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Comment by knallfrosch | Hacker News Reader

First of all, the article nails it. Ashley Madison wasn't a dating site that lost sensitive personal data, it was a scam site full of bots.

> And the men had to pay for every single message they sent. For most of their millions of users, Ashley Madison affairs were entirely a fantasy built out of threadbare chatbot pick-up lines like “how r u?” or “whats up?”

Taking it one step further: Apparently the millions of male users were unable to tell this site apart from any of the "legitimate" dating sites like Tinder.

For the male users, this site offered quite the same experience. You pay for attention, get a few chats full of dry "how r u"s and nothing further happens.

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Match got in trouble for doing the same thing when your account was about to expire, you’d get a fake message to entice you to renew

A lot of comments are saying things like "oh, we all knew this already." But a lot of the cultural discourse around AM completely misses or forgets this. A lot of prominent people were brought down by it, and it's treated in the context that they were talking to real partners, presumably because that's a bit more salacious than the sad truth.

I think treating people for what they intended and actually tried to do to do (cheat on their partner), even if they didn't manage to carry out their intent because of external circumstances is fair. I think that's a common opinion? Although I might be wrong.

Many countries punish "attempted murder" (trying to carry out the act but failing, the same way people caught in this scandal attempted but failed at adultery) so it makes sense to me to not strongly distinguish between "tried cheating on their partner but failed" and "tried cheating on their partner and succeeded".

How would you think the conversation about AM would/should be modified, in light of the fact that people were (unknowingly) talking to chatbots instead of real partners? I think I already made my views clear, but I would actually like to hear other opinions since I don't think I understand any view but my own on this. Maybe other people would prefer the conversation is about spambots on social media websites instead of what the people on those sites tried to do?

Edit: nvm. I saw (after I was already done typing) the sibling comments to my current one, and that makes more sense.

Both actual cheating and attempted cheating are morally wrong.

Actually cheating has an additional negative consequence attached: potentially exposing your partner to disease and / or infection

To be fair, wanting to cheat on your partner to such an extent you'd set up an account on a website dedicated for that is already a step too far for many people barely any less bad of an act than the actual act of cheating.

For sure. But as an external observer, my reaction is quite different. In the first case, it's very much "this sad dummy was sexting a chatbot." In the second case, it's "wow, it turns out this guy was a philanderer." Not sure why.

Those two acts have the same direction, but very different magnitudes.

I have to disagree with anyone that thinks it is "barely less bad".

I mean we make countless bad decisions as humans, many of them rash last minute decisions in a time of desperation.

Given the ease of just making an account and talking to someone vs actually going through with something I feel like just being on a platform like this is villainizing what could have been a moment of weakness. But that doesn't mean that you would have gone through with it.

I would also put out there that there may be a decent subset of people that just the idea that someone might be into them without needing to actually do anything beyond that, is enough.

I fully acknowledge that there is a lot of nuance to this, but I would hope that as a society we could acknowledge a huge difference between a bit of fantasy/role playing and actually going through with something.

I think the model is that of a "gateway drug".

While the long term intentions (infidelity) might be the same, social barriers prevent many people from taking it forward. Signing up on a website is something a lot of people do for a lot of things and making that the entry point to something exciting and forbidden is good marketing at best and psychological manipulation at worst.

For some (perhaps most) people, just creating an account and taking a peek is usually not enough to push them over but for many others, it's enough to start a chain reaction that will end up somewhere which will have real consequences for them and multiple people related to them. Not a good idea and a company that's making money off of this without even considering that is not very ethical in my estimation.

Right which is why I acknowledge there is nuance, but I just strongly disagree with it being "barely less bad" when I would consider it "significantly less bad" or borderline not bad at all depending on how far things got.

Especially if maybe they were just watching porn and briefly in a horny state wanted to check something out. Post nut clarity is a thing.

There is just such a large number of events and thought processes between a last minute rash decision to make an account somewhere and actually meeting up with someone, not the least of which is the time and effort to make it happen. To say just making an account is barely less bad than actually going through with cheating is... wild.

Agreed from the perspective of the person who signs up. I wouldn't judge him too harshly unless he finally went ahead and actually had an affair.

OTOH, the makers of the website have designed it to push people to do something that's likely very damaging just to sell a product. And then topped it off by lying about what they're selling.

Yeah, it's bad that they'd do something like this behind their partners' back, but a lot of them probably signed up in a moment of weakness and never planned to take it further.

It's like flirting when your partner isn't around. It's bad (assuming it isn't something you've agreed upon), but if you stop it before it goes to far it's not as bad as going to bed with somebody.

