Hunter Moore Once Explained How He Could Legally Post X-Rated Images of Others on IsAnyoneUp.Com
IsAnyoneUp.com, the now-defunct revenge porn site, seems like it should have been illegal. However, founder, former webmaster, and subject of Netflix‘s documentary The Most Hated Man on the Internet Hunter Moore says otherwise. Learn more about the “loophole” Moore once claimed exists allowing him to “legally” share nude photos, videos, and other adult content.
IsAnyoneUp.com started as a promotional website
As Moore told the Yoshi Didn’t Podcast in 2013, IsAnyoneUp.com started out of “pure boredom.” In 2010, he promoted nightclubs on the domain he owned — IsAnyoneUp.com — so he could drink for free.
“I was having sex with this girl … ,” he said. “She was so beautiful, everybody wanted to see her naked.” He was unable to send the images via iChat. So, Moore used the promotional website instead.
“I just took it a little too far,” he added. “It was like two weeks old and we had probably a hundred girls on there. That was it.”
From there, Moore continued to attract views each week. Eventually, IsAnyoneUp.com became an X-rated repository of adult content.
Hunter Moore explains how he could ‘legally’ share content on IsAnyoneUp.com
“It’s user-submitted content,” Moore said on the podcast. “It’s the same thing as going on a forum or using Twitter [or] Facebook. Anybody that adds to the conversation, the site owner isn’t liable for that content. Even if it is your booty pictures … that content still falls under that law.”
Moore also said he was protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. It 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” (via Cornell Law School).
“It’s kind of like a loophole,” Moore added. “But it’s kinda not … .” However, that loophole only protected Moore so much.
Hunter Moore went to prison for 2.5 years
Moore pleaded guilty to one count each of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information and aggravated identity theft (via My News LA). His accomplice and co-defendant, Charlie “Gary Jones” Evens, was paid $200 a week to break into women’s email accounts and steal nude photos of them, which Moore later shared on the now defunct IsAnyoneUp.com.
In December 2015, Moore was sentenced to 2.5 years in a federal prison after the victims of IsAnyoneUp.com testified in court. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee also ordered Moore to undergo a mental health evaluation in prison.
Additionally, he had to serve three years of supervised release after his release. Moore also had to pay a $2,000 fine.
“He hid behind his online persona and engaged in aberrant behavior,” Gee said during the trial. “Now you must face the consequences of your own actions. Your poor judgment has caused much pain to your victims and your family.” He was released in 2017.
‘The Most Hated Man on the Internet’ documents the victims of IsAnyoneUp.com
Netflix’s The Most Hated Man on the Internet comes from director Rob Miller and assistant producer Alice Duffy. The three-part series explores the stories of IsAnyoneUp.com’s victims.
Over two years, IsAnyoneUp.com shared “hundreds of nonconsensual nude photographs and videos, some submitted by malicious third parties, and some hacked from victims’ own computers” (via Netflix). “At the time, they didn’t have a voice,” Rob said. “The spotlight was very much on Hunter Moore.”
He continued: “The victims were just a footnote, shamed into silence. Anyone who has been violated by putting a nude picture on the internet, through revenge or hacking, has gone through a very traumatic experience. In making this series, one of our principal motivations was to give those victims a voice.”
