‘Revenge porn’ website shut down

The creator of controversial revenge site isanyoneup.com has closed the site and sold the domain to an anti-bullying group.

Hunter Moore, described as “the Net’s most hated man” made £12,400 a month using his website which hosted pictures of sexual partners someone wanted revenge on. The photos were often accompanied by links to the victim’s social networking pages, such as Facebook and Twitter.

Neither Moore, nor the vengeful partners had permission to post the intimate images which caused the victims embarrassment and distress. Requests for the images to be taken down were ignored by Moore who was described by the site’s new owner, James McGibney, as “the No. 1 internet bully out there”. The website led to Moore being beaten up and even stabbed by one of the women shown on the site.

The site, which received 300,000 hits a day, made its money through advertising nightclubs and merchandise. Moore had plans to expand the site with a mobile app and by introducing a social networking element.

Moore ignored any legal action taken against him, including a cease and desist letter from Facebook. During the time the site was live, only one legal request to take down photos was successful. Many victims felt legal action would only draw unwanted attention to the photos they wanted taken off the website.

To prevent lawyers and affected parties from finding where the site is hosted to either start legal action or to hack it, Moore moved the site to over 40 different hosts. Despite this, Moore has now taken down the site claiming the number of photos of underage people he received as the main factor. In an interview with the BBC, he said: “A lot of under-age content comes out of your end of the world. We almost had to black out the UK from accessing the site at one point because we were getting so much under-age content. We usually just flag it and try and report it.”

The web address now redirects to a page on the site of the new owner, BullyVill.com, with statements from Moore and McGibney.