12 ms·

'Revenge porn' website former owner Hunter Moore arrested

137 points by mercurial 13y ago

sillysaurus2 13y ago
Should it be illegal to operate a website that hosts user-generated content, some of which is illegal, if you take reasonable steps to remove the illegal content when informed of its existence? The answer is pretty clearly "no." But this position becomes more difficult to defend when the entire premise of the website is based on illegal content. Something like e.g. if YouTube was originally named ShareMusicIllegally.com. Actually, at this point in writing my comment, I checked my facts. It turns out "revenge porn" wasn't illegal until Oct 2013, and then only in California. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/revenge-porn-banned-in-california/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/revenge-porn-banned-in-californi... So this is a very unusual situation. We have a business built on a concept which wasn't illegal until recently. Did he continue to try to operate it in California after the bill was signed into law? One position to take is "Who cares. This is a good thing." That may be true, but remember that if you have the right to host whatever legal content you wish, then the first step toward losing that right is to not defend it. Sometimes that requires defending scoundrels. Honestly, I don't know what to think. Maybe this isn't an instance of that sort of situation. On one hand, there are concerns about civil liberties in regards to webhosting. On the other hand, this website was clearly vile. What does everyone think about how this has played out? Businessman builds a morally suspect business; business is outlawed; businessman is fined $250k. Did he deserve it? Perhaps it was karma. Is it a worrying trend that website operators are becoming increasingly culpable for user content? What if there were a subreddit dedicated to "revenge porn"? Should Reddit be liable for damages under California law, and should the subreddit be banned even though there are far worse subreddits, both from a moral and legal standpoint? So many questions (though most of it is conjecture, and hence may not be very useful). EDIT: It turns out that the $250k fine wasn't due to user generated content, but rather because the website owner defamed someone by calling them a pedophile. So maybe the rights of website owners aren't even in question here. Was there any legal action taken against this "revenge porn" website owner stemming from the website after it was made illegal in Oct 2013?
- themanr 13y ago
  > Mr Moore is said to have paid Mr Evens to hack into hundreds of victims' email accounts to obtain more nude photos to post on the website. I think this is what they are charging him for - not for hosting genuine UGC.
  - sillysaurus2 13y ago
    It is the latest legal setback for Mr Moore, who was ordered in March to pay $250,000 (£170,000) in damages for defamation resulting from a civil lawsuit. I may have misunderstood, but didn't this $250k fine originate largely due to the UGC on the website?
    - k-mcgrady 13y ago
      AFAIK users didn't actually upload content to the site. They submitted it and then Mr Moore or someone else posted it. I'm also pretty sure he wouldn't honour take down requests.
      - sokoloff 13y ago
        Is there a large chasm between "upload content" and "submit [content]"? Is the difference in the latter case just that someone clicks "ok, post this"? I don't think that a quality-review (or lesser, a mechanism to queue and release content to the site slowly over time) turns user-generated-content into site-generated-content. If Youtube did a quality review, it would still be UGC. If Youtube did a post-facto quality review (to remove copyrighted music), it would still be UGC. ... Not honoring takedown requests is a different matter, and just sounds like a dumb call.
        bruceboughton 13y ago
        Yes, because then you are editorialising and lose a lot of safe harbour protections.
        chilldream 13y ago
sheraz 13y ago
Good. This guy is a scumbag, and I hope he is prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.
- eoghan 13y ago
  +1
eleitl 13y ago
I'm surprised it took so long, and he didn't suffer ballistic lead poisoning instead.
billpg 13y ago
I don't see this as a free speech issue. If you want to put a website with pictures of yourself naked, that's fine by me. You do not get to make that decision on my behalf.
- adamors 13y ago
  Exactly! What people forget is that most of this "user generated" content is being uploaded without the consent of the persons in the pictures.
  - chilldream 13y ago
    One interesting angle some people have taken in the absence of RP-specific laws is to make copyright claims (since a lot of the pictures are either outright stolen, or self-taken and then later uploaded by angry exes)
- josephlord 13y ago
  That doesn't make it not a free speech issue. It is a free speech issue but one that we come down on the restricted speech side of things. It is just that it one of the issues that illustrates that some limits on free speech are appropriate and correct. Once that is acknowledged the tricky discussion of where that line should be and how it should enforced come into play.
  - IgorPartola 13y ago
    Is it not copyright infringement? You post my pictures without my consent, I send a takedown notice, you refuse, I call the FBI.
