Revenge porn — it’s the cruelest and most humiliating way to make your ex pay for the heartbreak he or she caused you. You may not think of the consequences of sending a nude to your significant other until it is eventually posted all over the Internet for your friends, family and co-workers to see.

An older but thriving phenomena that has destroyed the lives of many women, revenge porn has served as a “payback method” since the creator Hunter Moore, also known as the “most hated man on the internet,” established his now defunct website “Is Anyone Up” in 2010. This so called “pornographic submission website” resulted in not only public embarrassment of the victims, but supposedly made Moore a millionaire, or so he claims.

Jaded lovers sent pornographic photographs of their exes to the website, which would than get looked over by Moore’s server administrator and two security specialists to make sure the person in the photo was 18 or older. The photo would than get posted on the website with a vivid description of how that person was in bed, where they lived and worked, and links to their social networking accounts. “Is Anyone Up” accumulated up to 30 million page views per month, according to many articles written on the topic.

TIME Magazine reported that Moore was arrested in January by FBI officials in Sacramento. He has been accused of paying an accomplice by the name of Charles “Gary” Evens to hack into private computers and steal nude photos from users which were later uploaded onto Moore’s website, aside from many other charges.
The stolen photos only account for 20% of the content on the site. There is a whopping 80% of people who willingly sent their nude to a friend or significant other. Is it safe to say that it is the fault of the  “victim?” I think so. If you know anything about technology, you know how quickly information spreads. It takes less than common sense to know that it is not very wise to send a nude of yourself to someone who can now save that photo and legally do what they please with it.

Laws that do exist against revenge porn don’t account for people who take the photo themselves, only stolen photos. However, some lawmakers are looking to make the law protect people who do take the photo’s themselves.

To me, lawmakers are saying, “Stop being an idiot and think before you hit the send button.” I know it sounds harsh, but if you really want someone to see you naked, do it in person. Although you may put an immense amount of trust in one person, you can’t predict the future. You ought to consider thinking ahead, recognizing that anything can happen, and there is no guarantee that your significant other will keep their word and keep the picture private.

Moore is certainly a jerk. But he has also created a genius, evil and easy way to make money. He found two things people love – sex and revenge, and combined the two as an outlet of income. He has a disgustingly large fan base and women who willingly tweet him nudes with a raunchy message attached. He went from being some heart-broken bitter kid sitting in his living room, hiding behind his computer screen to a widely debated topic amongst Congress. I may seem insensitive, but I have to give him credit for being the first to monetize “sexting” and revealing the dark side of human beings. He brought the Internet to a whole other level.

Moore also taught the fans and victims of revenge porn a few things about technology. The simple act of hitting the send button can result in extreme public humiliation or even the loss of a job. Some people even committed suicide as a result of the pain they suffered.

The next time you want to feel sexy and send that “special someone” a nude photo, remember that revenge porn exists and there are no solid laws protecting your photo that was meant for one person’s eyes to be seen by hundreds of strangers.

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