The supposed leak of nude photos of Emma Watson has been exposed as a scam.

A mysterious "marketing firm" calling itself Rantic has been fingered as the architect of a fake threat to leak nude images of the Harry Potter starlet.

It was reported that 4chan nutjobs were getting ready to release the photos as a response to a speech she gave at the UN.

A website called EmmaYouAreNext launched soon after, featuring a picture of the starlet crying alongside a timer ticking down to the moment when the pictures would be splurged.

The website is now gone. It instead directs the user to Rantic.com, which claims to be the homepage of a marketing firm which wants 4Chan banned.

"Rantic" wrote: "We have been hired by celebrity publicists to bring this disgusting issue to attention. The recent 4chan celebrity nude leaks in the past 2 months have been an invasion of privacy and is also clear indication that the internet NEEDS to be censored. Every Facebook like, share & Twitter mention will count as a social signature -- and will be one step closer to shutting down www.4chan.org. "

But even this may be a scam.