Interview with "involuntary porn" webmaster

Craig Brittain is the most prominent operator of an operating "involuntary porn" site, publishing compromising pictures of unsuspecting women and generating extravagant removal fees. While lawyers work on how best to deal with such sites—victims, after all, can't take action without drawing attention to the images—Chet Hardin found Brittain more than willing to rationalize his exploits.

Brittain says Is Anybody Down? is on the cutting edge of an era of total transparency, and the de-stigmatization of sexuality. The negatives of being presented naked on his website are shortcomings of society.
"Occasionally they will get fired," he says of his subjects. "I mean, what do you care if a couple people you know see you naked on the Internet, versus 'Oh, I just lost my job,' or 'I lost my place to stay,' or, 'Now I'm being judged for life'? We are headed to an era, one of the most open and tolerant eras for people's beliefs that we've ever seen, where people would accept each other regardless."

This man had a livejournal where he explained how evil women are.

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Supernumerary

Well, thank fuck he and his are here to usher mankind into a new age of enlightenment.

What a waste of carbon.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  Reminds me of the child molesters who say “I was just trying to get them comfortable with their sexuality.”
  - http://cobramcgiantballs.tumblr.com/ Xploder
    
    Wait a minute…no matter how idiotic this guy may be, how is it even relatable to kiddy porn?
    - Jamie Norwood
      
      They both justify their abuse of a powerless population with thing veneers of reasoning while ignoring the profound harm they are subjecting their victims to?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  What a waste of carbon.
  
  Carbon? Maybe these scientists should take a gander at him.
http://twitter.com/Popehat Popehat

It’s important to note, though, that the quoted bit is just one of many, often mutually inconsistent, rationalizations Craig has offered for what he does. Others include “they all specifically consented to being on my site” and “they deserve it” and “by giving ex-boyfriends an outlet for rage we are preventing domestic violence” and “these are cautionary tales that help train people to be cautious with their images” and so forth.
- http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza
  
  I’m almost tempted to post about the rationalizations!
- C W
  
  “we are preventing domestic violence”
  
  Whatta saint!
- That_Anonymous_Coward
  
  Here I thought his main goal was to try and get his manhood back after selling it off on Myspace, offering cam shows to anyone with a couple bucks. Its hard to be a star when you pull your asset out and people giggle.
MosesZD

The little d-bag will end up paying more in legal fees than he earned. Even if he wins.
- http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza
  
  I bet you a quarter he will go commando in court or just let it default. Pro se or the highway.
  - dculberson
    
    What do you mean? Doesn’t he have Dick Danger or Rick Superstrong or whatever his lawyer “friend” is called?
    - Ito Kagehisa
      
      Wasn’t it “Studley Hungwell, attorney at law”?
      
      No, wait, that was Bhil’s ex-wife’s divorce attorney. Sorry.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002204733322 Jared Kaufman

Sheesh, and I though the guy yesterday looked douchey. It’s as if Massengill and Eddie Munster had a love child and then abandoned it on the beaches of the Jersey Shore.
- http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland
  
  I’ll write that screenplay and we can split the proceeds.
http://twitter.com/G_Portmanteau Alex

That kid is a piece of work. His Twitter featured some nice straight-up racist id. Hopefully someone successfully sues him into permanent destitution.
- C W
  
  Isn’t he associates with active white supremacists? I recall some discussion of this on the Ars board, his sociopathy is pretty unsurprising.
oasisob1

Someone needs to get their hands on a picture of him with his full unibrow and post that for everyone to see. Look at those nice clean lines.
Roose_Bolton

He’s a delusional sociopath who needs a good kick in the balls.
timquinn

Internet thug.
iamlegion

Gee, if only I could find a way to make money off of “de-stigmatizing sexuality”…
Jeez, what a sociopathic little douche.
- C W
  
  He’s an MRA who found a way to monetize his hate of women.
  - Gilbert Wham
    
    MRAs really do boil my fucking piss. Even by the standards of bigoted idiots, their whole shtick comes across as petulant, childish sulking.
  - Steve Taylor
    
    Is that MRA as in “Mens RIghts Advocate”? My acronym powers are weak this morning.
Bob Dole’s Commie Doppelganger

I keep wondering how these sites are getting away with wholesale extortion – if I had a nude picture of someone and told them “Give me a bunch of money or I’ll post it on the internet”, I’d be arrested for extorting funds from them.

Does it somehow become legally OK when I do it openly and claim it’s a legitimate business? Does this work for other things? Because I’m sure I could make lots of money from e-crack.com…
feetleet

Douche got faaaat.
- Ito Kagehisa
  
  And went from glary meth eyes to stoner dime-slots!
Samuel Valentine

Aaaaaaand spit take:
“I really hate this job and I do not do it for revenge, to hurt people, etc., I do it because Barack Obama is the second worst President in US history (second only to Jimmy Carter). The job market is really screwed up. A talented guy like me is easily worth seven figures or more in a good economy. … Do you know what I’d be doing with my life if it wasn’t for this website? Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Back against the wall, going to interview after interview and being rejected like every other honest, hard-working American.”
- http://www.facebook.com/heather.cristofaro Heather Cristofaro
  
  I think that sentence was invented to create the maximum urge to boxer-punch his nads. A perfect example of a person that makes batmanning a reasonable way to deal with assholes.
  - Samuel Valentine
    
    Yeah, that’s what’s so frustrating about this statement: my mind doesn’t have any way to resolve this creature’s ideas other than violence — it’s an uncomfortable urge.
    - http://www.facebook.com/sagebrushgardener Greg McCann
      
