Yesterday hackers dumped 10 gigs of personal info from “life is short, have an affair” dating site Ashley Madison. Twitter’s first reaction is to crack wise about divorce. Ha ha.
While security researchers continue to parse the hack and pundits wonder about what the attack on a company’s “morals” means to the future of data privacy, Twitter is a bed of schadenfreude. Consumed with the idea that the revelation of infidelity (or the mere suggestion of it, since you can sign up on Ashley Madison without ever actually using it) equals instant divorce, users are quick to jump right on the separation bandwagon:
https://twitter.com/embed/status/633818702106877952
BREAKING: ashley madison now a search engine site for divorce lawyers and cat-friendly motels. #AshleyMadisonHack
— Katie Malia 🇯🇵🇩🇪🇺🇸 (@kathrynmalia) August 19, 2015
https://twitter.com/embed/status/633970326309892096
https://twitter.com/embed/status/633898097047916544
https://twitter.com/embed/status/633974472958181376
https://twitter.com/embed/status/633970855912062977
https://twitter.com/embed/status/634012112805728257
This is like super bowl week for divorce lawyers. #ashleymadisonhack
— RegularestOfJoe’s (@EdHochulisGuns) August 19, 2015
Looks like Christmas came early for divorce lawyers! #ashleymadisonhack
— Lauren Sivan (@LaurenSivan) August 19, 2015
live footage of a divorce lawyer hearing about the #ashleymadisonhack pic.twitter.com/ccFz9HDDVF
— shauna (@goldengateblond) August 19, 2015
The Tweets in this vein continue to pour in on the #ashleymadisonhack tag. More original Tweets choose to question the whole institution of marriage—which Ashley Madison’s very existence, let alone unmasking, might suggest is flawed. But they are few and far between:
The fact that 38 million people chose to cheat on their partners instead of ethical polyamory just boggles the mind. #ashleymadisonhack
— Mary Emily O'Hara (@MaryEmilyOHara) August 19, 2015
Regardless of your options on marriage, the immediate urge to laugh and joke about the possibility that relationships and families are about to be torn apart feels like a strange twist in the hack saga. Many people have little sympathy for cheaters—so aim your hilarity and scorn at them, and maybe don’t celebrate a bloody legal process that has the potential to upend and destroy lives.
https://twitter.com/embed/status/633973971688554496
So funny. So original. Human misery always makes me laugh.
But what’s really disturbing about all these tee-hee gifs is that they’re distracting us from talking about what it means to splash out private data for everyone’s consumption. This is the first data leak that’s been treated as entertainment, rather than a horror show. Mario Aguilar equates the Ashley Madison hack with “The Fappening” release of naked celebrity pictures last year. But while “The Fappening” was greeted with widespread condemnation and outrage on behalf of those whose data was stolen, the response to Ashley Madison’s leak is that anyone who would use such a service deserves infamy and to expect the implosion of their family.
The majority of the social Internet’s instinct was to delight in what they saw as “karmic retribution” and to crack wise about divorce—not to question extremely serious implications for the future of privacy and the ethics of hacking a company and exposing customers because their business model is unsavory. This sets an unsettling precedent.
Besides, giggling about flush attorneys is a waste of space when you could be making far more clever, topical observations.
