The trend for leaking celebrity photos that caught fire in 2014 and spread across the entire Internet has been getting even more serious, as now it seems that even little children aren’t safe from the leakers. Recently, photos of Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher’s baby were posted on the Internet, seemingly without the couple’s permission – and what’s worse, the photos looked quite personal and private, they didn’t seem like paparazzi shots or anything even remotely close to that.
In fact, publications that were sharing the photos seemed quite open to the fact that they were sharing leaked pictures of an underage person, violating the privacy of not only a little child but also its parents. According to the website that made the initial publication, the pictures originated from a holiday card that was circulating among family members, and was recently leaked without permission. And in fact, the publication’s writers seemed quite excited at the fact that they got their hands on such materials.
In the end, the story devolved into a game of trying to pass the blame around to others, although no matter who leaked the photos first, choosing to publish them is an entirely separate decision that bears its own responsibility. 2014 made it clear that many hackers have no respect for the privacy of celebrities, but it’s an alarming trend to see that even publications with some authority and “respect” are starting to take similar action, and are publishing content that they should realistically not even think about touching.
The problem with leaking celebrity photos has been getting more and more serious, despite the fact that the FBI and other organizations – both government and not – have joined in the battle against the hackers leaking the materials. Some seem to see the situation as a fun challenge, trying to get as many photos leaked and published before their sources get shut down – and this is a trend that should really not be celebrated.
The most alarming thought in this whole scenario is where things could end up. Once celebrities stop being such an attractive target for hackers, are they going to move on to regular people next? It might sound far-fetched, but in reality, it’s a perfectly valid scenario. Internet users should be very wary of their own actions, as enjoying this type of content and giving even more popularity to the people that leak it, is part of the problem. If there is nobody to consume the leaked pictures in the first place, they wouldn’t be getting leaked – and yet the situation is quite different from that, with articles about yet another leak regularly making the main headlines.