website is another stunt, just like the fake Emma countdown timer. Rantic Marketing is a fake company run by a gang of prolific Internet spammers used to quickly capitalise on Internet trends for page views.
As New York Magazine points out, convincing the Internet that anonymous men would punish women with sexual and violent threats turns out to be remarkably easy, and that's because it's completely within the realm of possibility
No comments:
Post a Comment