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Craigslist Prankster Sued, Argues DMCA Abuse
destinyland writes "Though Sunday's New York Times dubbed him a spokesperson for internet trolls, Jason Fortuny's just been sued in federal court. Fortuny re-published over 180 responses to a fake sex ad on Craigslist in 2006 — but he's finally been located and issued with a summons. The victim argues Fortuny violated his privacy, and that the photo Fortuny re-published was copyrighted. Fortuny argues he re-published the photo to stand up to the victim's bogus DMCA notice, and that the gullible victim had voluntarily provided the photo. In a motion to the court Fortuny even argues that he helped publicize a privacy risk on the internet, whereas 'bringing legal action against me may punish me, but it won't change or even impact online culture.'"
'bringing legal action against me may punish me, but it won't change or even impact online culture.'
I guess the punishment is what his victims want.
OMG getting sued is such epic lulz for a troll, right?
Classic forum troll behavior when they get in trouble they are surprised and inset that they were actually helping. He does point out an uncomfortable truth though, there will always be forum trolls to annoy and confound the masses with their stupidity and ill-logic.
But if you punish enough criminals, you DO change and impact the culture.
This man is damaged piece of crap. I feel sorry for him, having been abused as a child, but that does not excuse him taking out his crap on the rest of us.
He is a semi-professional 'troll', going around pissing people off and laughing at them.
He routinely engages in low-level criminal actions, knowing that he is unlikely to get caught and arrested for doing things that are the equivelent of spray painting a car.
I hope he finally gets what he so richly deserves, legal punishment.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The guy may well be legally in the clear (although his argument that Craigslist's disclaimer that "you may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent, inaccurate, misleading" allows him to legally engage in fraud strikes as ... unlikely). But there's no question that he's a jerk, and his whiny, pompous defense of himself makes him even more of a jerk.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I think at least one marriage was broken up because of this ordeal. It struck me a seriously a-hole move of his, and not very funny.
Moderation: +1 pwnage
Right, because the respondent didn't already have problems with his marriage.
The article does not explicitly say anything about his lawyer, and it sounds like he is doing this on his own. Whether he is right or wrong it will probably not matter unless he can find himself a decent lawyer. Going into legal proceedings without a lawyer is a train wreck in progress.
The only thing worse than trying to find sex on the internet is to get legal advice on the internet. Either way you are going to receive it the same way.
Anyone thinking of complaining that the summary is worthless without pics, near the bottom of TFA there is a link to the full list of responses and photos at Encyclopedia Dramatica.
Be warned, it's NSFW ... in fact IMO it's not even safe if you're simply trying to maintain an appetite in anticipation of lunchtime
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Asshole or not, it's not his fault if some married guy can't keep his dick in his pants.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Wow. "I swear it's not my fault honey, blame the hooker". The husband (I assume) responded to a SEX ad on Craigslist and it's the fault of the prankster.
If I were that guys wife I'd send a thank you to Fortuny for helping me cut my losses.
Sounds like the Comedian who went to a telemarketers conference and started calling all the hotel rooms at 3 am and published the results.
you will note that fortuny has a history of sexual abuse as a child, that his family turned a blind eye towards. which goes far, pop psychology wise, to explaining what would motivate him to do his craigs list "expose": an attempt to find empowerment over an issue which means helplessness to him psychologically
so, in a way, his trolling is just therapy, catharsis. which is my whole theory of trolling: far from pointless negative and twisted, online trolling is merely a way to jettison asocial impulses harmlessly (relatively harmlessly) on the internet
having said that, and fully appreciative of the fact that free speech fundamentalists will come out in support of fortuny, i say to you free speech fundamentalists: no law or government can protect you from the consequences of what you say. in other words, there are elements of speech which have every expectation of protection. then there are elements of free speech, that, while a good argument can be made for their official, societal level acceptance, doesn't mean some asshole somewhere isn't going to get upset and try to do something about what you say
insulting pictures of mohammed, for example. yes, a sound understanding of free speech means that insulting pictures of mohammed should be tolerated. however, a legal, societal understanding of tolerance on this issue does not protect you from the anger of religious fundamentalists who could care less about tolerance
you don't have protection from the consequences of what you say, regardless of the legal environment. making enemies of random guys looking for easy sex is not a situation where a idealistic expectation of free speech without consequences gets you very far
remember that about free speech: it has consequences. if you get upset about that idea, or expect government to somehow protect you from the consequences of what you say, you really don't understand the whole notion that with freedom comes responsibility, which is the only notion that will keep speech truly free
like any right in this world, it carries with it responsibility. shoot your mouth of without any regard for conesequences, and you will discover that consequences happen, that not everyone in society is a tolerant ethical individual
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm not vouching for infidelity and don't tell me this prankster was out to do any good. He was doing it to humiliate these people. Still, in the end it clearly does illustrate that you have to be careful what you send over the tubes.
