Thanks for reading! Please like, comment, and share this post if you enjoyed it.
Last week, trying to fill the hole that Bridgerton season 3, part 1 left, I was browsing Netflix looking for something new to watch. What I found was Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal, a new 3-episode docuseries. The series lays out the genesis of the popular dating app for cheaters Ashley Madison (whose tagline reads: Life is short. Have an affair.), the 2015 hack of the company that outed all of its users and dumped their data, and the aftermath. Out of sheer curiosity, I clicked.
Admittedly, I knew very little beyond surface level information about the application. I knew it was for cheaters, I knew it had a bit of an infamous reputation, but I was in middle school at the height of its success, so it wasn’t exactly on my radar. The docuseries provides a lot of information about the impetus of the app, which was basically created to tap into a market that already exists, cheaters. Ashley Madison was built to profit off people who were already doing these things, plus loop in people who may have the impulse to have an affair, but are unsure how to start. Through monetizing messaging with others on the app, once word got out, the app started to gain some major success. Plus, its salacious premise garnered a lot of free publicity.
The docuseries showed interviews with journalists who covered the app when it was hacked, people who used the app, spouses of those who used the app, and some internal company people to paint a picture of Ashley Madison, the hack, and the ramifications of it. Most notably, they interviewed the Christian YouTuber couple Sam and Nia (of which Sam used the app), a couple who practices an open marriage using the app, and a widow whose husband used the app.
What’s interesting about the docuseries is that it seems to have a very weak point of view, if any at all. Typically, when one watches a documentary, they’re expecting to be given both sides of the argument, but leave with the feeling that one side is correct and the other is incorrect. Like any good argument, the opposing opinion is offered and refuted, making the core argument stronger. This docuseries presents both the critiques of the app as well as the defense of the app, but doesn’t really hammer home any thesis. So what was the point? Just to share the information? I mean, I guess.
The app has an obvious reason to be criticized. It’s an app for cheaters. Objectively, it's not forcing anyone to use the app, it’s just offering a more clear-cut path for those who want to engage in extramarital affairs. However, one could argue, it's a bit like the influx in sports betting apps as of late (I’m patiently waiting for some sort of exposé to come out in a few years). Yes, it’s a service that’s capitalizing on something that is already happening. But, it’s also building an incredibly accessible on ramp for an already slippery slope, making it even harder to avoid if one already has a problem or addiction.
Not to mention the fact that the company, after it was hacked by the Impact Team in 2015, was discovered to be lying to its customers about the security measures it was taking with their personal information. In order to create a profile on the app, a user would input their personal information including obvious things like their name, location, age, but they would also be asked to input their sexual preferences and other sensitive information. The app claimed to have taken several security measures to protect its valued customers’ information. Reader, they lied.
The Impact Team released company information which proved that not only was the company’s base claim of security made up, but their offer of a “full delete” that would erase the user’s account in official records for a price was a full-on scheme. The user would pay but their information was never deleted. Beyond all this, a lot of the women that the male users were speaking to were robots or company employees. The great ratio of female to male users on the app that then-CEO Noel Biderman was espousing on various talk shows was also a lie. There were not enough women on the app, so the company used AI and its employees to create a false sense of female membership.
In the words of Claire Brownell, a tech reporter interviewed for the series:
“The average male user of Ashley Madison was talking into the void to these fake bots, racking up hundreds of dollars worth of credit card bills, and risking his marriage to do it.”
Tough scene.
And this is just the company’s side. On the users’ side, we hear from a few different couples with varying experiences, the most tragic of which is that of Christi, a widow who was unaware of her husband’s use of Ashley Madison. She only became aware when she discovered her husband had killed himself over the data leak that exposed him and millions of others as a user. Despite this horrific outcome, Christi has a very sympathetic view of the whole ordeal, speaking on how the judgment of users of the app comes from a self-righteous place. She may have a point.
Despite all of this profit-driven greed displayed by the company, as well as the abundant negative consequences from the hack as well as the app’s lack of security, the docuseries still provides a very middle ground, sympathetic view of the app and its users. The YouTuber couple Sam and Nia, interviewed separately throughout the first 2.5 parts of the series to keep the viewers on their toes about the state of their relationship after Sam’s infidelity, come together and are interviewed together at the end, admitting that they have remained together and have worked through their issues. The app continues on under a new CEO, and the Impact Team remains unmasked.
A happy ending, right? Wrong. People killed themselves because of that hack, marriages were destroyed, lives were upturned, but the app is still leaving this documentary blemish-free? A lot of the negative feedback directed towards the app within the docuseries came from clips of outraged newscasters, which is meant to be sensational. The only personal accounts we get from those who were directly impacted by the app are overwhelmingly sympathetic. The Sam and Nia storyline was bordering on thanking the app for its uncovering of Sam’s trials and tribulations within his marriage.
I’m not necessarily mad at the app or Noel Biderman for tapping into the market, once again, capitalism is really to blame here, but I digress. I’m confused by the fact that this docuseries had almost no point of view and was overwhelmingly sympathetic for an app and company that caused real interpersonal destruction and turmoil. It was also very sympathetic to the people who did the cheating, rather than the people who were cheated on. We were left on an uplifting note when we should have been left on a pensive one. A bit of a cop out, if you ask me.
