The road to perdition is paved with good intentions. Today most states have new laws on the books inspired in part by the relentless stalking of Hunter Moore by Charlotte Laws according to Netflix. Laws had a motive that anyone could relate to. A nude photo of her daughter had been posted on Moore's long defunct website IsAnyoneUp.com which now re-directs to an anti-bullying website. Laws became obsessed over Moore, tracked down everything she could find about him, and sent it to the FBI. Eventually Moore went to prison and was banned from social media. A slew of anti-revenge porn laws followed, at least one of them appears unconstitutional and another has been declared unconstitutional.
This author first became aware of Moore in 2012 shortly after appearing on Anderson Cooper's syndicated daytime talk show. Anderson treated me rather rudely and I was interested in learning more about him. Other than knowing his name from CNN, I really didn't know much about him. I didn't know that he had a daytime talk show until his producer contacted me, I didn't realize how short of a ****** he is until meeting him on stage, and didn't find out about his flaming homosexuality until researching him after the show. While researching Anderson, I stumbled upon three other similar episodes targeting different websites (Is Anyone Up, The Dirty, and Cheaterville). Each show was basically the same. Anderson brought women on to confront men that ran the sites as if they were victims of some kind. Anderson would call the site operator a "waste of breath" or something similar. Then they would edit it to make the site operator look as bad as possible. That last one was necessary to mitigate the public backlash over all the free advertising the sites received. All the alleged victims seemed to have in common was their lives being so good that the worst things they were worried about were internet posts.
Like Moore, I was targeted by a stalker, went to prison, and was banned from the web for awhile, but I fought my ban until it was declared unconstitutional. The difference in my case was that I sniffed out my stalker, counter-stalked her, threatened to kill her, and threatened to use my websites against the police. I felt justified and still do because she swatted my mother, the government illegally leaked her the only information that could have given her any leverage at all, and they clearly knew they were working with a provocateur. Swatting upped the ante from her just posting information unlawfully disclosed by the county (SSN, cell number, etc. from a medical intake form at the jail) to actually trying to physically hurt people or at least recklessly risking their safety. People have died from swatting (https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/tech/what-is-swatting-and-how-can-it-lead-to-accidental-deaths/). At that point, I knew I could probably dodge any sort of state coercion charge simply by proving that her course of conduct towards my family and I included criminal activity. Unfortunately, the government in my area embraces victimhood culture just as bad as any bleeding heart liberal can be expected to. In their eyes, she was the victim because she claimed emotional distress as a result of my refusal to remove something her ex-boyfriend had posted. Some people think that whenever anything you do or don't do makes somebody upset enough to call the police that you're automatically in the wrong. The presentence report writer even called her swatting of my mother's home "reasonable under the circumstances" as part of what I call systematic victim whitewashing. Ever since that happened to me I take a personal offense to people like Charlotte Laws. People that dedicate their time to giving cops incriminating information about other people are just as bad as cops themselves because without them there would be no crime tips.
Laws is not satisfied with just taking down Moore. She loves the spotlight and has been in it for decades. She has since used her fame to advocate against free speech by seeking new laws against posting lawfully obtained images of adults without their permission. That means that if someone you are dating sends you a nude and you feel like posting it later for the purpose of criticizing that person, they can have you arrested for your criticism just because you included a nude. Personally, I am not a fan of revenge porn. I have never intentionally hosted it or posted any myself. I think that including a nude with a critical article subtracts from merits of the criticism. If your ex was unfair to you, posting your story should be enough to give them the public shaming you desire. Posting a nude makes you look heavy handed.
I've traditionally focused more on building platforms for people to vent about almost anything that bothers them. I've never run an adult website. Despite having no desire to enter the revenge porn industry, I have noticed troubling language in at least one revenge porn statute which the legislature in my state is already trying to apply to other types of content. Most of it came to my attention last year after I submitted written testimony to the Oregon Senate Committee on Judiciary and Measure 110 Implementation in opposition to HB 3047 commonly known as the anti-doxxing bill. I was contacted by a man claiming to have been wrongfully convicted under Oregon's revenge porn law. He pointed out similarities between both laws which I believe violate the First Amendment.
Oregon Revised Statute 163.472 (https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_163.472) generally prohibits posting nude images with "the intent to harass, humiliate or injure another person," unless the post serves "a lawful public interest." I don't have a problem with the parts prohibiting intent to harass or injure, but "humiliate" is problematic because everyone has a First Amendment right to intentionally humiliate other people in public with their speech. Hunter Moore has the right to stand in a public square and give a speech naming women as well as what he thinks of them even if he thinks they're all ******. The law on that seems settled, but new laws say that he will go to jail if he holds up nude photos of the women to support his claims. That is where the law crosses the line.
Oregon passed an anti-doxxing bill last year using language lifted directly from the revenge porn statute (https://copblaster.com/blast/35518/oregon-house-of-representatives-directory-of-home-addresses). They obviously believed that since it worked for the revenge porn law that it would work for restricting the publication of home addresses, personal phone numbers, and personal email addresses "with the intent to harass, humiliate or injure the plaintiff" (see original bill as introduced at https://copblaster.com/uploads/files/hb3047-Introduced.pdf). However, the word "humiliate" was eventually stricken from the bill (see final bill as adopted https://copblaster.com/uploads/files/hb-3047-final.pdf). Could it be the legislature realized they couldn't legally impose a content based restriction on speech intended to humiliate?
