This week’s installment of “everything is terrible” was
seemingly brought to you by the much maligned
anonymous shock post site 4Chan.
The Washington Post and many other news organizations reported that users on the site were
apparently threatening to release private photos of
actress Emma Watson to retaliate against her for her feminist U.N. speech promoting the new initiative HeForShe.
A site featured a
count down clock ticking down to the moment that
photos of Watson, which as we pointed out on Tuesday
may or may not have even existed, would be released.
A “company” Rantic Marketing, began redirecting the
Watson site to another Web site www.rantic.com and
replaced the countdown clock at midnight on
Wednesday morning with a new message:
#Shutdown4Chan
“We have been hired by celebrity publicists to bring this
disgusting issue to attention,” the company wrote in a
“letter” to President Obama posted on the new site. “The recent 4chan celebrity nude leaks in the past 2 months
have been an invasion of privacy and is also clear
indication that the internet NEEDS to be censored.”
“Every Facebook like, share & Twitter mention will
count as a social signature — and will be one step closer
to shutting down www.4chan.org,” it continued.
Business Insider reports that “Rantic Marketing” doesn’t actually exist, and it is the latest front for a group of
somewhat notorious Internet hoaxers:
Rantic Marketing is a fake company run by a
gang of prolific internet spammers used to
quickly capitalize on internet trends for page
views. The group go by a variety of different
names. Collectively, they’re known as
SocialVEVO, but as the Daily Dot reports, their names are alleged to include Jacob Povolotski,
Yasha Swag, Swenzy and Joey B. The only
known video footage of the group is a rap
song about pickles that they used dubious
spam techniques to make incredibly popular.
The song used to have over 8 million views on YouTube.
Reddit users, many of whom are
unsurprisingly incensed by the hoax , also point out that at least dozens of tweets sent out about the issue were virtually identical – some identical translations of the same message — suggesting that at least some of
the organic ferment of support touted by Rantic may
have been bought and paid for.
And the original “news” of this site first appeared on the
fake news Web site “Fox Weekly.”
The truth is, the morally bankrupt landscape that is
4Chan is well-documented. And the real actions of its users probably don’t need another hoax to make them more deserving of condemnation — particularly when
it comes to the dissemination of stolen, private photos
of women.
www.washingtonpost.com