Moderation: +1 pwnage
1) Don't send your personal contact information to strangers on the internet, especially not in answer to a sex ad on Craigslist, especially not attached to a picture of your erect penis, because doing so is very likely to cause you all manner of trouble. If you do such a thing you are a twit.
2) If you are in a situation in which your life would be ruined if you were known to be into BDSM, *don't make it known that you're into BDSM*! If you do, you're a twit!
2) If you demonstrate that someone is a twit, they are more likely to get cross and sue you than to stop being a twit.
Sure, the guy was kind of a jerk and the whole thing is desperately unfunny like most trolls. But that doesn't mean he should be punished because there are so many twits about.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
...I mean three! I mean three lessons! Oh.... argh.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
It COULD be comedy gold if you stripped the real identities from the responses before you make fun of them (even then it's a little prickish, considering you BAITED them). If you reveal the real identities of these duped people, it's not comedy. It's just being a mean-spirited, malicious asshole.
A kid who busts his ass stupidly trying to jump off a roof in a stunt--funny. Throwing a kid off a roof for fun--felony.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Richard Pryor is comedy gold, too. But that doesn't give me the right to post transcripts or recordings of his material online, even if they were given to me personally by him. Just because I send you an email with a picture in it doesn't transfer the copyright of that material to you, nor does it give you a license to republish the material. His only fair use argument is going to be satire or parody, and that seems like a bit of a stretch. Not impossible, but he'll need a friendly court and a good lawyer. IANAL - JP (Just pontificating).
We are the 198 proof..
if you look for sex on the internet you are getting into legal trouble, and if you look for legal advice on the internet you are going to get fucked
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So right or wrong should be determined by who is laughing? That line of thought scares me.
And why?
What's wrong with assuming that if the "victim" laughs when s/he knows it was a prank, then it's ok otherwise not? Not that I pull any pranks on people, but I would like to hear your reason.
3) If you're going to violate the DMCA, you should join the Air Force first.
Really? I've bought and sold legit stuff on Craigslist. A lot easier than dealing with ebay.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Perhaps she'd have preferred if the rest of the world didn't find out at the same time.
Perhaps he'd never have gone through with the meeting?
Perhaps someone else thought it'd be fun to reply to an ad on craigslist in their friend's name and enclose a photo of their friend? That sounds like a pretty likely scenario amongst friends who play jokes on one another. Imagine if one of your friends did that and before you even found it, your 'reply' to a sex ad was posted on an internet site and gathering thousands of hits.
Sorry for the double-top post, but...
How is this ANY different than Chris Hansen on Dateline NBC in "To Catch a Predator." Other than the "bait" not pretending to be 17, what's the difference?
Your argument is not valid. This is not vigilante justice because cheating on your wife is not against the law, and her finding out about this and leaving you is also not against the law. So, you have a consequence that is legal that follows a behavior that is legal. That is not part of the definition of vigilante justice, no more than your boss is a "vigilante" if you get fired for telling him to fuck off.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Yeah its "hilarious." Its a severe breach of privacy. If you like that joke, then I'm going to start a fake suicide hotline and replay the tapes on the web. I'll even insert my own amusing commentary. I'm not a troll, I'm "helping." Hey, if those people didnt want to be made fun of then they should not have been suicidal to begin with!
I hope this guy gets taken to the cleaners for what he did.
I didn't know so many men sent naked pictures while replying to a personal ad.
Seriously, people. This guy put out a honeypot . And those of low moral character took the bait. And he alleges that he learned from this (expecting no responses, getting nearly 200). IT Security folks do this all the time. He just took the technical security solution, and made it a social security solution. (Nevermind that the term "honeypot" actually originates closer to Fortuny's actions than the IT solution.)
