What is “The Fappening”?

The brilliant name given to the current celebrity nude leak scandal as coined by a group of basement dwellers, men who’ve pretty much admitted to the world that the closest they’ll get to sexual fulfillment is getting off on the humiliation and shaming of famous women.

Congratulations.

The subreddit named for the gross invasion of privacy was recently shut down by Reddit.

Not because it was wrong to aid in the repeated emotional and sexual violation of total strangers. No, they warbled something about freedom of speech and a new kind of community.

Read the complete statement and waiving of any moral responsibility as the people who run the website here.

The “you make Reddit good or bad, we just work here” commentary is both fascinating and somewhat appalling.

Just another reminder that if you downloaded the McKayla Maroney nudes, you're currently in possession of child porn. http://t.co/uCijWDKQqg

— Crushable.com (@crushabledotcom) September 4, 2014

Sure the folks over at Reddit are correct when they say you can’t get into legal trouble for merely linking to stolen material.

That doesn’t make it any less disturbing that the move to shut down the “Fappening” subreddit quite possibly didn’t come until after Reddit knew that they were staring down the barrel of a shotgun with celebrity lawyers and the FBI on the other side.

Perhaps even more interesting is that Reddit seems to be unaware of the fact that its need to be all things to all people could very well be its undoing.

And that of a good portion of the internet.

The Fappening has been banned from Reddit http://t.co/PiHrHP5sEc pic.twitter.com/HKqx2N9QqY

— James Cook (@JamesLiamCook) September 7, 2014

Let’s get back to that “it’s not illegal to link to stolen materials” thing.

The word missing from that statement is “yet”.

What could possibly hasten the closure of that legal loophole?

How about child porn? How about linking to underage nudes? How about the emotional and sexual violation of women over and over again by the same people beating their fist on the table about the “evil NSA”?

Say hello to men who hate the NSA but love invading the privacy of women. #icloud #reddit http://t.co/VkMCSQktSJ

— Per Koch (@perkoch) September 2, 2014

Reddit, 4chan and other so-called champions of a free internet are probably going to be what ends the sort of anonymity and ability to freely exchange information that many individuals enjoy. Even the law-abiding kind.

Somehow “fapping” outweighs the sort of common sense that could see grounds to close a huge loophole.

When that hole closes (and it will), one can only hope that the time spent alone in the dark by these individuals with just themselves and their right hands was well worth it.