Hunter Moore, the former owner of IsAnyoneUp.com has found his way into the bad books of internet vigilante group Anonymous.
Prior to its April 2012 takeover, IsAnyoneUp.com enabled users to post sexual images of men and women without consent. “Revenge porn” is common but Moore allowed the hate campaigns against individuals to progress to a frightening level by allowing the inclusion of links to social networking profiles. Moore ran the notorious “revenge porn” website until he sold it this year to anti-bullying charity, Bullyville, which promptly closed it down.
“No I’m not going to take it down, and no I don’t really care”, was Moore’s standard response to people’s requests that he remove images. The majority of legal threats were ignored. “It’s anonymous to me. I don’t know the people – it’s just a little picture on a screen,” he told the BBC in an interview in April. Speaking of his upcoming website, Moore has said, “This time I am doing it right. I am creating something that will question if you ever want to have kids.I am making something very scary but yet fun.”
The ‘most hated man on the internet’, has now been threatened by the hacktivist group after technology blog Betabeat reported that Moore planned to launch a new version of the website. Moore told Betabeat that the new site would “introduce the mapping stuff so you can stalk people”. Moore has since told Salon magazine that he was “drunk” when he made the comment but Anonymous maintain that he will be held “accountable for his actions” and have published details about Moore online, including the names of family members and his home address.
“We will protect anyone who is victimised by abuse of our internet, we will prevent the stalking, rape, and possible murders as by-product of his sites,” the group said in an open letter to the press, adding “Operation hunt Hunter engaged. We are Anonymous, we are legion, we do not forgive, we do not forget, Hunter Moore, expect us.”
The move by Anonymous is the latest in a campaign that the group call ‘Operation Anti-Bully’, with which they made headlines in October this year when they named a man they believed to be responsible for the suicide of bullied 15-year-old Amanda Todd. Todd uploaded a video shortly before her suicide describing how her life had descended into an inescapable cycle of bullying and depression through the non-consensual publication of topless images.
The IsAnyoneUp.com domain now redirects to a page on Bullyville.com featuring a statement from Bullyville.