And, I bet that those wives who filed for divorce over this are thanking Fortuny for exposing their (now or soon-to-be) ex-husbands for the cheaters that they are. The married men who responded obviously weren't thinking too much of their vows.
That said, I do think they had a reasonable expectation of privacy, which was broken. Fortuny could have got his point across just fine by smudging the photos before posting them.
Yeah, because trying to find a renter for your spare room or sublet apartment is illegal and immoral. The scam works because they pretend to be a student enrolled in university and ask you to forward the balance of the rubber cheque their "parents" wrote to some third party to pay for books or furniture or some other sort of fee.
That aside, the guy in question here is a victim of fraud. He responded to someone who put forth that they were a woman looking for a man, except the whole thing was fraudulent, like a sting operation being conducted by someone who has no authority to do so.
It doesn't matter that he was revealed to be looking for sex. What matters is that he was suckered into having his dirty laundry aired in public while those who would pass judgment on him have their skeletons comfortably locked away in the closet.
As for the malicious asshole who likes to pretend he's a woman and shame people for recreation, well, he belongs in a shallow grave. He's malicious, and a coward, and a liar, and he screws peoples lives up for sport. I'd quite happily shoot him in the head with my own hand and go back to eating my lunch.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
if someone thinks something is wrong and seeks justice on an issue, they are being a vigilante. doesn't matter what is actually legal or illegal, what matters is what they think is right and wrong
if you start shooting people who do a poor job at parallel parking, you are a "vigilante" in search of "justice" in your mind, regardless of the fact that poor parallel parking skills are not illegal
which is one of the reasons why vigilante justice is wrong: it is determined by the vigiliante, which, as you note, often delineates sharply from society-wide definitions and laws about right and wrong
so i don't know why you think it is valid to point out that someone is not a vigilante because they aren't dutifully following actual laws on the books. as if such a consideration ever had anything to do with what motivates any vigilante, ever, or has anything to do with the criteria for labelling someone a vigilante
You keep using this word "vigilante." I do not think it means what you think it means.
From Dictionary.com:
-noun
1. a member of a vigilance committee.
2. any person who takes the law into his or her own hands, as by avenging a crime.
-adjective
3. done violently and summarily, without recourse to lawful procedures: vigilante justice.
He does not appear to be a member of a vigilance committee. He is not taking law enforcement into his own hands. He did not conduct himself in a violent manner.
The comedian was Tom Mabe, the album was A Wake Up Call for Telemarketers
Only place with samples I've found were on Rhapsody. Scroll down to the "Hotel Calls". They're not as funny as some of his other stuff where he just outright leads a telemarketer on, but they're funny in the sense of, you can tell the guys are tired as hell and they're getting a taste of their own medicine.
Here's a press release from before the album was made: http://www.reversespins.com/telemarketing.html
You have to specifically state that you're transferring rights, when you're transferring, so really it doesn't.
The real question is how much does correspondence fall into traditional copyright protection for literary works?
The ownership of a two party conversation can be disputed; the post was a response to a request posted on the board...That could qualify it as a solicited work, which could make the copyright fall into a work for hire category, like the answer to a test question which, though written by the student, belongs to the professor.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Vigilante justice, not vigilante law enforcement. Whether it's against the law or not has nothing to do with whether or not it's vigilante justice.
I'm not vouching for infidelity and don't tell me this prankster was out to do any good. He was doing it to humiliate these people.
Can't we do both at the same time?
Honestly, I don't buy that his actions were guided merely by a desire to "do good". On the other hand, it doesn't seem impossible that he imagined this project might have some beneficial effects. It's informative about the lack of privacy/anonymity of online communications. It's discouraging people from engaging in this sort of behavior. It's exposing some creepy individuals for what they are. It's showing some interesting facets of human behavior.
Yes, it's also humiliating some people. I'm not sure that this in and of itself is an awful thing. Sometimes people should be humiliated when they do something bad or stupid. It sets an example of why you don't do bad and stupid things. The main problem that I see is that it has the potential to be such a far-reaching and long-term humiliation. When something is put on the internet, anyone in the world can see it, and it can stick around forever. Essentially, these guys can never walk into a room for the rest of their lives and be able to trust that the people in that room haven't seen these emails and pictures. That's pretty rough.
That just isn't the case when you're talking about something like a wife leaving her husband. No one is forced to be in a relationship that they don't want to stay in. You always have the right to leave at any time. You are merely exercising a right that you had all along when you decide that you don't want to stay with someone who will cheat on you. That just means that choices have consequences; every instance of this fact is not "vigilante justice".
