Anyway, this post is obviously (title self-explanatory) about the "Most Hated Man on the Internet": Hunter Moore. Now, if you haven't heard of him (you must have been living under a rock), I think you're in for a treat - it's quite the story!
Hunter Moore owned the website isanyoneup.com, which was basically a revenge porn site - and that is what he's most famous(/hated) for. Any of you who are unclear as to what revenge porn is, let me refer you to Urban Dictionary:
But we'll come on to that a bit later. Let's start at the beginning....
So, Moore started out with a style website at the age of 12. He got kicked out of school in the eighth grade and started a t-shirt company. He also created an online community for the video game Diablo II as well as starting up a local party promotion business - this is where he established himself on the San Fransisco party scene... At age 18 he first dipped his toe into the sex industry, becoming an occasional hairstylist for a fetish porn website.
Hunter then went on to win a six-figure lawsuit after he was sexually assaulted at 19 years old while working a retail job. Recently, in reference to girls trying to sue him for uploading their sexually explicit images on isanyoneup.com, this is what Moore had to say about his lawsuit: “That’s some crazy shit you sue over. Not some shit like you fucking stuck your fingers in your ass and sent it to some cute boy you met on the Internet and then you wanna sue me for that?”. After travelling off the case money, he returned to the US and started a sex-party company, which he then sold when he became "worried because it was almost prostitution."
Ok, so let's get on to the good stuff...
Hunter founded the website isanyoneup.com in 2009 after a bad break-up. The site itself was fairly quiet for the first year, just him and his friends lol'ing over their naked picture conquests, before the site became a household name within the social networking community. At its peak the website made around $10,000 each month for advertisement revenue alone, getting over 30 million page views a month.
Anyway, to cut a long story short (we're not even halfway through), Hunter sold isanyoneup.com after an Anderson Cooper interview he did led to a lot of people sending him a lot of illegal material (underage girls, beastiality...)
He sold Is Anyone Up to James McGibney, the owner of Bullyville, an anti-bullying site, and wrote a letter claiming that he was a changed man, no longer interested in facilitating the proliferation of revenge porn. What you should know about Hunter Moore is that he's a provocative liar...
“I literally had a half pound of cocaine on a fucking table with like 16 of my friends and we were busting up laughing taking turns writing this stupid letter,” Mr. Moore said of writing the anti-bullying statement. “I think bullying is bullshit and it’s just a soccer-mom fad.”
You should go to isanyoneup.com now and read the statement written on there by James McGibney. He's basically used the statment to stand up to Hunter Moore. If I'm completely honest with you, the whole statement made me cringe; but I'll let you see for yourself...
Anyway, all this publicity led to Moore creating an army of Twitter fans, comprised primarily of young women who tweet him nude photos, and star-struck "bros" who wish they too could get paid to see girls naked. He now has over 100,000 Twitter followers eager to angrily and passionately defend him should anyone challenge his activities.
I think it was probably this level of support that encouraged Hunter to attempt to start up a new website - HunterMoore.TV, that was set to include all of the old content from Is Anyone Up, in addition to new material. Hunter said of the site: "I am creating something that will question if you will ever want to have kids."
In an interview with Betabeat, Moore said that his new site, HunterMoore.TV, would include an address submission field so that naked photos could be linked to a victim’s home address. “We’re going to introduce the mapping stuff so people are going to be able to stalk or do whatever they want to do – I know, it’s going to be scary as shit,” Moore said. “We’re just gonna add a new field and you can put their address in and then it will Google Map it.”
But don't worry, because he later went on to say that that feature's not going to happen and that he was so "coked out" he didn't even remember the interview...
Now, perhaps you're wondering where he stands legally, in terms of putting girls' naked pictures up on the Internet without their consent? Well, as it stands, he's not actually doing anything wrong...
Basically, he can rely on the Communications Decency Act of 1996, specifically section 230, which states:
"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
Basically, to cut a long legal story short, if anyone can be held liable it's the third party (the people who submit the content), not Hunter. So, yeah, it's a grey area.
Anyway, Moore's made quite a few enemies! Funny that. He's unfortunately riled the Internet’s most notorious sleeping giant, the hacker collective "Anonymous", who have launched an operation to destroy his revenge porn empire. Along with a video and a call for all members to take Moore to task for his behavior, Anonymous published extensive personal information about Moore, including his home address and the names of his family members on Pastebin.
