Who is “The Most Hated Man on the Internet“? Netflix’s new three-part documentary chronicles the downfall of one recklessly wicked webmaster who fed his adult site with nude photos of nonconsenting subjects.
The docuseries (now streaming) features victims of the short-lived IsAnyoneUp.com, as well as those who were able to shut down Moore’s endeavor: law enforcement, a former Marine with a sense of vengeance for bullies, and a stop-at-nothing mother whose daughter’s stolen photos appeared on Moore’s website.
The website – active from 2010 too 2012 12 – displayed images submitted by the subjects, their exes or through hacking. The site also included personal information about those pictured, including social media accounts. Absent legislation to combat “revenge porn,” Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provided Moore some protection, as the site’s content is generated by users and not the site itself.It’s the same defense implemented by Facebook.
When photos of Charlotte Laws’ daughter appeared on Moore’s website, she began to suspect Moore was relying on hacking for content. She launched her own investigation, and contacted the FBI and journalists, ignoring death threats by Moore’s mob of fans dubbed “the family.”
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Who is Hunter Moore, founder of Is Anyone Up?
Moore, a 36-year-old Northern California native, predicted massive success in his 20s.
“I’m gonna be worth $100 million by the time I’m 30,” he says in the documentary. “I’m literally gonna take over the world.” And it appeared he would do it at any cost.
He told Rolling Stone writer Alex Morris, in a 2012 profile titled “Hunter Moore: The Most Hated Man on the Internet,” that he once contemplated decking Mark Zuckerberg “’cause that would get me so popular. Like, unless I raped Steve Jobs, what else is there?” A woman once stabbed Moore with a pen after he refused to remove her from his website. His reaction, as relayed to Rolling Stone: “Oh my God, this is gonna be the best post ever.”
For a Village Voice profile, also from 2012, Moore told journalist Camille Dodero that he did not care about the emotional pain inflicted by his site.
“If somebody killed themselves over that? Do you know how much money I’d make?” he said. “At the end of the day, I do not want anybody to hurt themselves. But if they do? Thank you for the money… The more traffic I’d have that day, I’m going to get paid for.”
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Kayla Laws’ determined mother, Charlotte Laws
Moore, who reportedly replied “LOL” to cease-and-desist letters, seemingly wasn’t prepared for an opponent as tenacious as Charlotte Laws. She has two master’s degrees – one in professional writing and the other in social ethics – as well as a Ph.D in social ethics, according to her website. She also exhibited her grit as a determined celebrity chaser who shared her secrets in the 1988 book “Meet the Stars” (written under the name Missy Laws).
“If someone says I can’t get into a VIP area or go past the velvet rope, it just inspires me to try harder,” Laws says in the new series.
Laws’ efforts to take down Moore were noticed by his fans, who threatened in a fax sent to her home that “we’ll rape you and put a shotgun down your throat.”
But that threat didn’t deter her. Even when images of her daughter Kayla were removed from the website (thanks to pressure applied by Laws’ husband, lawyer Charles Parselle) she persisted, thinking of the others she contacted who appeared on the site.
“There’s no way I’m just going to abandon all of these women that I said I was gonna help,” she says. “Hunter was continuing to destroy lives. I had to fight to take down his website completely, to get him off the internet.”
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Selling of Is Anyone Up? to Bullyville
Former Marine James McGibney says in the docuseries that he offered Moore less than $12,000 to acquire Is Anyone Up? in April 2012. McGibney then redirected the site to his anti-bullying resource BullyVille.com. As a condition of the sale, McGibney asked Moore to write a letter apologizing to victims, in which Moore stated he “might do some writing on bullyville.com to help people who have been bullied,” as he’s “been on both sides of the fence. I am putting this message up on Bullyville.com to stand up for underage bullying. I think it’s important that everyone realizes the damage that online bullying can cause.”
But Moore’s remorse was short-lived. He accused McGibney on Twitter of being a pedophile. McGibney successfully sued Moore for defamation and was awarded a judgment of $250,000, plus attorney’s fees, in 2013.
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Hunter Moore’s prison sentence
In February 2015, Moore 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. That December, he was sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $2,000 fine. Charles Evens, the hacker Moore paid to break into email accounts, was sentenced to 25 months.
Moore was released from a Beaumont, Texas, prison in 2017 after his sentence was reduced by his participation in a Residential Drug Abuse Program, he told federal prison consultant Dan Wise in a 2018 interview.
“I spent most of my time working out and going to the library,” Moore told Wise. Following his incarceration, Moore spent time at a halfway house and in home confinement.
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