Yes, but shooting people who do not pose a physical threat to you is most certainly illegal. That's why it's vigilante justice. The legal, non-vigilante method would be to call the police and ask them to enforce the law in the case of any parking violations that have occurred.
Like I said, choices have consequences. If you cheat on your wife, you do so knowing that she will almost certainly leave you if she finds out. There is nothing vigilante about that. You seem like you either want to complicate a very simple issue or like you're just too proud to admit that you didn't understand this term. As others have pointed out, it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Cheap Laptop paid for by Cash at Pawn Shop....Check
Wireless Network Card paid for by Cash ..... Check
Ubuntu running on it ...... Check
Free or Leeched Wi-Fi Network Connection Far away from own house.... Check
Open Yahoo Fake E-mail account .... Check
Post on Craig's List ...... Check
Humiliate crazy sex0red up person on net who doesn't realize the Golden Rule of the Internet .....Check
Getting away with it..... Priceless
Oh BTW,
Golden Rule of the Internet: The Whole damn net is buyer beware and while sexy babes may hang out on the internet you will almost never run across on, instead it will be some trucker getting his kicks.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Actually, no, that's (as in many other cases) just a thin veil for another time-honoured troll technique: adding (more) insult to injury by blaming their victim.
E.g., the "it's your fault if you can be insulted in the first place" idea was even featured in a recent NYT article, linked to on /. too. See, suddenly it's not him who's being a troll by calling the journalist incompetent, it's the journalist's fault and revealing that he got "defensive" by asking, "why? what did I do?" In reality, the trolls themselves are very quick to get insulted too. The pointing out that "shortcoming" is really just a way to heap extra insult on the victim.
E.g., in this case, it seems to me like the same applies. The whole "raising awareness" is just a thinly veiled way of saying "it's you who's gullible." It just adds that extra jab.
I mean, if you think about it, it doesn't even try to look at all helpful or believable in that role. The excuse boils down to, basically, "I'm an arsehole and doing X just to show that arseholes exist and can do X." Where X was actually pretty obvious to everyone in the first place.
If he thinks that that kind of behaviour is actually helpful, then I offer to raise his awareness to the fact that he can have his head bashed in with a brick in a sock, by demonstrating it on you. Hey, I'm just being equally helpful. It's just teaching him to watch his back ;)
If it's not an extra jab at the victim, then I'm seriously curious what kind of a deranged mind would think that that's being helpful.
It's not even some online phenomenon. People do things on trust every day IRL too. E.g.,
- if you ever had a photo of your girlfriedn naked, or conversely she had one of you, then one of you trusted that the other won't use it in some humiliating way
- you leave your home unguarded, on the implicit assumption that the neighbours won't then bash your door in and steal all you have
- you pay with a credit card at a restaurant, basically trusting the waiter to not copy the data and make other purchases with your money
- you hop in a taxi and, essentially, trust the guy or gal that he won't kill you and dump your corpse at the first oportunity to do it unseen (more than one girl guessed wrong there, and got raped before being killed too.)
- you give a 50 euro bill to a taxi driver for a 11 Euro trip, and trust him that he'll give you 39 Euro back. He _could_ just say, "what? you gave me nothing" and even call the cops, and it's your word against his.
- when you open your front door for the mailman or some utilities guys, you trust them to not mug you and rob you instead. (Again, some people guessed wrong there.)
Etc.
We _are_ "gullible" like that, because nobody can live in a bunker and guard their back 100% of the time. So we have some laws against those kind of things, _and_ we essentially trust people at least to not be the stupid kind of predators. You know, the kind which gains disproportionately little compared to the harm and penalties, or even makes a personal loss in the process too.
You trust, for example the taxi driver to not shaft you out of 50 Euros, because, frankly it's not worth it. He can only do that a couple of times, before he makes a much bigger loss than that.
And some people trusted a perfect stranger with their photos, because it wasn't obvious what he'd have to gain by using them.
And he's raising awareness to what? That he's a prime example of an arsehole who does it just for damage sake? I don't need anyone was that blissfully ignorant to that possibility.
