I see a few comments sympathizing with the vigilantes behind this, implying that the exposed users had it coming. I am a bit sickened by this attitude, for several reasons. First of all, adultery is not illegal in the countries where most users of AshleyMadison are presumably residing, and even if it were, people could have used fake names which could implicate someone not actually associated with the site. This coul…
As for the "real users". I don't think the lack of sympathy stems from people's misunderstanding that extramarital affairs are not "illegal". Most marriages have an expectation of monogamy and most users of this site were doing so in order to enjoy that activity without getting caught. They were the ones who decided to engage in an activity that broke up their family and "destroyed lives". This just sped up the process of getting caught. Aside from the moral contract that was broken, the cheating spouse also exposed their partner to sexually transmitted diseases without their knowledge.
I think sites like this are despicable and people using them should expect that a site that caters to helping you "get away with things" is not a trustworthy place to do business. They actually charged $19 to have your profile "completely removed" and then didn't do what was paid for.
I don't condone "vigilante punishment" and a read of the comments seems focused more on the activities of the users than the condoning of how they were caught, but I completely understand the lack of sympathy. I doubt you'd see such a lack of sympathy if the site catered to helping individuals escape addiction or cope with mental illness -- where a similar desire for anonymity exists.
Two wrongs don't make a right, yes, but expecting the average married person to have a lot of sympathy for a site that caters to weak people who'd rather destroy their marriage than figure out how to be a good wife, husband, father or mother is a stretch. There are many corners of the internet that make a huge profit catering to vice that is not illegal but getting caught doing these things would have consequences outside of the law. Users engaged in that activity are choosing to accept the consequences and folks investing in sites like this need to fully understand that the site has a big red target on their back; it will probably be attacked successfully at some point in the future.
As an aside, why is it assumed that all cheaters are men? The "vigilantes" frustrated me most with the comment Too bad for those men, they’re cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion. Anecdotally, I know of several relationships broken up by infidelity. I doubt I'm alone, it seems to be the main reason that my friends' marriages end in divorce -- people don't like to be alone so rather than end their marriage, attempt to mature and figure out why they were so unhappy, they jump to another partner and start off a new relationship with no trust as the foundation. In my small dataset, almost all of the affairs were had by women.