Image Source: YouTube user Netflix
Netflix is no stranger to true-crime docuseries, and the streaming giant is back on the scene with a handful of new titles this summer, including “The Most Hated Man on the Internet.” The series centers on the crimes of Hunter Moore, sometimes referred to as “The King of Revenge Porn,” who created the website IsAnyoneUp.com. The site hosted thousands of pictures, many sexually suggestive or nude, taken by vengeful ex-partners and shared without the victim’s consent.
For over a year, Moore profited from the pictures and created a small empire exploiting relationships that turned sour, but his invasive, money-making scheme didn’t last forever. So here is where Moore is in 2022.
Who Is Hunter Moore?
Moore was born in 1986 and started building businesses at a young age after getting kicked out of his private Christian school for getting into fights, according to a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone. He launched a small T-shirt company before entering high school, and from there, he generated income in various ways, from being a hairstylist and running a party-promotion business to winning a six-figure sexual-harassment lawsuit against a retail store (not unironically).
How Did Hunter Moore Start IsAnyoneUp.com?
Moore’s claim to fame started almost by accident. On starting his revenge-porn website, he told Rolling Stone, “How it started was I was having sex with this girl who was engaged to this kind of semifamous band guy, and all my friends wanted to see her naked because she was so cute.” Moore shamelessly explained that he uploaded pictures of the girl to a dormant domain he’d secured previously. The pictures generated tens of thousands of views not long after, which he immediately realized he could monetize. “I was like, ‘Holy sh*t, I could make money doing this,'” he told the publication.
Around 2010, Moore launched IsAnyoneUp.com, a site full of compromising, often explicit pictures, many of which were submitted by bitter exes to ruin the reputation of their former lovers. Moore himself filtered through the images and determined if the people pictured were 18 or older to avoid breaking child-pornography laws. Along with the photos, Moore created profiles about the victims, including anything from their full names to their job and location.
Why Did Hunter Moore Get Away With Posting Revenge Porn For So Long?
As despicable as IsAnyoneUp.com was, Moore could unrepentantly build his revenge-porn empire because of a legal loophole that made him not liable for the user-submitted content on his site.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 says, “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.” In the case of IsAnyoneUp.com, the content was generated by the site users (e.g., the exes posting the photos), not Moore himself, so Moore would not be considered the “publisher or speaker” of the content and would thereby be insulated, in some respects, from liability under this law.
Additionally, Moore could find some insulation in Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the DMCA). This act provides an avenue for the copyright owners of the photographs to send takedown notices to the site hosting user-generated content, and as long as the site owner follows the requirements of the DMCA, including publishing the DMCA takedown procedure, the site owner could be insulated from copyright-infringement claims.
How Did Hunter Moore Get Caught?
As IsAnyoneUp.com generated more visitors and revenue, more victims started to speak up and request that Moore take down pictures and their personal information. Completely apathetic to their concerns, Moore would decline their requests, reportedly responding with “LOL” and taking pleasure in his self-proclaimed status as a “professional life ruiner,” according to The Village Voice and The Mirror.
However, Moore’s house of cards began to crumble when he crossed paths with Charlotte Laws. In 2012, Laws’s daughter, Kayla, had a topless photo published on the website along with her full name and social media profiles, according to The Guardian. Immediately, Laws took matters into her own hands to try to take down Moore’s empire. Within a short time, “[Laws] mounted a two-year investigation into his activities, compiled a dossier of evidence from more than 40 victims all over the world, then led the FBI to his front door.”
Through the evidence gathered by Laws, the FBI could formally open an investigation into Moore and IsAnyoneUp.com. The investigation confirmed Moore’s pictures did not just come from personal submissions. He also unlawfully obtained photos by hiring someone to hack victims’ computers.
Where Is Hunter Moore Now?
In 2012, the FBI launched its investigation into Moore, and in January 2014, he was arrested on charges of conspiracy, unauthorized access to a protected computer, and aggravated identity theft. In February 2015, he pleaded guilty to “one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information for purposes of private financial gain and one count of aggravated identity theft,” according to the United States Department of Justice. In December 2015, he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison and three years of supervised release. Additionally, he was ordered to pay a $2,000 fine.
Moore was released from prison in 2017. In 2018, he released a book detailing his account of building the website, titled, “Is Anyone Up?!: The Story of Revenge Porn.” Now, he mainly keeps a low profile on social media and stays out of the public eye.
Catch the unbelievable story of Moore in “The Most Hated Man on the Internet,” which is now streaming on Netflix.