      ”Though you grind a fool in a mortar, grinding them like grain with a pestle, you will not remove their folly from them.”
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        But you can have fun trying.
    - TheMudshark
      
      It could be because this guy is the very definition of a “Backpfeifengesicht”.
- C W
  
  Every capitalist master of the universe is only living in their basement because of “liberals”, of course.
  - Ito Kagehisa
    
    Well sure. If the libruls hadn’t allowed the darkies, women, jews and homos to have real jobs there wouldn’t be enough capitalist masters of the universe to go around, amirite? It’s the liberals who ruined the market by making it open to people with actual ability, instead of reserving the good jobs to people of proper ancestry, upbringing, and gender.
- http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb
  
  What did Jimmy Carter do that made conservatives so mad? Increased US aid to Indonesia while they were slaughtering East Timorians? Because conservatives are suddenly retroactively against that?
  - toyg
    
    He looked intelligent, educated and physically weak.
  - Jamie Norwood
    
    I had this same question. I always thought the worst you could say about him, really was that he was a bit bumbling and didn’t do much. But the vitriol over him makes me think there must be something I don’t know, or that his post-presidential actions (Building houses for the needy, the devil!) were so infuriating to the bootstraps crowd that they backdate their hate.
    - http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb
      
      Here’s a liberal-ish view of why conservatives have recently decided to hate Carter. http://www.salon.com/2010/08/16/worst_american_of_all_time_jimmy_carter/
- Gilbert Wham
  
  Jesus tittyfucking christ. The only seven figures he’s worth a the seven dollars it would cost you every week if you said ‘If I give you this dollar, would you just fuck off?’ of a morning. Though I suspect that such an egregiously awful beard wouldn’t help with panhandling; it has Scrooge-imbuing powers on me, at least.
- http://twitter.com/chrnoble Chris Noble
  
  Thanks Obama!
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

I’m trying to figure out how extorting money from people to remove naked photos of them promotes tolerance or transparency. By this {shitty} reasoning, the way to have a transparent culture tolerant of nudity and sex would be to post nude photos and *refuse* to take them down, no matter how much people begged or bribed you.
oldtaku

Ahhhhhhh, the douchepatch is spreading!
- Jamie Norwood
  
  Like everything else in that kind of person, it becomes a ‘mine is bigger than yours’ competition.
VideoMonkey

Colorado Springs is really doing everything it can to keep its loooong string of Asshattery Trophies going. On the other hand, awesome to see the Independent still going strong, it’s always been a truly exemplary local paper.
That_Anonymous_Coward

So no ones ever sent the cops to see if hes gotten underaged pics sent to him. You know he kept them.

Why do people keep trying to pretend they can reason with this douche?

There are lawyers just WAITING to rip this kid apart, and the “victims” spend their time talking to everyone but the cops or lawyers. Because doing a press conference about this totally embarrassing photo will draw way less attention than suing him? Something really really is not adding up, this story has been bubbling for a while now and not 1 victim has taken up the offers of legal help to my knowledge.

How to turn a crappy website into a viral marketing sensation…
Step 1 have a Douche
Step 2 have upset victims
Step 3 inflame internets
Step 4 Profit
Even with no one posting the name, why do I have a feeling he’s had a huge spike in hits from all of this attention.
- orangedesperado
  
  But your theory implies that this POS has more than an amoebic form of intelligence !
  
  Re: victims and lawyers. Unless those lawyers are pro-bono, not many of the victims (ie young women) could even afford to begin this fight. And let us not forget that the judicial system, including lawyers, still maintains a stance that is victim-blamey, to say the least.
  - That_Anonymous_Coward
    
    IIRC Marc Randazza offered his help pro-bono or damn cheap. He wanted to take the trash out. I could be wrong (disclosure Mr. Randazza and myself don’t get along 99.7% of the time) but he hated what this asshat was doing and wanted to put an end to it, all he lacked was a client.
    - orangedesperado
      
      Okay, but as a lawyer, has his stance been that of the lawyer that battles Goliath for David, on the side of ethics/justice or is he cut from the same cloth as many a grandstanding lawyer in search of the CASE THAT WILL MAKE HIM FAMOUS ?
      
      That may be why none of the victims in his vicinity will go near him.
      - That_Anonymous_Coward
        
        Marc Randazza is an established and well known lawyer in 1st Amendment Circles. He helped kill Righthaven. I doubt he was looking for publicity. His is just 1 name on the landscape, Ken over at Popehat has talked about this case and I’m sure he could put them in touch with other lawyers willing to help if Randazza is to “showy”.
  - That_Anonymous_Coward
    
    Oh and there is another brain trust involved in this who is trying to keep a lower profile that Douchey McDouche but he is just as slimy. Between the 2 of them one wonders…
http://cobramcgiantballs.tumblr.com/ Xploder

Damn! Sure this guy is a douchebag supreme but why do some people keep equating him to a child molester/kiddy porn freak? It makes no sense to me.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Because he has no concept of consent.
- That_Anonymous_Coward
  
  He solicits pictures from mad people to embarrass other people so he can get paid.
  Maybe you’ve missed the thousands of moral panic stories about kids “sexting” naked pics of themselves. Playing the odds he more than likely has been sent pictures that would qualify as CP. Add in a dash of racism, hatred of women, criminal charges from bad decisions and you can see a pattern of him not being well adjusted and making thoughtful decisions.
http://bethrankin.tumblr.com bohphoto

I also recently interviewed the administrator of an ‘involuntary porn’ website – after about 30 Texas women joined a lawsuit against the site http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/default/article/Revenge-porn-website-s-time-is-up-4249772.php