Slashdot Mirror
Controversy Erupts Over Craigslist Prank
An anonymous reader writes to mention something of an ongoing controversy over a recent Craigslist prank. Waxy.org has the full details: "On Monday, a Seattle web developer named Jason Fortuny started his own Craigslist experiment. The goal: 'Posing as a submissive woman looking for an aggressive dom, how many responses can we get in 24 hours?' He took the text and photo from a sexually explicit ad in another area, reposted it to Craigslist Seattle, and waited for the responses to roll in ... '178 responses, with 145 photos of men in various states of undress. Responses include full e-mail addresses (both personal and business addresses), names, and in some cases IM screen names and telephone numbers.' In a staggering move, he then published every single response, unedited and uncensored, with all photos and personal information to Encyclopedia Dramatica." The Wired blog 27B Stroke 6 has analysis of the prank, which author Ryan Singel views as 'sociopathic'. He then follows that up with responses to comments from his analysis, with further exploration of the weighty issues this juvenile prank has brought up.
Wouldn't this be some sort of breach of contract or communication? Since the guys who replied believed they were responding to an individual, and thus most likely consider it a private communication, would they be able to take legal action?
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
On the other hand, though, publishing their information in a public place isn't quite kosher. Although we all know that sending someone a plaintext e-mail is almost as bad as shouting from the rooftops should anyone actually want to intercept the message, it's not quite as bad as posting pictures of your stoned self on MySpace and expecting nobody to ever find it. There is at least a little bit of expectation that this is a private sort of thing; I would be a lot happier with him if he'd just quietly notified the people who replied that they'd been scammed, and only published the details of those who became abusive.
One thing I don't really care about is the way the 27B-6 guy is complaining about marriages being destroyed because of this. It really makes no sense; if the guy is responding to ads online and his wife doesn't know about it, there's probably something deeply troubled in the marriage and it's likely to go to divorce soon anyway. Similarly with the public lynching argument: if you are so uncomfortable with your tastes that you wouldn't like to publicize them, why are you even taking the risk of replying to something on Craig's List? Yes, this is likely to be the first time such a stunt has been publicized, but still - you'd expect people would rather keep their activities a secret to take some reasonable precautions. Like not using their damn work e-mail.
Which actually brings up an interesting point! How many times has this stunt been pulled on Craig's List, only instead of being put on some stupid Wiki, those who responded with useful information just got blackmailed? How much would you pay so that your wife doesn't find out about your animal bondage fetish?
This is an example of the very rare Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress case that can actually win.
Depends on the jury, but this guy is absolutely liable.
Not for libel (I don't even know why people would suggest that).
I'd say IANAL, but I am.
Excuse me, but sending very private information to someone you don't have the foggiest clue about pretty much means you don't know how the 'net works.
It's funny how many people will even respond to fraudulent requests to surrender information to "da man", thinking that everyone pisses their pants before even considering imposing as federal agents, not thinking that it could be kinda hard to execute federal US law against someone located in a country ending in -stan.
Then again, considering the anti-spam, anti-fraud, anti-bad-thing-done-through-the-internet laws passed recently, neither do politicians have a clue how it works...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, as good an idea as he thought it was, any company that ever googles his name now will instantly see pages associated with sex-related pranks, and see pages and pages of controversy and arguments. I read in one place that a couple of marriages are breaking apart because of his actions*, and he has been anything but anonymous in his 'prank' (his full address was available along with phone number and name on his site when he first did this and it has been reposted in quite a few places), so one wonders what will come either legally or illegally of him as a result of this.
*Though they would probably have broken apart anyway as nobody can hide this sort of thing forever.
Warhammer forums
I learnt this lesson and stated to be careful around 10 (or more) years ago.
I came across a link to a website that said something like 'click here for hot chicks'. Of course I clicked on it and the front page asked me to enter my name and email address to see hot chicks. There wasn't a big problem with spam back then and porn was still mostly confined to alt.binaries.sex, so I entered my details in out of curiosity (of course).
The next thing I know, a picture of chicks (as in baby chicken) comes up with a message saying something like "Hope you enjoy these pictures of hot chicks. Here is the list of others that share your passion for poultry", followed by my personal details and a list of personal details of other people.
I've been careful with my details ever since.
My girlfriend and I live in the same apartment complex as this Jason jerk in Kirkland, WA (a suburb of Seattle). He posted his address on a web site before taking it down. The only problem is that he didn't publish which apartment number he was in. There are only 4 apartments in our unit; he's in one of the upstairs pair.
So now I'm worried that some of these furious men will come after him and will instead throw their rocks through my windows, or worse. I feel like my well-being has been potentially endangered by this guy. What should I do? Part of me feels like shouting his address (WITH apartment number) from the Internet rooftops. Part of me wants to post a sign on our door that says "sociopath A-hole Jason upstairs, not here." Maybe I should even alert the police. Any ideas?