Ban of "Nicole" images and potential doxing (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by lwadmin@lemmy.world to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

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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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[-] Cornpop@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Who is Nicole and why should I care?

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[-] LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee 0 points 1 month ago

I assumed it was something like a pig butchering crypto scam.

[-] MisanthropiCynic@lemm.ee 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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

[-] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 0 points 1 month ago

How long have you been here? I've only been here a few weeks and got no fewer than ten of these messages.

[-] OceanSoap@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago

I wonder how Nicole chooses? I just got one image.

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[-] YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

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.

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[-] Squorlple@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

This is a copy+paste of a comment I left on the !Nicole@feddit.org mod post after the recent incident with the gruesome picture(s?):

“I 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.

[!Nicole@feddit.org]’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

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[-] 18_24_61_b_17_17_4@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] Dragonstaff@leminal.space 0 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] linuxPIPEpower@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 1 month ago

It felt strangely like an initiation.

don't mystify

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[-] nl4real@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

What kind of a loser does this to someone?

[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 month ago

My hypothesis is, someone's trying to run a "Hey statistically lonely men on the internet, I'm allegedly a girl. Send me money in hopes of getting attention" scam, and they're using the pictures of "Nicole" because that's what they have at hand. I'm picturing a college classmate capturing college Zoom classes so they have several different pictures of the same girl. What others are attributing to sick malice I'm attributing to callous disregard.

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[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] aceshigh@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Reverse searching the images could give you all that info.

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[-] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask, but are you able to confirm whether admins have reported this to the police?

Even if violence hasn't been perpetrated, the harassment is still a crime surely.

[-] MrKaplan@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

I don't know if others have, I only know that we (Lemmy.World, Fedihosting Foundation) have not reported it to the police.

I don't have high hopes that the police would be able to do anything about this. For the harassment against the person shown in the images, that would likely have to be reported by them directly for the police to take that up.
For random online spam, as in harassment of fediverse users receiving the PMs, that seems like it would be an extremely low priority for police. It's also likely fairly difficult to impossible to follow up on, considering that the person sending the PMs most likely used a VPN to access these accounts.

[-] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago

Hmm.

The people receiving the spam are not being harassed, obviously.

The woman depicted is very likely the target of harassment.

Sharing the images depicting violence is tantamount to a threat of violence.

As admins, you're not just witnesses but the stewards of a community and the representatives of many thousands of people in this matter.

Pre-empting what the police will do is not a reason not to report. You don't know what they will do. They might do nothing at you would have wasted 15 minutes. On the other hand perhaps Nicole has been trying to get a restraining order against some creep but has been unable to due to lack of evidence.

[-] MrKaplan@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

The woman depicted is very likely the target of harassment.

Agreed, but there is no proof of this. We also don't know their true identity to check with them directly.

Sharing the images depicting violence is tantamount to a threat of violence.

The images did not depict violence directly, it was a gory image of a dead person. They were very likely sent by a copycat not involved in the original harassment campaign and intended to fuck up fediverse users more than anything else. They did not appear to imply any kind of threat.

you would have wasted 15 minutes

This would require a lot more than 15 minutes to file a proper report. First we have to collect all relevant information that we have available and compile them in a format that can be submitted. Once we have this information we have to identify a police department to report this to. We are legally based in NL, as that's where our non-profit Fedihosting Foundation is located. I'm based in Germany, so it would also be an option to report it here. The depicted person is claimed to be in Canada, so maybe this should be reported to a police department over there. Or maybe to all of them.

All of this would easily add up to 2 hours or more if you want to do it properly and not just look for 3 online forms to write "hey there is someone sending spam".
If this was a paid job and I was doing this during working hours I wouldn't mind, but all the time I spend here is taken out of my personal time, the same as with anyone else on our team, and also the same you'll see with most other fediverse instances.

perhaps Nicole has been trying to get a restraining order against some creep but has been unable to due to lack of evidence.

If we receive a request for information from (real) law enforcement we'll be more than happy to provide relevant data, but doing this for the (perceived low) chance of that somehow being linked from a random police report is a fairly high time investment as described above.

[-] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

This would require a lot more than 15 minutes to file a proper report…. All of this would easily add up to 2 hours or more…

Tell you what: log the time it takes, and I will personally pay you $60/hour for your time to make a proper report.

And no, I’m not being sarcastic.

[-] MTK@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

No need, this info isn't hard to compile, only took a few hours. If anyone does intend to take this to law enforcement, please PM me as I have compiled what I think to be almost all of the public information available about this case.

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[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 month ago

Haha what fantasy land do you live in where that helps anything?

[-] LSNLDN@slrpnk.net 0 points 1 month ago

Weird, I’d assumed it was just AI generated? What makes people think it’s harassment?

[-] lunarul@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

All the images look like screenshots taken during video calls. Also some people did some research and found the potential identity of the spammer (based on one of the accounts used) and maybe even the woman herself (coworker of the guy).

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 month ago

Holy shit fediverse lore fuckin’ slaps!

[-] Squirrelanna@lemmynsfw.com 0 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] MrKaplan@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

potentially identifying information, such as addresses, must be removed. images of the person must either be heavily pixelated or entirely cut out.

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[-] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world -1 points 1 month ago

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?

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[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee -1 points 1 month ago

I call dibs on her

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