Jennifer Lawrence Scam Alert: #LeakForJLaw Tricks Women Into Posting Nude Selfies To ‘Support’ JLaw
After a user on the internet forum 4Chan leaked a batch of stolen nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence, as well as other female celebs, the trolls and pranksters who populate that site weren’t finished. On Monday, they started a new online scam designed to dupe female fans of Jennifer Lawrence into posting their own nude selfies — on Twitter.
An anonymous 4Chan user on Monday morning devised the idea to create a new Twitter hashtag, #LeakForJLaw. Jennifer Lawrence fans, particularly those of the female persuasion, would be encouraged to post nude pictures of themselves on Twitter as a show of support for the victimized star, whose own nude selfies were apparently pilfered by a computer hacker or team of hackers from an online cloud storage service.
Many smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone, automatically back up photos taken with the phone on a remote “cloud” server, allowing them to then be shared easily with a user’s other devices. For example, a photo taken with an iPhone can easily be downloaded via the cloud backup onto an iPad or a personal computer.
In many cases, users may not even be aware that the photos are automatically uploaded to the cloud server, and stay there even when deleted from the phone’s own internal storage.
The anonymous 4Chan user proposed the #LeakForJLaw hashtag, along with the description, “Post your nude pics to show solidarity with Jennifer Lawrence.” The idea met with immediate approval from other 4Chan users.
“Genius. Solidarity with a side of ‘don’t slut shame me.’ Do it m8,” wrote one.
Another 4Chan user added that in order to give the scam an air of authenticity, it should be framed as a means to “combat the patriarchal savagery of men on the internet.”
For at least a while on Monday, the #LeakForJLaw “solidarity” hashtag was noted as “trending” on the Twitter service, but many of posts did not appear to be taking the idea very seriously, with some users catching on to the scam immediately.
This #leakforjlaw has 4chan/b written all over it
— Jack Ryan (@Jack_N_Ryan) September 1, 2014
While it appears that a few young women may have fallen for the scam — and it should be noted that Jennifer Lawrence herself does not have a Twitter account — the hashtag very quickly became an outlet for jokes and parodies, with many men posting their own photos, such as this one:
With the Icloud leak and Jennifer Lawrence nudes coming out I wanted to join #leakforjlaw. Solidarity, sister! pic.twitter.com/lb4sl792jV
— Boogie2988 (@Boogie2988) September 1, 2014
Reportedly, in an attempt to get the hoax going, some 4Chan users took nude photos from elsewhere on the internet and posted them to Twitter using bogus accounts under the #LeakForJLaw hashtag.
Jennifer Lawrence, through her representatives, has said she plans a lawsuit against whoever leaked the photos, once that person or persons is identified.