What’s the difference between talking to a real partner and talking to a bot if you’re dumb enough to think the bots are real?

The way someone answers this question probably correlates to their opinion on police entrapment.

If by police entrapment, you mean cases where, say, someone tries to put out a hit and doesn't realize that the person they're hiring is a cop, I think that's totally fair. That's still indicative of serious intent to commit murder, and it really is just luck that they happened to hire a cop to do it rather than running into someone actually willing to kill.

Same with the AM stuff, it doesn't really matter that my hypothetical SO was too dumb to notice they were talking to bots. Their intention was to cheat, and so the trust would be gone. At that point, how am I supposed to believe that they aren't cheating in other ways?

It brings to mind another thing that sometimes happens lately, where "prank" channels on YouTube or TikTok film themselves committing crimes, thinking that since they don't actually mean any harm, or say, are using fake weapons, it isn't a crime anymore. But, of course, it is a crime, the people who are being "pranked" in this manner believe they're actually in danger. There has even been a case where a prankster got shot for pulling a knife on someone as a "prank", and the shooter was found innocent because it was reasonable self defense.

The problem with police entrapment isn't that the bag contains oregano instead of real marijuana. Rather it's the creation of new "crime" that wouldn't have happened otherwise. So with Ashley Madison it's not so much the bot dynamic itself creating the distinction, but rather all the push advertising getting people to sign up out of curiosity when they perhaps wouldn't have sought such a thing out otherwise.

First, flattened "cheating on your spouse" to "salacious lies" because they failed at it.

Now, flattening "doing bad things is bad" to "supporting police entrapment."

Beginning to think this is trolling.

I'm sorry it comes off that way. I genuinely think these are interesting distinctions. If I had to make an analogy, I would react differently if I found a bag of weed in a kid's backpack vs a bag of oregano that the kid was fooled into thinking was weed.

Somewhat related but if you're selling either one the court (in the US at least) will treat them the same.

If you tell an undercover cop that you have cocaine and you sell them a baggie of baking powder, you'll get arrested and charged with selling cocaine.

I guess the question there is "what are you punishing"? If it's your kid and you don't want them smoking weed, they clearly went out for weed. Are you punishing the act or the intent? Which is the disappointing bit?

To be fair, the additional distinction here is that you found nothing except that you know they asked where they might buy weed.

Obviously nobody was meeting with these chat bots physically. Real or fake, that is an important distinction.

>you found nothing except that you know they asked where they might buy weed.

And that they gave money to someone for what they thought was weed

That's way reductive. Is that really what you think they're trying to say?

It's what they said: as written, it generates a high volume of replies saying the same thing, namely, that the posts are extremely reductive. But do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, curious for your thoughts.

It's not actually what they said as written though. Your quotes do not come from their post, they reflect your own interpretation. I'm suggesting that this interpretation differs from my own and what I assume is the original posters intent. (FWIW, they say the same thing.)

I also don't interpret the other replies here to be saying the same thing as you. They're discussing the idea that getting caught trying to have an affair (that happens to be fake) has interesting parallels with getting caught trying to buy drugs (that happen to be fake). You're accusing the poster of trolling.

I appreciate the feedback.

Looking at the other comments for a 3rd time, it's clear I'm not the only one expressing skepticism.

I can't find any more to discuss here, it would feel awkward sitting in a side thread, where no one else is engaging, scrapping over how to sort other people's comments. ex. people saying the follow up analogy is flawed doesn't say "I agree with jpohhhh", so someone looking to police here should feel they can validly.

And I don't like arguing with the cops, never goes well afaik :)

A bit like the Silk Road guy that thought he was murdering people, but it was being faked by the FBI.

Was it even the FBI that faked the murdering? I read a pretty long story about the guy and to me it sounded more like one or more people were scamming him for money, and then the same group of people posed as someone else and scammed him twice this time by among other things making it seem like they had murdered the people that scammed him for him.

IIRC the FBI flipped at least one of the moderators and faked a murder, along with picture “proof” that they staged.

You are right though, I believe others were scamming him too.

Casefiles has an excellent three-part podcast on it.

or how they simulated an arms sale and then lost track of the guns

> A lot of prominent people were brought down by it

Source? Don't recall this at all.

> it's treated...they were talking to real partners...presumably because that's...salacious

There's stigma against cheating that isn't mitigated by failing at it.

men attracted to the idea of women who are cheating are not themselves precisely cheating. there are some who would wish to stigmatize this, but other (men) who would not.