    - tseabrooks 13y ago
      Serious question. If you consent today to let me take pictures of you nude... Don't I own the copyright of those pictures? Now, presumably if you and I were dating your consent would be very casual... I'd say, "Hey, mind if I snap some photos" and you'd say, "Go right ahead"... Because I'm quite charming. A year later I still have these photos and we're not dating any longer. Do I own copyright on photos as the photographer? How far does your casual consent go? Do I need formal consent saying I can reproduce them? A photo journalist will take a photo of a couple in the park as a child plays in the fountain behind them and use it in the paper the next day. What consent do they need to get from those being photographed? It just all feels very fuzzy. Presumably most of the nude pictures are taken by someone other than the subject of the photos... meaning the photographer owns the copyright.. I'd think. Anyone have more info on how this actually plays out?
btucker 13y ago
Bob Garfield (On the Media) interviewed Hunter Moore a few years ago: http://www.onthemedia.org/story/173718-revenge-porns-latest-frontier/ http://www.onthemedia.org/story/173718-revenge-porns-latest-...
- chillingeffect 13y ago
  Great link! Only five minutes long, yet very interesting to hear the interactions between the two. I especially enjoyed hearing the interviewer begrudgingly admit that it wasn't just women but also men on the site. He (Garfield) tries desperately to paint Moore as pure evil in every way, but is repeatedly forced to admit that Moore's actions are legal and in line with values of our country's laws (er, our laws until October 2013).
  - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
    Legal does not mean good or right, of course. The guy is still a complete scumbag, emotionally broken at some point in his early development I imagine.
    - Nick_C 13y ago
      > emotionally broken at some point in his early development Yeah, that was my first thought when I saw him interviewed. He had no empathy at all. He basically admitted he ran a shady business that monetises peoples' misfortunes, but, hey, if he didn't someone else would. As if that justifies it, somehow.
- jaynos 13y ago
  In December, they did a piece [1] on the woman who got the FBI involved (i.e. discovered the hacking aspect). Also a good listen. [1] http://www.onthemedia.org/story/why-one-moms-investigation-might-actually-stop-revenge-porn/ http://www.onthemedia.org/story/why-one-moms-investigation-m...
  - agumonkey 13y ago
lettergram 13y ago
This article seems pretty concluded. For one, it doesn't seem like they are charging anyone for the revenge porn site, rather they are charging him as an accomplice in "hacking" peoples emails. Worse yet, they then bring in the $250,000 fine imposed by the court for defamation and that has nothing (or seemingly) nothing to do with the current case at all. In other words... what the hell is this article about?
- ephemeralgomi 13y ago
  It's contained in the first graf. They were arrested. That's what the news is. The rest of the article is background explaining who Hunter Moore is, to clarify why his arrest is newsworthy.
loucal 13y ago
The last tweet he posted is hilariously ironic... IIRC, for years he actually used to make videos ridiculing girls who tried to get their pictures taken down and admitted to ignoring all takedown requests publicly so I'm surprised he lasted this long with the nature of what he was doing. Also do a quick search for his name and 'anderson' he had an interview on anderson cooper that just makes him look and sound like an actual child.
- debt 13y ago
  I watched it. Made me think that this site serves the potentially positive purpose of showing that sending nude pictures to people is generally a bad idea. By extension, people will then view "trusting the interwebs" with private information as generally a bad idea as well. Either way, he's a scumbag and the site is terrible, but it's an interesting social experiment.
yarou 13y ago
This sets a dangerous precedent. Soon there will be laws written that you cannot criticize the policies of the federal government on a website. And so on. I would gladly defend this guy, even if he is a scumbag.
- tlrobinson 13y ago
  Regardless of the rest of it, hacking emails to steal and post nude photos is indefensible. That said, I'm usually skeptical of CFAA charges when the accused has done something objectionable but not necessarily illegal (see: weev).
  - yarou 13y ago
    We don't know what really happened yet. "Hacking" someone's email can mean a lot of things. CFAA should only apply if there was an intrusion of some sort through an attack vector of the system, not if the mailbox owner voluntarily shared login info.
    - mcantelon 13y ago
      What, out of curiosity, is the charge applied to social engineering or phishing login info?
mek 13y ago
This is great news !!!
thatthatis 13y ago
Good god people, read the lead of the article. This isn't going after him for hosting UGC, this is going after him for cracking into people's computers, stealing their personal photos, then publishing them online. This is a question of theft and unlawful entry, not free speech. > Hunter Moore, 27, and Charles Evens, 24, face charges including conspiracy, unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information and aggravated identity theft.