There's some irony in this... Anonymous are notoiously known to publish personal information about their targets, which is esentially what Hunter Moore is doing. So, why try to take down someone who is effectively guilty of the same crime? Well, a faction of the group have recently taken to avenging bullies, and helped to track down a ring of paedophiles that allegedly blackmailed 15 year old Amanda Todd, who committed suicide following the cyberharassment. KY Anonymous (@KYAnonymous), the Anonymous operative who launched the campaign with @jackherer20, reasoned that Moore’s willingness to harm the blameless makes him a worthy target. “We won’t stand by while someone uses the internet to victimize and capitalize off the misery of others,” said KY Anonymous. “We are all about free enterprise, but we are not about the things that Hunter Moore and other revenge porn sites are guilty of.”
So, KYAnonymous took control of Moore's huntermoore.tv site, nearly immediately. They gained access to files and photos, as well as access to all of the content he was going to release. Within the files, Anonymous identified credit card numbers “on his site in plain text,” as well as usernames and passwords. The plan? To “dump his databases,” meaning that they were to publish them to Pastebin, along with his FTP details. KYAnonymous also used Moore's card to sign him up for a premium version of the music hosting site Soundcloud.
Anonymous revealed its plans to take down the site via a Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) attack just before a live broadcast of the BBC radio show “World Have Your Say,” on which the two Anonymous operatives responsible for starting #OpHuntHunter were to appear to discuss the operation.
Shortly after the program ended, KY Anonymous announced that the “DDOS against huntermoore.tv is ending, hope he enjoys those bandwidth costs.” He also tweeted what he claimed to be Mr. Moore’s social security number.
There was an incredible video that KYAnonymous posted showing the information on Pastebin and also step-by-step the hack taking place; but they removed the video a few days ago! Gutted.
Anyway, as it stands? The site appears to be back up now. However, the submit and advertising buttons were not functioning at the time of me posting this.
So, what does Hunter think about all this? Well, it would seem he remains unfazed. The revenge porn king has yet to acknowledge the leak of his site’s information on Twitter. Mr. Moore has made it clear in interviews that in the end, he’s just in it for the money and attention... Maybe he's just too "coked out" to care?
Anyway, the collective’s move raised the question: Is it possible to protect people from revenge porn while also supporting an open Internet, free from censorship and unnecessary government interference? Well, you can't stop it. The only answer would be to increase law enforcement and make people like Moore able to be held accountable. But that's complicated, and I claim not to be particularly well educated in Internet law...
What I can do, however, is provide my opinion and that, ladies and gentlemen, is this:
Hunter Moore is a jumped-up little prick. His ego is something else. But it's no surprise when he's constantly being sent images like this:
Women actually adore him.
Sure, he attracts the dumb ones... I saw a Tweet the other day that read, "I would send @Huntermoore a naked photo but I'd get judged on here lol." Err...
Anyway, my point is that he does what he does - some people love it and some people hate it. I'm all for free expression on the Internet - anyone who reads my tweets will know that. I have toyed with the idea of censoring myself, but really, I think free expression should be encouraged. And for this reason, I have no problem with his Twitter account.
The revenge porn thing? Well, that's kind of different. I don't think it's acceptable to facilitate scorned men, who women trusted, to upload explicit pictures of their exs. I mean, once an image is on the Internet, it's there for good. Get your picture uploaded to isanyoneup.com and even when the site's taken down, Google your name and it's there for all family members and future employers to see.
On the flip side... Don't be so stupid as to let it happen. Ultimately, you let that picture be taken of yourself and gave it to someone else. Legally, it's then their property... If you must send a slutty picture, everyone knows - don't include your face or any actual nudity. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. And so, although I do feel sorry for the girls whose reputations have been ruined, they have to take some responsibility.
My dislike for Hunter as a person (arrogant little tosser), doesn't stop me thinking, "fair play." He's made money out of other people's stupidity and is living his absolute dream. Sure, he's getting some serious backlash and his blueprint for future relationships is somewhat ruined, but he's got all the attention he could ever want. The website's not currently making him any money, but he's doing party appearances and DJ'ing in the meantime... Dream. You can't say he's not entrepreneurial...
My feelings towards Anonymous are a little dubious. I admire their skills no end, and I especially appreciate the anti-bullying message. HOWEVER, do I think vigilante behaviour should be treated with vigilante behaviour? Not so much. Anonymous have partaken in some pretty shadey operations in the past (something I might cover in a future post), so although I think Moore should certainly be held accountable for some of his behaviour, ultimately, I think the best outcome is that it acts as a lesson to us all that the Internet can be a danger zone, and maybe it's time to re-think a few laws?
Let me know your thoughts...
L.
