this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Lemmy.World Announcements

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MODERATORS
 

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.

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[–] primemagnus 2 points 1 day ago

Streisand effect dude. πŸ€¦β€β™‚οΈ

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

This is some small internet bullshit i'm here for

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Oh, I think I got one of those. It's that girl with the bong, right?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yes, but there are a few pictures around from all of it

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I've heard that if you actually add her on friendica, the mayor of Toronto shows up at your house and gives you an old fashioned.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I'll give it a go

[–] [email protected] 46 points 4 days ago (8 children)

This annoys the fuck out of me and I hope whoever is behind it doesn't realize their goals, because I don't want lemmy to degrade into a bunch of spam PMs.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

TBF, it's bound to happen.

Guaranteed almost.

Lemmy has minimal controls for protecting against spam and bot spam. It's built to handle the internet 5 to 10 years ago, not the internet today.

I can only hope that this changes because as soon as the platform becomes popular enough (which it is slowly). Then the rate of bot spam and other sorts of spam will just go through the roof, and there's very little that admins can do to combat it without it becoming a full-time job.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

We can have an opt in spam filter that makes it harder, the instances can defederate spamming instances (user) unless they do something which yes there is a lot admins can do at signup. Or have I misunderstood something?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I don't either want to see story on TV about Internet hacker group "Lenny" destroying womans life by a persistent harassment campaign.

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[–] [email protected] 329 points 5 days ago (8 children)

I gotta give it to you guys. The foresight to prevent a disaster is 10/10. Top tier. Well done.

[–] [email protected] 211 points 5 days ago (13 children)

to be honest, this should have been done way earlier.

[–] [email protected] 86 points 5 days ago

Still glad you're doing it now!

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[–] [email protected] 257 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah it seemed funny at first but the longer this went on the creepier it got as we all realized this isn't just a catfish.

Whoever is doing this to the actual person in the photos is a terrible human being and should go climb under a rock for the rest of their lives.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 5 days ago (6 children)

Agreed. When the images started to change it got really creepy.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I have no context for this and thought it was an April fools joke left up but no, this is a real problem here?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago

I think I've gotten about 5 messages in total. Multiply that across the fediverse, and that's potentially a lot of irritation.

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[–] [email protected] 154 points 5 days ago (4 children)

I can't wait for the future 4 hour video deep dive into Nicole history and lore.

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[–] [email protected] 121 points 5 days ago (10 children)

Is this Nicole thing really still a thing? That’s so like back when I still had a 401k.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago

Understandable.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 5 days ago (1 children)

About damn time. The joke has run it's course a long time a ago and if these posts are victimizing an individual they most definitely need to be stopped.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I broke up with her for this reason.

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (10 children)

This is a copy+paste of a comment I left on the [email protected] mod post after the recent incident with the gruesome picture(s?):

β€œI think if Lemmy doesn’t have the infrastructure to defend against attacks like these which are presumptively conducted by one bad actor, then it doesn’t have the infrastructure to defend against wealthy organizations when our communities do get big enough to be noticed by them.

[[email protected]]’s history underscores how the messaging system in particular needs a massive overhaul; using image recognition as a filter for messages like Lemmy.World does for image posts (with options for NSFW that isn’t NSFL?), preventing images (and URLs? or only allowing white-listed sites?) from being sent within the first message sent between users (unless a box is ticked?), ~~not showing message recipients images until they are directly opened~~, and preventing the de-anonymizing of message recipients should be made first priority for the next patch.”

Edit: not sure if my comment is inciting other trolls/spammers to target me but I just got this DM several hours after commenting

[–] [email protected] 84 points 5 days ago (14 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 43 points 5 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.

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 5 days ago (6 children)

Considering the spammer has used so many different photos, and they all seem to be "in the moment" webcam photos, I suspect they may have webcam spyware on the victim's computer

[–] [email protected] 43 points 5 days ago (3 children)

She looks to me like a college student attending an online class. Looks like it's shot on a laptop's built-in camera, lighting is whatever, she's dressed casually and comfortably, facial expression is neutral or even bored...

If you're taking a college class via Zoom, can you see your classmates' webcams?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Ripping a bong on zoom in class?

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I've been thinking this since it started and saying it for a bit. I don't understand at all how there were memes of this on the front page all the time and it took this long to do even this. Has there been any attempt at an effort to notify whoever is in the picture that this is happening? I would like to help if possible.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think "notify her" feeds the harassment they're referring to, even if contacting her is well intended

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Thanks. Even if it isn't a harassment campaign I'm sick of the messaging

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 days ago (10 children)
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[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Damn, I never thought about it this way. Wow. I always took it as a funny thing not thinking of the person in the photo being an actual person who could very well be harassed. Thank you for bringing this to light. Whoever thought of this is a good human being. <3

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (11 children)

I can't believe I managed to never get one of these spam messages. I didn't even know what a Nicole was until the week or two ago.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Is this the person some folks around here were referring to as the "Fediverse chick?"

[–] [email protected] 47 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Yes, as that is how "she" initially introduced herself

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Thank you for your work managing the spam waves!

[–] [email protected] 51 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What of the recent NSFW/gore images that were shared? Has that been reported to authorities?

Not expecting police to solve it, but at least it would be on their radar.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 5 days ago

we looked into it, we currently believe that to be a copycat not related to the other pms.

the lemmy.world account involved in that was most certainly compromised from an unrelated data breach and all connections originated from IPs linked to an anonymization service, so there's also not much to follow up on.

we will reconsider this if it happens again.

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