As a man, if I found out my partner was flirting with guys at the bar every weekend without my knowledge or consent, even if she didn't go home with any of them, I'd still stigmatize the hell out of that.

Hopefully you aren't married. There's a HUGE difference between "flirting" and "fscking."

I know. I don't care. I don't want a partner who to all observers (myself included) appears to be trying to cheat.

My bare minimum relationship standard is a partner who does neither, and I hold myself to the same standard.

Flirting is healthy and isn't even remotely cheating. There's also a difference between flirting and trying to pick somebody up. I'm afraid your thinking is why so many marriages are failing today.

I strongly agree with you, but I want to add that each relationship is different and people have the freedom to set their boundaries as they wish (they as in plural; the people who are in the same relationship decide together where the boundaries are).

What I'm trying to say is, it's okay if the person you are responding to wants more strict boundaries than the rest of us. If flirting is cheating to them, then it is and that's that.

I'll concede that point. I guess I just don't understand why people are so possessive of their spouses and won't let them live a little.

For many people, if not most, the line is fuzzy enough to still be hurt by flirting. Just because it doesn't bother you doesn't mean it won't bother others/your partner.

There IS an important distinction to be had between flirting and being friendly, though. Being friendly and even laughing at a joke is not flirting without the intent.

The slogan of Ashley Madison was “Life is short. Have an affair.”

So the assumption should be that most of the real people on the site whether they are the man or the woman, are in a relationship with someone IRL but went to AM because they wanted to cheat.

They ask you about your relationship status so probably the leaked data can tell us how many reported being in a relationship vs not. (But also keep in mind people might lie about it, in either direction.)

One I can think of off the top of my head is John Barilaro, ex-deputy premier of New South Wales, Australia.

Don't know how "prominent" they were, except maybe in their own lives. There are a few lists online. E.g. [1] lists people like Josh Duggar and Hunter Biden as people who were on the site. (I don't think either of them were "brought down by it" though.

I think there were certainly lots of other people who were less world famous but prominent in their own businesses or communities. Wikipedia goes into it a little, and notes that there were at least two suicides following it. [2]

1. https://www.sportskeeda.com/us/shows/which-celebrities-expos...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Madison_data_breach#Imp...

> Taking it one step further: Apparently the millions of male users were unable to tell this site apart from any of the "legitimate" dating sites like Tinder.

When LLMs and gen AI started to become somewhat competent, I began wondering if a TikTok style app with 100% "AI" generated content could be successful.

Most people here laughed at the idea, but reading things like this makes me think that it will become a thing.

Isn't this the nature of most "dating" apps/sites?

Men need the illusion of the service having many women members in order to join & pay.

Therefore..

No. Tinder and similar actually make dates happen, a lot.

There are even a few niche ones where only the women can start a “match”.

Bumble was famous for only women starting a match but, like the rest of the online dating industry, Bumble has had a dramatic drop in participation in the last few years. There was this incident which got a lot of press

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz4xx2rw0leo

there was less press that they had given up on the "women make the first move" paradigm just before that

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/30/tech/bumble-relaunch-men-make...

In the last 10 years, I've noted when couples mention that they met on Tinder. It's getting to 50% ! This isn't necessarily married couples, but established relationships (1yr+), nonetheless.

I met my wife on Tinder. In some countries Tinder is less a hookup app and actually a dating app.

I also met my wife on Tinder. Although to be fair it was initially a FWB thing that quickly turned into more.

Are you saying that when couples note how they met without being prompted, it is approaching 50% total over the last 10 years? That would imply that there is a significant increase currently over 10 years ago when you first started noting this matter in order to get close to 50% now.

I also have to assume that a factor that would need to be investigated is whether it isn’t simply that people who met on tinder like telling people that for some reason, possibly because they are the transgressive, rotating door, “hookup culture” types that would have a proclivity for using something like Tinder.

> Are you saying that when couples note how they met without being prompted, it is approaching 50% total over the last 10 years?

I was not specific about when I asked or if it was unprompted. I qualify that the relationship has to have begun <10 years ago.

I don't doubt that this could be true. I also don't doubt that your comment could have been generated by a tinder-bot.

With hundreds of reasonable non-Tinder related comments going back to 2018? https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Supermancho

I agree that the comments are too high in quality to have been generated by a bot.

Also, no mentions of Tinder in any of the other of this last 30 comments.

I'm not saying no one is finding matches on these sites.

I am pointing out that this not the first or the last "dating" site to inflate female numbers with bots to keep men engaged.

Also, it didn't require verification, so if you wanted, you could sign up any email address for it. And they would charge to delete the account. Which they didn't do regardless.

