Okay, so this jackass Jason Fortuny posed as a woman seeking BDSM sex on the Seattle Craig’s List personals. On his LiveJournal page he stated that he was conducting an experiment to see how many responses he could get in 24 hours. He got 178. The majority included images, which ranged in content from headshots to genitalia. He then posted the replies (NSFW) online.
That is, he posted the replies online, in their entirety, including e-mail addresses, IM handles and phone numbers.
Holy crap.
Now 178 people, none of whom did anything illegal, find that what was ostensibly personal correspondence is displayed for all the world to see. That’s just plain wrong.
Did some of these fellows demonstrate breathtaking ignorance by sending their replies from business or otherwise “non-throw-away” e-mail accounts, using their full names and images including their faces? Absolutely. Having read the responses, I can say with confidence that the reputations of future Nobel Prize winners remain intact.
So? Ignorance isn’t criminal (thank God). Otherwise we would just slap a lid over the United States and have done with it. That’s not the point. This was no “experiment.” It was a juvenile, malicious prank with no purpose other than to inflict harm, then chortle smugly at those exposed. Only a truly damaged person behaves like that.
Abraham Lincoln said:
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
Jason Fortuny entrapped a bunch of guys looking for no-strings rough sex. His power came from offering something that these men wanted. He then used that power to burn them publicly, for no other reason than that he could.
I offer two things to consider:
- As my friend Gokmop has reminded me several times, do not put anything online (via web site, blog, forum, e-mail, whatever) that you don’t want made available and searchable, forever.
- I posted an article about instances where actions on the Internet cross over into Real Life™. Jason Fortuny may well experience the downside of that phenomenon.