The Most Hated Man on the Internet, the most recent true-crime documentary collection on Netflix, explores the rise and fall of Hunter Moore, founding father of revenge-porn web site IsAnyoneUp.com, and the combat by one sufferer’s mom to cease him.
In 2010, Charlotte Laws’ daughter, Kayla, had private and intimate photos seem on Moore’s website with out her consent. Convinced her daughter had been hacked, she got down to get the pictures faraway from the web site. Kayla was one of many few fortunate victims to have the pictures taken down, as Netflix’s present reveals.
However, Charlotte didn’t cease there. She was decided to cease Moore and shut down IsAnyoneUp.com. She spoke with greater than 40 IsAnyoneUp.com victims and compiled proof, discovering that 40 % of them had been hacked. She then handed over her analysis to the FBI’s Los Angeles Internet Crime Division in early 2012.
In April 2012, Moore’s web site was shut down, due to the assistance of anti-bullying advocate and former Marine James McGibney. At the identical time, Moore was additionally being investigated by the FBI and was being focused by the hacktivist group Anonymous, limiting his skill to relaunch IsAnyoneUp.com.
Despite this, Moore continued to brag on-line and in interviews about how he could be launching a brand new web site, HunterMoore.television, a dangerously reimagined tackle IsAnyoneUp.
On his new web site, customers would nonetheless have the ability to put up express photos and movies with out a particular person’s consent. However, this time round Moore deliberate to put up the particular person’s deal with and a map on to their home.
When Charlotte heard of Moore’s plans, she determined to put up Moore’s dwelling deal with on her Twitter account, which led to a severe backlash from Moore and his followers.
Netflix
On prime of the hateful on-line abuse, she recalled receiving threatening telephone calls shortly after her tweet, with individuals leaving messages reminiscent of “I know where you live” on her answering machine or over the telephone.
Fearing for herself and her daughter’s security, and anxious about her animals on the property, Charlotte purchased locks to placed on the facet gates to her property, so no one may enter from the again, and positioned defensive steel rods beneath her mattress and Kayla’s.
Things took an exceptionally terrifying flip when a younger blond man was noticed sitting exterior their dwelling on not less than two events.
Speaking to Newsweek, Charlotte stated the person drove away when he was confronted by her late one night time.
She recalled, “The stalker at my house…there was a guy that was sitting outside my house, and I think he was trying to hack into the [internet] network, and I did confront him, and then he sped off and almost hit my neighbor’s wall. Clearly, he had bad intentions. Otherwise, why would you freak out and speed away?”
She went on, “The first time I didn’t even see him myself, my daughter saw him, and she said to me the next day, ‘Why was there a guy sitting in front of our house last night in a white car?’ And then the next night, she was studying for a real estate exam, she decided she wanted to be a real estate agent, and she goes, ‘Mom, that car is out there again.’ And at this point this was really late in the whole story. This is a year later or something and it’s before the FBI had arrested him, but a lot of things had happened and I was just so p***** off at this point.
“So it was time for a mother-to-stalker showdown so far as I used to be involved, and I simply marched on the market. Kayla was operating behind going, ‘Mom, what are you going to do? Mom? What are you going to do?’ And I’m going as much as the automotive, and I say, ‘May I assist you?’ And the man had blond curly hair, he was in his 20s or 30s. He appears to be like up at me, he was doing one thing in his lap, he appears to be like up, he simply freaked out, turned on his automotive, after which zoomed away and that is it. I purchased locks for the gates at that time, and Kayla and I’d already been sleeping with these steel rods beneath our beds as weapons.”
Charlotte went on, “I used to be actually frightened, and truthfully I used to be extra frightened about my animals on my property as a result of I felt they have been extra weak they usually’re actually little or no. They’re virtually no legal guidelines to guard animals, so anyone may come on and simply homicide on my chickens, for instance, and the legislation would not do something about it. So I truly felt like I needed to shield the home and shield my human and nonhuman household.”
Netflix
Unfortunately, the footage of Charlotte recalling the incident was not included within the Netflix documentary. She stated this was due to time and area causes.
Newsweek contacted the group behind The Most Hated Man on the Internet for remark.
Reflecting on the threats from Moore and his followers, Charlotte admitted she felt “off balance a lot.”
“It was scary because you don’t know when you’re being targeted by these anonymous people. You don’t know if they have guns, if they’re ex-cons, if they have anger issues. You just don’t know who these people are,” she stated.
She continued, “A lot of these anonymous strangers will come together from all over the world, and then they kind of, like, [egg] each other on, and it kind of gets ratcheted up the hatred and the vitriol and potentially the revenge.
“I did not know if somebody was actually going to truly take any severe motion, however, , I did really feel like I used to be violated once I obtained the pc viruses. I imply, I used to be inundated with them on multiple event. And that was actually upsetting, truly, since you sort of actually freaked out and I felt like anyone was wanting by means of my digital camera at me on my laptop.
“I was getting, like, phone calls where somebody was trying to hack into my landline, because I can hear the little ping [sound], so they were definitely trying to do that,” Charlotte stated.
In January 2014, Moore was arrested by the FBI on expenses of conspiracy, unauthorized entry to a protected laptop and aggravated id theft. He was launched on a $100,000 bond and pleaded responsible to aggravated id theft and aiding and abetting within the unauthorized entry of a pc, that are felonies, in February 2015.
He was sentenced to 2 and a half years in jail and acquired a $2,000 high quality in November 2015. He was additionally required to pay $145 in sufferer restitution. In 2017, he was launched from jail.
The Most Hated Man on the Internet is streaming now on Netflix.