Documentary Reveals the Fall and Tragic Consequences of Ashley Madison: ‘Lives Were Lost’

IIn theory, the Internet promised, among other things, a solution to the age-old conundrum of finding dates. If you’re looking for a romantic partnership, why not check out eHarmony? If you want some fun, try Tinder. If you want to narrow down your candidates, there are demographic-specific sites like Farmers Only and Christian Mingle. And if you are married and want to have a secret relationship, you can create an account on Ashley Madison.

At least, that was the pitch. From its founding in 2002 until the summer of 2015, Ashley Madison, known as two of the most popular names for women, advertised itself as the premier destination for adulterers. Enough “credit” to converse with other users with no judgment, no risk, and no conditions other than the necessary payments to ensure safety. The Toronto-based company was founded by Darren Morgenstern based on the statistic that 30% of users of existing dating sites are already married, and the company aims to create certain fantasies specifically aimed at men. promised. A secret fun time that transcends the boundaries of partnership. It touts extensive safety measures to prevent threats to family life. The company’s CEO, Canadian businessman Noel Biderman, appears with his wife on news programs and daytime talk shows and secretly uses the site to brag about his monogamous marriage. It was promoted as a way to revive a partnership by fulfilling extramarital needs. The site’s tagline was simple and cheeky. “Life is short. Have an affair.” And it took off, and by 2015 the company had launched in 40 countries and had more than 37 million users.

That illusion was shattered in July 2015. A still-anonymous hacker called the “Impact Team” threatened to expose the site’s fraudulent users and the “scam” companies that made it possible. After holding the company hostage for several weeks, the hackers released the personal information of more than 30 million users, including names, addresses, sexual preferences and fantasies, credit card information and messages, and Biderman’s personal email. He revealed that he had repeatedly asked for a young escort. (Ashley Madison owners Biderman and Ruby Rife declined to participate in the series.)

It turns out that the company didn’t have particularly high cybersecurity and didn’t delete any user information, even though it charged an extra fee for “permanently deleting” profiles. “The promise of security, anonymity and safety is just something we said. It’s not something we did,” said Evan Buck, a childhood friend of Biderman and former vice president of sales at the company. Told in the first of three episodes. “It was like gambling.”

The gamble was embroiled in a leak and subsequent media frenzy that included reality TV star Josh Duggar, Real Housewives of New York star Kristen Techman’s husband, and, in an earlier scandal, politician Eliot Spitzer. It turned out to be devastating for millions of people, beyond the public figures who were exposed. . This series profiles several former users and their loved ones who were shocked by the revelations and chose to speak publicly. Everyone appearing on the series had to be “open, honest, not disguised, not wearing masks, not shooting people in silhouette, not using AI to hide their identities,” Peyton said. Told. “Everyone who was going to be on it had to come in openly as who they are now and try to tell their stories. It was very difficult to find people willing to do that, but… I think this speaks to the stigma against infidelity and cheating.”

Among those who did speak out were popular Christian video bloggers Sam and Nia, who through Ashley Madison and beyond spoke out against Sam’s betrayal and public infidelity. He talks in detail about his humiliation. Christy Gibson recalls her final moments before her husband John, a pastor and professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, committed suicide. Earlier that day, John, who had struggled with sex addiction for years, had been fired for his role in the Ashley Madison leak. He left a note expressing deep regret and shame at being included in the site’s data.

Gibson has come forward to share the cost of human shame and judgment, from people who have committed Schadenfreude data breaches to anonymous Twitter users to late-night monologues to an Australian radio show that investigated the caller’s spouse. It was to prove something, she says. ” on-air information. Similarly, the Netflix series attempts to find the real person amidst a corporate spin-off – a subsequent investigation uncovers a prodigal bot imitating a woman – and an official police investigation into a hack that remains unresolved. “We didn’t want this to be a judgmental series,” Payton said. “We didn’t want to make a series that was just about how bad Ashley Madison is and how bad it is to cheat on her partner, because we all know that.” This series is interested in “why people cheat, what happens in relationships, and what difficulties people face in relationships that lead to cheating.” . Why did people go to Ashley Madison?”

Peyton realized that deception was the “true culprit.” And the series explores everything from an unfaithful spouse to a website that oversells its security and the humanity of its users to a mysterious hacker who claims the moral high ground by exposing personal data. It reveals that the story is a fallible pyramid. “There’s an argument that the real villain in this piece is the person who did the hacking and released his name,” Peyton said. People literally lost their lives as a result of being exposed to that hack.

Despite the Impact Team’s stated intentions, the hack certainly didn’t stop the affair or permanently end Ashley Madison, but it did force Biderman to resign as CEO. I no longer get it. The company was reorganized and rebuilt. In 2017, it settled a $576 million class action lawsuit from former customers for $11.2 million, but their data remains online. Biderman’s successor, Rob Segal, promised new safety measures and protections, among other changes. The series claims that the site currently has over 70 million users. Although its marketing is much less prominent than it was during Biderman’s reign, “I’m not surprised it still exists,” Buck says in the series. “I always say, as long as men have penises, Ashley Madison will always be in business.”