So, again, it seems to me that the whole thing was just one last jab at the victims.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
People like this are completely useless, and all his high-and-mighty rhetoric about "messages" and "trust" reads like the inane drivel a ninth-grader would scrawl in his Mead notebook after getting shoved by the bullies in gym class. Dressing your bullshit up in high-school "philosophy" doesn't make you any less of an asshole, but it sure does make you look more stupid.
In the end, nothing he does, including his Craigslist stunt, is about "messages" or "public service". If that's all his goal was -- to show that there's a lot of people out there into this sort of thing and willing to cheat on their spouses -- he could've erased or blurred the names and other personal information of the people who responded. But he left it all intact, showing that his goal was really to "lulz" and humiliate people to whom he feels superior.
It's all about how he feels superior to the target and wants to get attention. Well, he got attention. Good work.
Also, did anyone read his hand-wringing, whiny letter to the judge in this case? His tearful sobbing about how he doesn't have the money is quite hilarious, but there's also this gem:
Great argument there, champ. Even if you buy it, which I don't, at best it shows that he's an unhinged idiot willing to do anything he wants and is incapable of considering the consequences, which is hardly an argument in his favor.
Or this:
Yeah, Jason, you're a real hero to the "community".
What a pissant.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
If you look through the court documents, the plaintiffs had quite some difficulty serving Jason Fortuny. They finally had to resort to emailing him, which isn't normally proper service. However, Fortuny took the emailed complaint and posted a story about being sued. That showed that he knew about the complaint, which gave the plaintiff ammunition in requesting that the court accept the emails as adequate service of process.
Fortuny's subsequent letter was not well received by the court:
Jason Fortuny is well on his way to losing this case through a default judgment. At they very least, he could have gotten a half-hour of legal advice for only $35 if he had tried looking for a lawyer. A half-hour of advice would have been enough to help him avoid making some serious mistakes from the get-go.
It's not entrapment when someone else does it because the definition of entrapment includes "government officials" in it. As Fortuny isn't a government official, we fail the first test.
Further, committing adultery, while legal grounds for divorce (in many jurisdictions that still require any reasons whatsoever), is not a crime, thus we fail the second test.
Even if Fortuny were a government agent pursuing people for committing an actual crime of adultery (yeah, right, politicians banning adultery? They'd lose their favourite pasttime, right after spending our money!), would this be an illegal entrapment? From "The 'Lectric Law Library's Lexicon", I see a definition that requires three things:
First, the idea for committing the crime came from the government agents and not from the person accused of the crime. These men were perusing a personals section of an on-line classifieds site. They were already thinking of finding new girlfriends/sexual partners while married. Fail. Second, the government agents then persuaded or talked the person into committing the crime. Simply giving him the opportunity to commit the crime is not the same as persuading him to commit the crime. This one appears to be more subjective. However, based on the fact that there was but a single ad, and not continuous taunting or pressure from Fortuny, I'd say this is a fail, too. And third, the person was not ready and willing to commit the crime before the government agents spoke with him. See the first point. They were perusing a section of Craig's List which was for this purpose. They were ready and willing to commit the "crime" already.So, no, this is not entrapment. There isn't a single similarity with entrapment here. This is merely allowing people to make fools of themselves and then following up by actually showing the fools for what they are. Going up to an undercover cop and buying a dime of heroin isn't entrapment. Nor is an undercover cop buying from a street dealer. This isn't even close.
Ethics committees are only legally mandated for specific categories of researchers, basically institutions receiving federal funding or trying to get things (e.g. new drugs) approved by the federal government. There is no law requiring them for all sociology studies; in fact, it's quite uncommon for, say, market-research experiments to be approved by an ethics committee. It's not even clear what ethics committee they'd apply to---when I do human-computer interaction studies, I apply to my university's ethics committee, but only because my university requires it as a matter of university policy.
In addition, even if you are at an institution that requires such approval, and doing research that would require approval, it isn't actually illegal not to get it. Absent violating some other law, the only sanctions are professional and institutional ones---a journal may refuse to publish your work, or your university may sanction you, or if the university itself is frequently not overseeing studies it may get its federal funding revoked.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Disclaimer: I know Jason F. personally and think he is a cool guy. The whole reason that he's being sued for 'copyright violation' is that there is no real crime here. He is not a criminal and those people aren't victims. He pretended to be something he wasn't to elicit a response. People sent him nasty and embarrassing things voluntarily and what they believe about the intent or pretense of the situation is immaterial. If somebody exposes themselves to complete stranger it's their liability. I have no sympathy that a bunch of irresponsible pervs got baited into a trap because of their gullibility, lack of foresight, lack of restraint, and general idiocy. Nobody forced them to do anything, all the 'victims' did was set themselves up for failure and embarrassment.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
The prank actually did a wife a favor.
