A threatened leak of naked photos featuring actress Emma Watson has morphed into a hoax campaign to shut down the image board 4chan, the original source of a similar leak earlier this month.
A post on 4chan earlier this week threatened to leak intimate photos in retaliation for a speech she gave to the UN in favour of women’s rights, with a countdown being posted on the website emmawatsonyouarenext.com.
Since then the site has been pulled, with users redirected to a campaign to shut down 4chan, being run by a fictional firm called Rantic Marketing which claims to have been hired by celebrity publicists.
A message on the site say: “Join us as we shut down 4chan and prevent more private pictures from being leaked. None of these women deserve this and together we can make a change.
“The recent 4chan celebrity nude leaks in the past two months have been an invasion of privacy and is also clear indication that the internet needs to be censored.”
Rantic is said to have been founded by Brad Cockingham, a fictional character who has previously been linked to Grand Theft Auto creators Rockstar North in another hoax story.
Despite the fraudulent nature of the campaign and amateurish nature of the site some Twitter users have taken up the call to shut down 4chan.
