I like Dan Savage's take on the whole thing:
I agree with Dan Savage's comments up to a point. I think his observation about the paternalistic, classist justifications made by Gawker were very much on point. I recall exactly when the GOP got really, really pissed at Hillary. It's when she didn't divorce Bill, even though it was pretty darn clear by that point that she couldn't possibly have not known who she married. No, she was shunned for not holding up their ideal of proper marriage. (which apparently demands divorce, in her particular case.) However, both cases point out that the consequences for behavior that is actually bad and behavior that some interventionist fiddle-wit thinks is bad are the same, because they come from the same place and the same people. I shall be pointing to this as a good example when speaking of consequential ethics for years to come. It doesn't really matter if a private behavior is inherently harmful - if you can't arrange any way of making it safe to be "out" and do that thing - involving other people in "that thing" is particularly problematic. Now, sometimes you just go and do it anyway - clearly, many millions do. But the people harmed that I'm concerned about are those who were involved without being consulted. One thing about a site like Ashley Madison - you can be pretty sure that there aren't many folks there against their will - so presumably they assessed the risks as well as they could. Whether this could be said of their partners and any children is quite another thing.
No shit. Nobody seems to get that when they hand their data over to someone else that they are implicitly trusting that other person/company. They just expect their privacy to be respected while at the same time shouting that "privacy is dead"."Even with that you should not believe that you have total privacy. And if you are really one who wants total privacy then you should not probably be getting on websites like this," Sulmeyer said.
If you want to see some true fuckery go check out /r/adultery. All those fuckers (literally) are freaking out about being caught. It's easy to judge from the outside hackers and cheaters. But go sit in a room with a bunch of cheaters glorifying what they do and talking about not getting caught... and you really, really don't feel bad for them.
This is amazing, fuck everyone that uses that site.
I feel very cheap and tawdry for being excited about attention-disposal. For the record if shares cost money then I would not share this. But seeing as this is free, and I've no will power over my current event predilections ... clickity-click