I think the word "humiliate" needs to be stricken from ORS 163.472 in order to make it legal and all prior convictions need to be overturned. They should also strike the female nipple from the definition of intimate parts or add the male nipple to avoid gender discrimination. Men have ***** too and getting photographed topless can be humiliating (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1301469/Nice-tanned-tum-Simon-Cowell-shame-moobs.html). There are also way more transexuals around than there used to be. If someone posts a topless photo of someone they think looks like a woman, but was born a man are they in the clear? As an Oregonian, I am shocked to see such a transphobic statute on the books today.
A federal judge already declared a similar Arizona statute too vague to legally enforce a few years ago (https://cronkitenewsonline.com/2015/02/with-revenge-porn-stalled-by-lawsuit-lawmaker-proposes-revisions/). In that case, publishers were afraid to distribute a book in Arizona because it contained nude images of battlefield detainees taken by American soldiers for the purpose of humiliating the prisoners. The state has since amended the law to specify "with intent to harm" but does not appear to specify what constitutes harm. The problem with this law is that while it seems to have a noble purpose, it opens the door to other forms of speech suppression. This is not a feasible road for a society to go down if it wants to be a democracy because it leads to the suppression of any speech intended to cause harm of any sort. In the future, under the laws of Laws, it could become a crime to post anything online with intent of harming the reputation of another for any reason whatsoever. America would be American no longer.
To be clear, I do not want anyone to post naked pictures of anyone on the internet without their consent for any reason. I have always removed nudes as soon as I've seen them because I do not aspire to be a revenge porn guy. I am a defender of the First Amendment because it is the most important right we have. If we can't speak our minds no matter how vitriolic our thoughts we might as well be Chinese.
The government always picks the most offensive examples of people exercising their rights to justify taking them away. They use stuff like school shootings to take your guns away and a bucket brigade of hot babes balling their eyes out over boobie pictures to take your voice away. I am not here because I want people to be like Hunter Moore. I am here because no matter how distasteful I consider Hunter Moore's conduct to be, being free from the publication of nudies is not a constitutional right. Therefore, whenever something that is not a constitutional right conflicts with a constitutional right, the constitutional right takes precedent no matter how unpopular the result might be.
People like Charlotte Laws often get tunnel vision. They want what they want and don't care how they get it. While deterring revenge porn is generally a good idea, it is not more important than upholding the constitution.
Wait, wasn't Hunter Moore convicted of hacking and identity theft, not revenge porn? Yes, that is true and he was in fact guilty. There is no debating that. However, Laws simply got lucky that Moore was so stupid. Moore was receiving so many submissions that he didn't need hacked material. When a hacker offers to sell stolen pictures, a smart man tells him the same thing he would tell a man that offers to sell him a van full of fertilizer, "no thanks officer." However, he would never had been caught if it were not for an obsessed snitch gathering information about him and forwarding anything potentially incriminating to the FBI. She reminds me of the gang stalkers I've heard about from local gang members. People that follow gang members around in public, take pictures/video, and call the police. She intentionally got someone kidnapped by the government, shipped to Texas, and held against his will for years. He never did anything that bad to anybody. I have been to federal prison. Most of my BOP time was at a USP. If I had to choose between going back to Victorville and being featured on Hunter Moore's website I would gladly give him a picture of my dick.
Coincidentally, at the time of my arrest in 2012, I had just signed a contract with the same arbitration company used by another participant in the show to handle disputes between users. The arbitration service was called Truth in Posting (TIP). Most of TIP's business appeared to come from Cheaterville.com which now redirects to the personal website of Bullyville founder James McGibney. McGibney is best known for Cheaterville, but has since re-invented himself as an anti-bullying activist. I suspect Bullyville of being McGibney's exit strategy. As an Iraq veteran, McGibney knows all too well what can happen when you don't have an exit strategy. I could see someone in his position decide to re-invent himself as an anti-bullying activist in the event that his website, which faced more accusations of bullying than any of mine, became untenable. Rather than look like the failed inventor of the original cheaters website, it would make sense to launch a site like Bullyville, say it was due to being sick of people being bullied on your platforms, and spend a few thousand bucks to legitimize yourself by purchasing Moore's domain. McGibney seems like someone whose probably read the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene (https://amzn.to/3JhpJzg) because he seems to be following the chapter about re-inventing yourself.
You wouldn't know about McGibney's history if you'd just watched The Most Hated Man on the Internet because the interviewer seems to have given him a total pass. A good interviewer would have questioned him about Cheaterville. I've done interviews with countless journalists over the years including a documentary filmmaker and I've never gotten a pass like that. Leaving out the fact that McGibney was an early pioneer in the gripe site industry does not result in an accurate picture.
Finally, I personally know what it is like to have humiliating information posted online. The government made several mugshots available which the media copied. One of them is the result of not shaving for days before putting gel in my hair and being forced to wear my hat during transport to another facility. I looked like a crazy hobo. It might not be a nude, but from what I've seen of Laws' daughter, she looks like someone with far less to be ashamed of naked than I do clothed. I also know what it is like to be the victim of vicious lies. Just a few years ago, I was denied pre-trial release because a tweaker falsely accused me of offering him a bunch of money I did not have to kill people involved in my case. Despite these things, I still support the First Amendment and I do not blame online platforms for how people use them.