137 points by mercurial 13y ago

Should it be illegal to operate a website that hosts user-generated content, some of which is illegal, if you take reasonable steps to remove the illegal content when informed of its existence? The answer is pretty clearly "no." But this position becomes more difficult to defend when the entire premise of the website is based on illegal content. Something like e.g. if YouTube was originally named ShareMusicIllegally.com. Actually, at this point in writing my comment, I checked my facts. It turns out "revenge porn" wasn't illegal until Oct 2013, and then only in California. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/revenge-porn-banned-in-california/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/revenge-porn-banned-in-californi... So this is a very unusual situation. We have a business built on a concept which wasn't illegal until recently. Did he continue to try to operate it in California after the bill was signed into law? One position to take is "Who cares. This is a good thing." That may be true, but remember that if you have the right to host whatever legal content you wish, then the first step toward losing that right is to not defend it. Sometimes that requires defending scoundrels. Honestly, I don't know what to think. Maybe this isn't an instance of that sort of situation. On one hand, there are concerns about civil liberties in regards to webhosting. On the other hand, this website was clearly vile. What does everyone think about how this has played out? Businessman builds a morally suspect business; business is outlawed; businessman is fined $250k. Did he deserve it? Perhaps it was karma. Is it a worrying trend that website operators are becoming increasingly culpable for user content? What if there were a subreddit dedicated to "revenge porn"? Should Reddit be liable for damages under California law, and should the subreddit be banned even though there are far worse subreddits, both from a moral and legal standpoint? So many questions (though most of it is conjecture, and hence may not be very useful). EDIT: It turns out that the $250k fine wasn't due to user generated content, but rather because the website owner defamed someone by calling them a pedophile. So maybe the rights of website owners aren't even in question here. Was there any legal action taken against this "revenge porn" website owner stemming from the website after it was made illegal in Oct 2013?

themanr 13y ago
> Mr Moore is said to have paid Mr Evens to hack into hundreds of victims' email accounts to obtain more nude photos to post on the website. I think this is what they are charging him for - not for hosting genuine UGC.
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  It is the latest legal setback for Mr Moore, who was ordered in March to pay $250,000 (£170,000) in damages for defamation resulting from a civil lawsuit. I may have misunderstood, but didn't this $250k fine originate largely due to the UGC on the website?
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    AFAIK users didn't actually upload content to the site. They submitted it and then Mr Moore or someone else posted it. I'm also pretty sure he wouldn't honour take down requests.
    - sokoloff 13y ago
      Is there a large chasm between "upload content" and "submit [content]"? Is the difference in the latter case just that someone clicks "ok, post this"? I don't think that a quality-review (or lesser, a mechanism to queue and release content to the site slowly over time) turns user-generated-content into site-generated-content. If Youtube did a quality review, it would still be UGC. If Youtube did a post-facto quality review (to remove copyrighted music), it would still be UGC. ... Not honoring takedown requests is a different matter, and just sounds like a dumb call.
      - bruceboughton 13y ago
        Yes, because then you are editorialising and lose a lot of safe harbour protections.
      - chilldream 13y ago

sheraz 13y ago

Good. This guy is a scumbag, and I hope he is prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.

eoghan 13y ago
+1

eleitl 13y ago

I'm surprised it took so long, and he didn't suffer ballistic lead poisoning instead.

billpg 13y ago

I don't see this as a free speech issue. If you want to put a website with pictures of yourself naked, that's fine by me. You do not get to make that decision on my behalf.

adamors 13y ago
Exactly! What people forget is that most of this "user generated" content is being uploaded without the consent of the persons in the pictures.
- chilldream 13y ago
  One interesting angle some people have taken in the absence of RP-specific laws is to make copyright claims (since a lot of the pictures are either outright stolen, or self-taken and then later uploaded by angry exes)
josephlord 13y ago
That doesn't make it not a free speech issue. It is a free speech issue but one that we come down on the restricted speech side of things. It is just that it one of the issues that illustrates that some limits on free speech are appropriate and correct. Once that is acknowledged the tricky discussion of where that line should be and how it should enforced come into play.
- IgorPartola 13y ago
  Is it not copyright infringement? You post my pictures without my consent, I send a takedown notice, you refuse, I call the FBI.
  - tseabrooks 13y ago
    Serious question. If you consent today to let me take pictures of you nude... Don't I own the copyright of those pictures? Now, presumably if you and I were dating your consent would be very casual... I'd say, "Hey, mind if I snap some photos" and you'd say, "Go right ahead"... Because I'm quite charming. A year later I still have these photos and we're not dating any longer. Do I own copyright on photos as the photographer? How far does your casual consent go? Do I need formal consent saying I can reproduce them? A photo journalist will take a photo of a couple in the park as a child plays in the fountain behind them and use it in the paper the next day. What consent do they need to get from those being photographed? It just all feels very fuzzy. Presumably most of the nude pictures are taken by someone other than the subject of the photos... meaning the photographer owns the copyright.. I'd think. Anyone have more info on how this actually plays out?