So if you wanted to mess with someone, you could sign up their business email to Ashley Madison and have them receive regular notifications of "hot, married women in their area who are down to clown".

Tinder had only been around for three years when AM was hacked. Presumably a lot of the data predates Tinder. Ashley Madison had been operating for ten years by that point

This is just another example of the massive loneliness epidemic in today's world.

If there is enough value in basic chat bots for the people using that site, this is a sad state of affairs (pun fully intended).

It really doesnt have anything to do with a loneliness epidemic.

There wasn’t enough value in the basic chat bots, the idiots using the site considered that basic chat as a prelude to IRL sex with a real woman, a goal tempting enough to presumably blinker them to how basic the chat was. All of which is to say: no value, 100% scam.

But a low effort scam, back then chat gpt was not a thing. They could at least connect the user among each other, censor/cutting conversations as soon as they reveal ones gender .. basically grindr, but with a scam on top.

This would be more obviously fake than a chatbot: the way women respond on dating apps is very different from the way men do, and would be noticeable instantly, whereas a few scripted chat bot lines may not be.

A low effort chatbot is an accurate representation of the type of responses most men are used to from women on dating sites. This is not a misogynistic comment or snark, but a result of the fact that women tend to have a large number of people messaging them.

You may well be correct but I don’t think it’s that relevant here. Dating sites were much less prevalent when AM was at its peak and presumably the average user married (and left the dating pool) years before that peak, even.

I just don’t buy that there were that many AM users thinking “this checks out with my prior experience in dating sites so it’s plausible”. They just weren’t thinking critically at all.

I disagree- it will also check out with their real world experience. Most men are used to women being cagey, aloof, and showing low interest in real life. They will assume they either need to try harder to interest her, or that she is playing “hard to get.”

Your precious comment might not have been misogynistic but you’re rapidly approaching it here. As a man I can’t say I am “used to women being cagey and aloof”. There are plenty of cagey and aloof people out there in the world, I don’t see anything gender specific about it.

Just like above, this is not a negative statement about women but about understanding how their experience is different. Women are used to being approached and pursued by men that they usually aren’t interested in, and might even be dangerous. A positive response would invite more unwanted attention. An attractive women in a crowded public space is often experiencing men trying to initiate some type of interaction (often aggressively so) every few minutes.

Men’s experience with women also varies a lot depending on how they look, and their social skills among other things.

I think at least everyone can agree to a less controversial statement: The user experience of a (heterosexual) dating site is vastly different for men than it is for women, just as the experience of IRL courting is vastly different for man than it is for women.

presumably if the chat bot was too erudite that would be off-putting to the man

In other words, the same value as porn or romance novels, just without knowing it. But those things do have value given that people pay for them knowingly.

No. Did you read the GP? When you buy a romance novel, you don't think a real life person is going to come out of it and romance you. It's a transparent fiction.

Yes, but porn and romance novel buyers know what they pay for. The AM users did not.

fantasy is fantasy, it's what humans do. it's not a key element of a story that "this isn't real!", quite the opposite.

The point is that AM was not selling fantasy. They were selling the potential of real world hookups.

> the same value as porn or romance novels, just without knowing it

It’s the “just without knowing it” part that makes it the scam.

It isn't loneliness, just sex. That market has been around a very long time. Virtually every product advertised to men suggests the product might lead to sex, be them the pretty girls selling trucks/beer, or the bikini-clad models on the beach in every travel commercial. Ashley-Madison just cut out the pretense. Rather than buy the fancy car in hope of sex, men just paid a smaller amount for the hope alone. Dreams have value.

I agree, but would say it’s even far deeper than that. It’s the toxic culture that dangles images of baked women and values of transgression rather than how to communicate and build a healthy emotional relationship with someone that may not be perfect, among other things.

If I recall the A.M. ads and site image correctly, it was also full of some hot woman with lush lips and skin showing, which is just an echo of the image men have in their minds, i.e., “I too can get that hot woman that the guy in fantasy world in the TV has”, when it was really even more than the journalist realized. It wasn’t just a bot farm, it was actually a male farm that harvested and monetized male dissociation from their environment and biological imperative.

> baked women

Sounds like you're mixing it up with 420Dates :)

I mean, these are presumably married men who were using it. So the problems might be a little more nuanced than just pure loneliness.

There is loneliness in marriage, sometimes.

No need to read the "article" behind the clickbait content. New Scientist is a rag. This comment has all the article content, and is wholly unsurprising to anyone who used any dating sites and saw scame site ads over the past 20 years.

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