5 ms·

Ashley Madison: Life After the Hack

11 points by pain_perdu 9y ago

Chris2048 9y ago
While I don't think cheating should be explicitly illegal, I think companies that actively encourage it should be - AM is (was) outright immoral!
- Chris2048 9y ago
  Wow, downvoted. Who could possibly think cheating is ok...
  - jazoom 9y ago
    Okay? Maybe not. Illegal? What's the point of that?
    - Chris2048 9y ago
      The same point as anything, to defend individual rights and improve society. AM exploited the weakness of the people using its service. And in the context of a guy who killed himself rather than face the shame of having betrayed his wife?
      - jazoom 9y ago
        It sounds like the effort should go towards changing people's attitudes instead of regulating what business can do.
        Chris2048 9y ago
        You could say that about any corporate legislation. There's nothing stopping you from doing both. Any effort to change attitudes will be more successful if it doesn't have to compete with corporate marketing; for example, it's easier to get people to reject tobacco, if they aren't constantly exposed to marketing making it seem cool, harmless, healthy(!?) and/or normal. Coke adds normalize casually drinking caffeinated sugar water. McDonalds even had athletes eating their burgers. There are some people who will always cheat, making it easier to hide it from their partner is the best you can do.
        jazoom 9y ago
        I mean change attitudes about sex. What law of the universe says people should have sex with only one person? It's not cheating if it's accepted. I think AM is a scummy company but they are only accommodating what people already want to do.
        Chris2048 9y ago
        > It's not cheating if it's accepted True, which means this is a tangent. For those who do commit, they shouldn't cheat. I'm not going to go into reasons for monogamy, but "what people already want to do" is cheat. Should there be no insider trading laws either? Clearly crooked traders want to cheat, so why not let them?
        jazoom 9y ago
        No one loses anything in this case. In fact, if the couple is okay with it, you could consider it a gain. Your analogy isn't even close. By the way, I mean no disrespect. My way of thinking used to be more similar to yours.
        Chris2048 9y ago
        No problem, but I'm not sure I follow. What is this case? We're talking about cheating, but that is specifically cheating on a commitment. A couple who are happy with an open relationship are not cheating. There are already dating sites for swingers etc, AM is not one of them, AM if specifically for cheaters. They act against the interests of the cheated-upon. This is why I made the analogy; a inside trader might be OK with it because they see the gain, but not the loss.
        jazoom 9y ago
        You are right. AM does seem specifically for sneaky commitment-breaking, which is one reason I think they are scummy. I also believe it bad to cheat on a commitment. I suppose I lost my point, which was this shouldn't be illegal. Not all scumminess should be illegal since you will end up making criminals out of decent people who do a scummy thing. Road rage is bad but if everyone who succumbs to it was a criminal then half the country would have a criminal record. A better solution would be a culture change where this commitment isn't strongly pushed onto people from social pressure when it's obviously not the right thing for that person. Another better solution would be reducing social stigma around divorce.
  - manyxcxi 9y ago
    I don't think cheetos are ok, yet I don't think it should be illegal for a company to sell them. I think it's immoral to advertise vaguely about health benefits (see how many vitamins and minerals are in Lucky Charms!) when researchers can unequivocally point to your product as directly harmful to health. I'm still not against a company's right to sell Lucky Charms. My morality doesn't belong in the laws and neither does yours. The entire history of human civilization is littered with horrible event after horrible event based in the name of someone's twisted ideas. AM created a (seemingly shitty) a place for two consenting adults to find each other and meet. That Bob or Alice are married shouldn't matter one iota, it was their informed choice. This is even better in my opinion than having a standard dating site where one party is expecting a traditional relationship only to eventually be hurt by the fact the other person was stepping out on their partner and not really interested. Cheating isn't okay with me either, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to legislate against it. Are we going to force people to start wearing scarlet letters?
    - jazoom 9y ago
      You said what I was thinking but in a smarter way.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      There's more to it than that. Apparently AM faked female contact info millions of times, and tried to charge for more contact with the fake accounts. Simple fraud. So not only a website that allowed immoral (in some views) activity. Actually an immoral website that perpetrated fraud and extortion.
      - manyxcxi 9y ago
        That was my aside about them seeming to be shitty. I think AM was a scummy company enabling people to do something I don't agree with. I'd be more than happy if they got the hammer for fraud or something, but purely for enabling immorality, hell no.
RichardHeart 9y ago
"employees at the Cyprus office were tasked with creating "fake" profiles to lure men. "They would take somebody's picture and maybe take a snippet of the profile, whether it was an existing one or had been in the past, and make these profiles," she said. "Then they would start sending out messages to men, because the whole business model was that men would pay and women could use it for free." Despite the hack, the company is still growing. Ashley Madison grew from 39 million users in August 2015 to 50 million users in January 2017, according to a company spokesperson." Screws over users, still growing. In the case of a cheating assistance website, you could posit that in the case of people that were able to successfully cheat instead of just talk to fake profiles, it was their partner who was screwed over. Thus, whether it's the company screwing the customers over, or the customers screwing their partners over, it's all bad. Be ethical, with your partner and your customers. May this company and everyone that's profited from it be damned.