btucker 13y ago

Bob Garfield (On the Media) interviewed Hunter Moore a few years ago: http://www.onthemedia.org/story/173718-revenge-porns-latest-frontier/ http://www.onthemedia.org/story/173718-revenge-porns-latest-...

chillingeffect 13y ago
Great link! Only five minutes long, yet very interesting to hear the interactions between the two. I especially enjoyed hearing the interviewer begrudgingly admit that it wasn't just women but also men on the site. He (Garfield) tries desperately to paint Moore as pure evil in every way, but is repeatedly forced to admit that Moore's actions are legal and in line with values of our country's laws (er, our laws until October 2013).
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago
  Legal does not mean good or right, of course. The guy is still a complete scumbag, emotionally broken at some point in his early development I imagine.
  - Nick_C 13y ago
    > emotionally broken at some point in his early development Yeah, that was my first thought when I saw him interviewed. He had no empathy at all. He basically admitted he ran a shady business that monetises peoples' misfortunes, but, hey, if he didn't someone else would. As if that justifies it, somehow.
jaynos 13y ago
In December, they did a piece [1] on the woman who got the FBI involved (i.e. discovered the hacking aspect). Also a good listen. [1] http://www.onthemedia.org/story/why-one-moms-investigation-might-actually-stop-revenge-porn/ http://www.onthemedia.org/story/why-one-moms-investigation-m...
- agumonkey 13y ago

lettergram 13y ago

This article seems pretty concluded. For one, it doesn't seem like they are charging anyone for the revenge porn site, rather they are charging him as an accomplice in "hacking" peoples emails. Worse yet, they then bring in the $250,000 fine imposed by the court for defamation and that has nothing (or seemingly) nothing to do with the current case at all. In other words... what the hell is this article about?

ephemeralgomi 13y ago
It's contained in the first graf. They were arrested. That's what the news is. The rest of the article is background explaining who Hunter Moore is, to clarify why his arrest is newsworthy.

loucal 13y ago

The last tweet he posted is hilariously ironic... IIRC, for years he actually used to make videos ridiculing girls who tried to get their pictures taken down and admitted to ignoring all takedown requests publicly so I'm surprised he lasted this long with the nature of what he was doing. Also do a quick search for his name and 'anderson' he had an interview on anderson cooper that just makes him look and sound like an actual child.

debt 13y ago
I watched it. Made me think that this site serves the potentially positive purpose of showing that sending nude pictures to people is generally a bad idea. By extension, people will then view "trusting the interwebs" with private information as generally a bad idea as well. Either way, he's a scumbag and the site is terrible, but it's an interesting social experiment.

yarou 13y ago

This sets a dangerous precedent. Soon there will be laws written that you cannot criticize the policies of the federal government on a website. And so on. I would gladly defend this guy, even if he is a scumbag.

tlrobinson 13y ago
Regardless of the rest of it, hacking emails to steal and post nude photos is indefensible. That said, I'm usually skeptical of CFAA charges when the accused has done something objectionable but not necessarily illegal (see: weev).
- yarou 13y ago
  We don't know what really happened yet. "Hacking" someone's email can mean a lot of things. CFAA should only apply if there was an intrusion of some sort through an attack vector of the system, not if the mailbox owner voluntarily shared login info.
  - mcantelon 13y ago
    What, out of curiosity, is the charge applied to social engineering or phishing login info?

mek 13y ago

This is great news !!!

thatthatis 13y ago

Good god people, read the lead of the article. This isn't going after him for hosting UGC, this is going after him for cracking into people's computers, stealing their personal photos, then publishing them online. This is a question of theft and unlawful entry, not free speech. > Hunter Moore, 27, and Charles Evens, 24, face charges including conspiracy, unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information and aggravated identity theft.