Hello world,

as many of you may already be aware, there is an ongoing spam attack by a person claiming to be Nicole.

It is very likely that these images are part of a larger scale harassment campaign against the person depicted in the images shared as part of this spam.

Although the spammer claims to be the person in the picture, we strongly believe that this is not the case and that they’re only trying to frame them.

Starting immediately, we will remove any images depicting “Nicole” and information that may lead to identifying the real person depicted in those images to prevent any possible harassment.
This includes older posts and comments once identified.

We also expect moderators to take action if such content is reported.

While we do not intend to punish people posting this once, not being aware of the context, we may take additional actions if they continue to post this content, as we consider this to be supporting the harassment campaign.

Discussion that does not include the images themselves or references that may lead to identifying the real person behind the image will continue to be allowed.

If you receive spam PMs please continue reporting them and we’ll continue working on our spam detections to attempt to identify them early before they reach many users.

  • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de
    862·
    6 days ago

    Wait, there are people who genuinely believe she’s the one behind it?

    I thought it was pretty obvious that she’s the target of harassment. Some people must be new to the Internet

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
      441·
      6 days ago

      Yeah, I’ve been targeted by enough romance spam that I just assume any photo of a woman I don’t know was probably stolen from some random Tumblr or Instagram.

      • whatwhatwhatwhat@lemmy.world
        4·
        6 days ago

        I had to look it up, and after reading a lengthily Wikipedia page on Greek mercenaries, I tried the second result: an XKCD comic I’ve seen before but had forgotten. So today, I’m one of the lucky 10,000 again.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      54·
      6 days ago

      I’ve seen internet harassment campaigns, none have looked like this. She doesn’t feel like the target here. If you wanted to use the internet to harass a girl, is this how you would implement it?

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
      810·
      6 days ago

      Speaking of new to the internet, it’s clearly not a harassment campaign against her. This is waaaay too much effort. There’s only 3 things that would engender this level of effort. Money, government spying, or mental illness.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        21·
        6 days ago

        This is waaaay too much effort.

        If you are willing and able to do a bit of scripting, it’s not that hard to generate and send a bunch of messages on the Threadiverse.

        And there are people who will go to pretty extreme lengths to harass people who they are really upset with. An ugly breakup or something and…

      • MrKaplan@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        6 days ago

        mentally ill people can have plenty of time on their hands to invest this much effort in harassing others. people claiming that this can’t be harassment are effectively supporting the harassment, as that tries to further blame the likely victim of this. obviously this is just speculation, as we don’t know the full truth.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
          61·
          6 days ago

          people claiming that this can’t be harassment are effectively supporting the harassment, as that tries to further blame the likely victim of this

          I don’t think anyone seriously thinks the woman in the pictures is behind this.

          • MrKaplan@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            6 days ago

            I’m sorry, sometimes it’s hard to tell whether people actually mean it. I can totally see people commenting that and being serious.