Hunter Moore Was a God-Like "Professional Life Ruiner." Where Is He Now?
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In 2010, Sacramento native 24-year-old Hunter Moore created Is Anyone Up? [dot] com, a website that posted people’s nude photos and personal information without their consent. For a short time, Moore, who referred to himself as “a professional life ruiner," was a god-like figure in his little corner of the Internet. But as new Netflix documentary The Most Hated Man on the Internet shows, he messed with the wrong woman’s daughter. Thanks to Charlotte Laws, his revenge porn empire crumbled less than two years after it began—but not without destroying plenty of lives on the way. Here’s where Hunter Moore, now 36 years old, is today.
Is Anyone Up? was a revenge porn website. But as Netflix’s new docuseries shows, it was also a community—Hunter’s “fans” would congregate in the comments of photos on his site to degrade and humiliate their subjects, on Twitter, and in real life, too, at club events around the country. The documentary features interviews with many women who were deeply traumatized by the website and its users. But according to Hunter Moore, Is Anyone Up? operated by accepting user submitted photos—"revenge porn" sent in by angry exes—thus clearing him personally of any liability. That was until he posted actress and waitress Kayla Laws’s nude photos, which marked, as Netflix’s series shows, the beginning of the end for his website.
When Kayla Laws’s nude photos appeared on Is Anyone Up?, she told her mother Charlotte that she had not ever sent the photos that appeared on the site to anyone other than to herself via email. Her mom believed her. And so even after she got Kayla’s photos removed from the website, Charlotte didn’t stop there. She worked to gather evidence from more than 40 other women to prove that their photos had not been sent around, and that instead, the photos had been obtained via email hacking. As The Most Hated Man on the Internet tells, Laws shared her findings with the FBI, who were eventually then able to charge and arrest Hunter Moore.
Moore sold the website to anti-bullying advocate James McGibney in 2012. But in January 2014, Hunter Moore and his co-conspirator in the hacking scheme, Charles Evens, were indicted on charges of conspiracy, unauthorized access to a protected computer, and aggravated identity theft. Moore pleaded guilty to two counts in February 2015, and in November 2015 was sentenced to two years and six months in prison, plus a $2,000 fine.
Hunter Moore was released from prison in May 2017. He is no longer active on Twitter or Instagram, though his old posts remain. In 2018, Moore self-published a memoir called Is Anyone Up?: The Story of Revenge Porn, and from the Amazon reviews, it doesn’t sound as though Hunter is at all remorseful for his actions. With nearly all five-star reviews, many of Moore’s “fans” have written comments like “If you were there, you will miss it. If you weren't there you will be jealous af. The history of breaking the Internet, by the bad ass who did it first.” Moore declined to participate in Netflix’s documentary.
Charlotte Laws has, in the years since, aided in passing laws against revenge porn in 48 U.S. states.
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