Oh good! It looks like hackers have managed to gain access to Emma Watson and Amanda Seyfried’s iCloud accounts, and are now leaking private, intimate images of them online. Nice one, humanity! Thanks for giving me a new reason to despair every day.
These new leaks – dubbed as “The Fappening 2.0” – started appearing on 4chan and Reddit on Tuesday night. According to screenshots of the original threads (which have since been deleted) a selection of other female celebrities have been hacked, and more stolen images are apparently on the way.
The news ties in neatly with the one-year anniversary of Ryan Collins’s arrest, which happened last March. Collins was charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after he cracked into the iCloud accounts of over 100 women, including (allegedly) Jennifer Lawrence, Rihanna and Cara Delevingne.
At the time, Watson was also targeted, with other hackers threatening to leak private nude photos of the actress on a site called “Emma You Are Next”. It was later revealed that the site was a hoax. The star has since been outspoken about Internet privacy, criticising the lack of compassion shown by the public. “Even worse than seeing women's privacy violated on social media is reading the accompanying comments that show such a lack of empathy,” she tweeted back in 2014.
A representative for Watson has since confirmed that some of the images circulating online this week were legitimate. “Photos from a clothes fitting Emma had with a stylist a couple of years ago have been stolen,” they said. “They are not nude photographs. Lawyers have been instructed and we are not commenting further.” A spokesperson for Amanda Seyfried is yet to comment.