11 points by pain_perdu 9y ago

Chris2048 9y ago

While I don't think cheating should be explicitly illegal, I think companies that actively encourage it should be - AM is (was) outright immoral!

Chris2048 9y ago
Wow, downvoted. Who could possibly think cheating is ok...
- jazoom 9y ago
  Okay? Maybe not. Illegal? What's the point of that?
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    The same point as anything, to defend individual rights and improve society. AM exploited the weakness of the people using its service. And in the context of a guy who killed himself rather than face the shame of having betrayed his wife?
    - jazoom 9y ago
      It sounds like the effort should go towards changing people's attitudes instead of regulating what business can do.
      - Chris2048 9y ago
        You could say that about any corporate legislation. There's nothing stopping you from doing both. Any effort to change attitudes will be more successful if it doesn't have to compete with corporate marketing; for example, it's easier to get people to reject tobacco, if they aren't constantly exposed to marketing making it seem cool, harmless, healthy(!?) and/or normal. Coke adds normalize casually drinking caffeinated sugar water. McDonalds even had athletes eating their burgers. There are some people who will always cheat, making it easier to hide it from their partner is the best you can do.
        jazoom 9y ago
        I mean change attitudes about sex. What law of the universe says people should have sex with only one person? It's not cheating if it's accepted. I think AM is a scummy company but they are only accommodating what people already want to do.
        Chris2048 9y ago
        > It's not cheating if it's accepted True, which means this is a tangent. For those who do commit, they shouldn't cheat. I'm not going to go into reasons for monogamy, but "what people already want to do" is cheat. Should there be no insider trading laws either? Clearly crooked traders want to cheat, so why not let them?
        jazoom 9y ago
        No one loses anything in this case. In fact, if the couple is okay with it, you could consider it a gain. Your analogy isn't even close. By the way, I mean no disrespect. My way of thinking used to be more similar to yours.
        Chris2048 9y ago
        No problem, but I'm not sure I follow. What is this case? We're talking about cheating, but that is specifically cheating on a commitment. A couple who are happy with an open relationship are not cheating. There are already dating sites for swingers etc, AM is not one of them, AM if specifically for cheaters. They act against the interests of the cheated-upon. This is why I made the analogy; a inside trader might be OK with it because they see the gain, but not the loss.
        jazoom 9y ago
        You are right. AM does seem specifically for sneaky commitment-breaking, which is one reason I think they are scummy. I also believe it bad to cheat on a commitment. I suppose I lost my point, which was this shouldn't be illegal. Not all scumminess should be illegal since you will end up making criminals out of decent people who do a scummy thing. Road rage is bad but if everyone who succumbs to it was a criminal then half the country would have a criminal record. A better solution would be a culture change where this commitment isn't strongly pushed onto people from social pressure when it's obviously not the right thing for that person. Another better solution would be reducing social stigma around divorce.
- manyxcxi 9y ago
  I don't think cheetos are ok, yet I don't think it should be illegal for a company to sell them. I think it's immoral to advertise vaguely about health benefits (see how many vitamins and minerals are in Lucky Charms!) when researchers can unequivocally point to your product as directly harmful to health. I'm still not against a company's right to sell Lucky Charms. My morality doesn't belong in the laws and neither does yours. The entire history of human civilization is littered with horrible event after horrible event based in the name of someone's twisted ideas. AM created a (seemingly shitty) a place for two consenting adults to find each other and meet. That Bob or Alice are married shouldn't matter one iota, it was their informed choice. This is even better in my opinion than having a standard dating site where one party is expecting a traditional relationship only to eventually be hurt by the fact the other person was stepping out on their partner and not really interested. Cheating isn't okay with me either, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to legislate against it. Are we going to force people to start wearing scarlet letters?
  - jazoom 9y ago
    You said what I was thinking but in a smarter way.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    There's more to it than that. Apparently AM faked female contact info millions of times, and tried to charge for more contact with the fake accounts. Simple fraud. So not only a website that allowed immoral (in some views) activity. Actually an immoral website that perpetrated fraud and extortion.
    - manyxcxi 9y ago
      That was my aside about them seeming to be shitty. I think AM was a scummy company enabling people to do something I don't agree with. I'd be more than happy if they got the hammer for fraud or something, but purely for enabling immorality, hell no.

RichardHeart 9y ago

"employees at the Cyprus office were tasked with creating "fake" profiles to lure men. "They would take somebody's picture and maybe take a snippet of the profile, whether it was an existing one or had been in the past, and make these profiles," she said. "Then they would start sending out messages to men, because the whole business model was that men would pay and women could use it for free." Despite the hack, the company is still growing. Ashley Madison grew from 39 million users in August 2015 to 50 million users in January 2017, according to a company spokesperson." Screws over users, still growing. In the case of a cheating assistance website, you could posit that in the case of people that were able to successfully cheat instead of just talk to fake profiles, it was their partner who was screwed over. Thus, whether it's the company screwing the customers over, or the customers screwing their partners over, it's all bad. Be ethical, with your partner and your customers. May this company and everyone that's profited from it be damned.