Jason Fortuny’s CraigsList Prank

Craigslist is an old-school web based Bulletin Board used by millions of people in major cities to advertise for odd jobs, free furniture, real estate, upcoming shows and lots lots more. I have wasted many-a-work hour giggling at the rants and rave sections on Craigslist. When the real estate market here in the DC area was so competitive a few years ago and I was outbid on any property I wanted, I turned to Craigslist to find my house.

Jason Fortuny took a pretty raunchy Craigslist personals ad from a woman in one city who wanted rough sex and some kinky experiences and he posted the ad in Seattle. He got 178 responses with 145 photos from men. Many of the phtos were of body organs. Sent from people’s work email addresses.

Jason Fortuny posted all of this on the Internet, uncensored and uncut. He talks about it here.

He received lots of threats for bodily harm and threats of lawsuits from people who complain that Jason ruined their lives. People all over the internet have written about this and have taken the sides of the so-called victims in this case, saying that Jason violated their rights to privacy. Lives are being ruined because Jason was so mean, and people will get fired from their jobs, and marriages will be broken.

People who believe Jason is some type of criminal are whining self-righteous ninnies with no understanding of the law, privacy, or how email works.

There is no expectation to privacy when using unencrypted email (especially work email!) to solicit sexual favors from other people. SMTP email is sent across the internet in clear text and can be read at every hop between the sender and recipient. Emails could be copyrighted, but they have to be claimed as copyrighted material before it is sent across the internet.

To those that want to say that people shouldn’t judge the men that wanted to have brutal sex with a random woman, they are ninnies too. Unlike lower lifeforms, humans are granted to ability to be judgemental, and that ability is often used to keep us from making stupid mistakes. We should use best judgement when sending emails and responding to internet ads offering rough sex.

Yes, Jason Fortuny played a dirty trick, but he did not break any law. The men who chose to risk their marriages and their jobs and their dignity by sending an email to an unknown kinky person on Craigslist have only themselves to blame.