Hoax instructional: How to deceive, deflect and scam the scandal hungry media and the all-believing public. Why? Just because.
The Emma Watson Naked Photo Countdown Was The Work Of Serial Internet Hoaxers
by James Cook
Business Insider
September 24, 2014
A mysterious countdown website emerged on Monday that hinted at the imminent reveal of naked photographs of the actress Emma Watson, stolen using the same iCloud vulnerability that hackers used to steal photographs of stars like Kate Upton and Jennifer Lawrence.
As Business Insider reported on Monday, it’s highly unlikely that anyone has naked photographs of Emma Watson (we probably would have seen them by now, because she’s a top target for iCloud hackers). Instead the site seemed like an obvious prank designed to discredit 4chan users.
Sure enough, when the countdown came to an end, the site redirected to the website of a company named Rantic Marketing, which appears to be a viral marketing agency. But here’s where this gets really interesting: Rantic Marketing doesn’t exist. This wasn’t a marketing stunt at all, but a social experiment run by the most notorious gang of pranksters on the internet.
Visitors to the homepage of fake company Rantic Marketing are met with a striking message calling on the US government to shut down anonymous message board 4chan, the site widely blamed for spreading the leaked celebrity photographs that emerged after the iCloud hack.
The smartly designed website goes on to plead with readers to join them in shutting down 4chan, stating that “together we can make a change.” Rantic Marketing’s website also features a strongly worded open letter, addressing President Barack Obama, that claims the company was hired by celebrity publicists in an effort to limit the damage caused by the iCloud photo leak.
What news sites around the world have failed to realize is that Rantic Marketing itself is yet another viral stunt. The rantic.com website is another prank, just like the fake Emma Watson countdown timer fooled the internet. One obvious clue can be found at the bottom of the open letter to Obama. In the description of the company that follows the impassioned plea, the CEO is named “Brad Cockingham.”
Rantic Marketing is a fake company run by a gang of prolific internet spammers used to quickly capitalize on internet trends for page views. Read the rest of this article here.