‘Revenge Porn King’ Crossed The Wrong Mom

Charlotte Laws only saw herself as doing what any mother would do when confronted with someone hurting her daughter. But her crusade had an unexpected consequence: The toppling of Hunter Moore’s “revenge porn” empire. Dubbed “the most hated man on the Internet,” Moore was behind sites like IsAnyoneUp.com, a website featuring nude young women without their consent. The material was often submitted to Hunter’s website by disgruntled ex-boyfriends.

However, this wasn’t always the case. When it came to Charlotte Laws’s daughter, Kayla, her images wound up on the site because they were stolen. It didn’t matter to Hunter how the photos came to end up on his website. It certainly didn’t matter that the women in the photos had not given their permission. Moore made a fortune off the exploitation and shaming of young women.

It seemed that there was nothing anyone was willing to do about it. With laws governing behavior on the Internet working to catch up to off-line consequences, there didn’t seem many options for Charlotte. That didn’t deter the 55-year-old mom.

“I spoke to nine attorneys, and I was trying to get as much information about what revenge porn was and what I could do.”

What she learned is that the medium was relatively new and that there were no easy answers on how to deal with Hunter Moore, who had a policy of blatantly refusing to remove photos from his site. “He was definitely the kingpin of revenge porn,” said Laws. “He was all over the media.” She also noted that he proudly refer to himself as a “professional life-ruiner.”

“He was loving harassing, humiliating and embarrassing these [people] — mostly women, because 90% of the victims were female.”

Even more disturbing, when Charlotte Laws was initially successful in getting traffic to Kayla’s page blocked, Hunter Moore went out of his way to create a page specifically for her daughter, Kayla. It was only after Kayla’s father threatened Moore with direct legal action that the photo came down.

It wasn’t enough for Charlotte Laws. There were many other victims still on the website, still being exploited by Moore. “I was the only person they were talking to because it was embarrassing for them, and they didn’t want anybody to know.”

Despite attempts to infect her computer with viruses and death threats from fans of the revenge porn site, Charlotte Laws continued her work to get IsAnyoneUp.com taken down. In 2012, Hunter Moore caved and sold the site — ironically, he handed over the domain to the founder of an anti-bullying website. In 2014, he was arrested and plead guilty to multiple charges. There is a chance he can serve as many as seven years behind bars.

In addition, Laws’ campaign has helped make strides in law toward ending revenge porn websites for good, with the state of New York making it a felony to post pornographic photos of victims without their permission.

Says Law, “I feel like we’ve been victorious. This movement has made huge strides in the last three years.”

As former victims see the progress made by Charlotte Laws, it’s possible even more women will speak out against these antics, leading to even more protection against this type of cyber victimization.

[Image Credit: Craig Brittain, Top YouTube Commenter]