4chan Chronicle/The Fappening

On August 31, a /b/tard makes a thread declaring that he has the nudes of celebrity Jennifer Lawrence and several others, and he will proceed to post them if they gave him a certain amount of bitcoins to his account. The situation explodes to incommensurable levels as the whole event immediately gains attention from the old media, and on top of that, the hacking scene that was behind obtaining those nudes, realizing that the cops will be on their ass very soon, declare the scene dead and proceed to dump all their content. For shits and giggles, they decide to post it on /b/. The Internet pretty much explodes when it finds out, and 4chan is swarmed with millions of people from the outside trying to get the pics, overloading the site. This also leads to no end of trouble to moot, as Jennifer Lawrence took the whole thing awfully and began to threaten everyone with lawsuits, including 4chan. The result is months of behind the scenes negotiation with the lawyers (which moots suggests in a “Fappening related stress” sentence in a Q/A regarding his lack of activity). Nobody knows why the original buyer dumped his personal batch. Some suggest it was because his buy was filled with fakes. Over the following months there would be several other leaks, adding to 5 in total. The most hacking was made through Apple’s Cloud system, which Apple fervently denied claiming it was impossible. Moot’s only public activity regarding the site was saving the hashes of several Jennifer Lawrence pics and making it so users are unable to post them, and banning everyone who evaded the prohibition.

The Fappening had quite an impact in the 4chan staff, as Jennifer Lawrence’s legal pressure made them realize how easy everything could come down. The moderation team ended up stressed and tired from over-management, still surprised how everything could tumble down so fast in so little time.