WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- A website threatening to release nude pictures of British actress Emma Watson was reportedly created as a marketing stunt to shoot down online forum 4chan.
The site, EmmaYouAreNext.com, surfaced Tuesday and featured a photo of the Harry Potter star wiping a tear from her face alongside a regressive countdown to Sept. 27. Several 4chan users reportedly wrote on the forum the site would "show the world she is as much of a whore as any woman" following the acclaimed speech Watson gave on feminism at the U.N. on Saturday.
But on Wednesday night the site's background morphed into a black backdrop with the hashtag #shudown4chan front and center in white letters. A 4chan logo is centered above the hashtag under a forbidden sign. Featured bellow is a message from Rantic.com -- the website's new URL -- asking President Barack Obama to take action against the image-board site.
"We have been hired by celebrity publicists to bring this disgusting issue to attention. The recent 4chan celebrity nude leaks in 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 step closer to shutting down www.4chan.org."
Rantic's post ignited yet another debate on social media about people's right to unlimited and free access to the World Wide Web. Many commenters have said Rantic's petition would "provide the end to uncensored open access [to the] Internet."
According to Business Insider, Rantic Marketing isn't a real company and the EmmaYouAreNext website was created as a hoax by a "gang of prolific Internet spammers used to quickly capitalize on Internet trends for page views." The group is also known as SocialVEVO and its believed to be run by Jacob Povolotski, Yasha Swag, Swenzy and Joey B, who once created a fake viral clip called Pickles.
A poster on 4chan's /pol/ section, wrote Tuesday after the revenge site was created that 4chan was not behind the professed photo leak and commended Watson for her "moderate, balanced feminist" ways.
"I know there are several journalists lurking /pol/ - so I just want to say, when these Emma Watson nudes come out, IT IS NOT 4CHAN. This is a false flag by /whichever agency/, probably NSA or something," read the post. "4chan holds Emma in high esteem, and while most of us would fap like crazy to real nudes, it's not us hacking the cloud."
4chag is the forum where multiple nude and semi-nude photos of celebrities were leaked earlier this month. A second leak took place over the weekend targeting many of the celebrities that were named after the first batch of intimate photos came out.