It caused her the sort of pain that you probably can't even imagine. I know, because I was the victim of a cheating wife, and it took paxil for me to let her go. I would have been far better off never having met her, but barring that I would have been better off (as well as my children) if I'd never known of her adultery.
Tami is the same way; she's married to a serial adulterer. But love is blind, deaf and dumb. It does, however, smell.
If you've never been the victim of a cheating spouse you can't possiby have a clue, especially if you have never been in love with a cheater.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
By the way, do you know what the state of his marriage was? Do you know anything about him at all? But you will happily say that the victim's pain is justified. Come out of your religious conservative rat hole, open your eyes, mind and heart and breathe some fresh air.
Wish I had mod points today. Posting anonymously not because of fear of -1 moderation but because of privacy concerns.
The fact of the matter is that someone was advertising something that others would consider "taboo", and other people contributed themselves; in order to elicit a response, and specifically to humiliate these people, he pretended he was one of them.
I think that's a dangerous slope, honestly. Irregardless of what you think of the people in question, the fact is that there was a level of trust there that was blatantly abused by your friend. To me, this is like that show To Catch A Predator; while some can argue that the people that are getting caught in those stings get what they deserve, I think it's a dangerous slope to resort to such vigilante justice by people ill equipped for the task.
You judge these people as perverts, among other adjectives. The fact of the matter is that these people were looking for mutual, consensual sex. Key words are mutual and consensual. Who is Jason to judge these people? Who are you? Nothing they wanted is in any way, shape or form abusive or harming anyone.
I do not share their views; I find the acts reprehensible. But I am not about to resort to vigilante justice to humiliate others. Even if there's no "crime", Jason deserves some comeuppance for how he's affected their lives, especially in a world where anything about you online - whether voluntarily put there or not - is grounds to affect your job, and other things that affect items in "real" life that have nothing to do whatsoever with that subject.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
Jason Fortuny is a Greifer. Plain and simple. All anybody would need to do to show that the whole scheme he concoted was out of pure maliciousness, and not the "benevolent social experiment on privacy" that he claims it was, is to let the court research Fortuny's prior antics. The defense really doesn't need to do much with creating a case, since Fortuny's prior history of sociopathic antics has dug his own grave for him.
Anybody with half a brain would immediately notice that he not only has been disowned by his own mother for his 'greifing', but he has a pathologicas and sociopathic lust for harassing people for the sheer joy (yes, I say joy) of causing others emotional distress and harm.
These shitwits are the modern manifestation of "Sensationalistic Journalism", but they are anything but journalists.....
Maybe Fortuny's prior history will finally catch up with him and knock enough sense into him so he finally realizes that just because he has a small penis doesn't mean he has to act like it and make everybody else's life miserable in the process.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
"Nothing they wanted is in any way, shape or form abusive or harming anyone."
You haven't read the whole original 'experiment' I see. Some of them were clearly looking for people to abuse. Quite coincidentally you mentioned 'To Catch a Predator' where potential abusers are caught and unmasked.
Our society is a little manic where it comes to 'consent' and 'abuse' when taken together, which is why when abuse complaints are lodged in some cases they can't be withdrawn. This is due to the nature of abused partners sometimes being so involved with the relationship that they want to gloss over that they are getting abused. Is exposing some of those potential abusers less important than exposing child molesters? Are consenting abusive relationships just not worth the same attention?
I'm not saying Jason is an altruist vigilante out to stop abuse. I'm saying that if 'To Catch a Predator' is within social norms, so is the craigslist experiment.
Perhaps Jason does deserve some comeuppance as you say, and he was banned from the Seattle LJ group among other things (ironically the NYT article is likely to be catalytic in the process of getting him unbanned that is going on right now), but does he deserve to be financially liable for exposing some jerk for who he really is? I still say no.
People should be proud of who they are as people in a way that the can display to the world. Funny enough, Jason strikes me as such a person. If all these people are embarrassed by who they really are, they shouldn't be suing, they should be changing themselves until they have something to be proud of.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit