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.
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.
Understandable.
I have no context for this and thought it was an April fools joke left up but no, this is a real problem here?
I think I’ve gotten about 5 messages in total. Multiply that across the fediverse, and that’s potentially a lot of irritation.
I just got my first one a couple days ago so yeah. It’s pretty widespread.
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.
I don’t either want to see story on TV about Internet hacker group “Lenny” destroying woman life by a persistent harassment campaign.
I finally got one a week ago. Have many of you gotten them?
There’s an entire community of people who get them. I think it’s called “Nicoled” but likely shitting down now. Some people were getting up to tens per day.
Jfc I got my first today and was like “oh wow it’s real.” Can’t believe some people are getting multiple a day. That would be annoying as hell
I got my first one last night. Yay! I’m part of the thing now!
So you have all the limitless time and energy to address this stupid spam post but you can’t prevent the rise of authoritarian bots and powermods on lemmy.world?
I guess limitless time and energy would be needed to identify authoritarian bots because it’s much harder compared to identifying a person in an image. Should nothing be done because the larger problem can’t be solved at the current time?
Harder for you people maybe, to me they stick out like a tooth ache
What is an authoritarian bot?
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.
I think “notify her” feeds the harassment they’re referring to, even if contacting her is well intended
might make sense to notify the educational institution she was said to be attending.
To clarify for others, as I have no interest in doing this myself, but if people feel like sharing, are they allowed to do so provided they censor the pictire/remove it entirely from a screenshot? Not sure why someone would, but I figure it doesn’t hurt to ask.
potentially identifying information, such as addresses, must be removed. images of the person must either be heavily pixelated or entirely cut out.
o7
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.
Yes. I too feel left out.
Don’t say it out loud! I said the same thing a couple weeks ago, and it’s a weekly thing now.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beet…
Wait, what movie am I watching again?
I hadn’t either. I received one a few weeks ago, after seeing this thread. Still no idea wtf is going on with it. I just deleted it.
I blocked them so many times. There’s just always more.
I heard people talking about it, but just got the message last week. It felt strangely like an initiation. There’s even a link to a discord. I’m terribly curious what goes on there, but don’t want to risk whatever possible ramifications of joining a prolific spammer’s Discord server.
… initiation? Reminds me of that cult who does this to lure people in.
It felt strangely like an initiation.
don’t mystify
Don’t tell other people how to think.
Who is Nicole and why should I care?
It’s a lemmy specific spam where someone’s pretending to be a girl from Canada and calling themselves Nicole. Mostly through private messages tho.
Not just Lemmy, they followed me on mastodon.
I saw someone on Reddit say that they’ve seen it on a Discord server as well.
Glad to see there’s effort being taken to stop this, as someone who’s been harassed in a similar way on here it really kind of bugs me that people are making light of this or assume that the original person is the one doing this. Impersonation is frighteningly easy on the Fediverse and I really wish they’d add some kind of verification in Lemmy like they do in Mastodon to try and minimize the impact of it.
I thought she loved me.
She loves us
🛠️ (my instance doesn’t have a hammer and sickle so this will do)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣤⣀⣀⣀⠀⠻⣷⣄ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣴⣿⣿⣿⡿⠋⠀⠀⠀⠹⣿⣦⡀ ⠀⠀⢀⣴⣿⣿⣿⣿⣏⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⣧ ⠀⠀⠙⢿⣿⡿⠋⠻⣿⣿⣦⡀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⡆ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠀⠀⠀⠈⠻⣿⣿⣦⡀⠀⢸⣿⣿⡇ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣄⡀⠀⠀⠈⠻⣿⣿⣶⣿⣿⣿⠁ ⠀⠀⠀⣠⣿⣿⢿⣿⣶⣶⣶⣶⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⡁ ⢠⣶⣿⣿⠋⠀⠀⠉⠛⠿⠿⠿⠿⠿⠛⠻⣿⣿⣦⡀ ⣿⣿⠟⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠻⣿⡿
You’re welcome
what?
Appears correctly on Voyager, original commenter should’ve used a code block.
Edit: I suppose display size does matter - iPhone 16 Pro
ah thank you.
just as in real life, communism doesn’t work here either lol
doesn’t work 100% on my Voyager
Google Pixel 8 btw
Thank you, comrade
If I resize my view it works but otherwise… xd
720x1600 Master race?
If we remain faithful to nicole we will be delivered eternal life. Lisan al nicole.
WTF is a Nicole image
Edit: After seeing responses…. I got it weeks ago but just ignored it as spam and didn’t even read it. The pic jogs my memory
How long have you been here? I’ve only been here a few weeks and got no fewer than ten of these messages.
One account over a year; this account about two months when I finally decided .world could fuck off
It’s just a spam message. It starts “Hi, I’m Nicole, but you can call me the fediverse chick!” Probably just a romance scam or something.
Thx, I only knew that as fediverse chick
I wonder how Nicole chooses? I just got one image.
It’s likely not Nicole herself. It’s spam trying to frame her.
Nicole AKA the fediverse girl/chick
I question if it is even harassment since there was no contact info beyond the sender in the messages I got with this pic. There was no identifying info, etc. It seemed like someone just sent me a random photo and it was very bizarre.
Reverse searching the images could give you all that info.
I did and came up with just this spam
A picture of someone’s face is identifying info. That’s why we put faces on IDs and show pictures of missing people - it literally identifies them.
I think the concern is users feeling compelled to find this women’s name and information and then contacting her thinking they are helping, and then multiply that by the dozens, hundreds, or thousands.
Yeah, it’s likely this. Mix in a couple malicious actors looking to ruin her life on top of the spam, and it’s a PR disaster for Lemmy, just waiting to happen.
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
I told the person sending the image to kys :/
The community should also be burned to the ground. If it still exists.
Which community…?
!nicole@feddit.org could be what he means. The comm was locked after the gore picture was spammed.
Yeah this one.
