Netflix True Crime Series Exposes Shocking Story Behind Scandalous Dating Site
Since the streaming service was founded, Netflix has all but cornered the market on hard-hitting documentaries and docuseries, with dozens of new informative films dropping on the site each year. One of the streamer’s latest docs, Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal, brings the true story of the landmark Ashley Madison data breach to the Netflix platform, with tons of informative interviews, fascinating deep-dives, and nearly 10 years of hindsight to explain how it all went wrong.
The three-part series, which is streaming on Netflix today, fully lives up to its name by offering a positively scandalous breakdown of the site’s rise and fall.
Ashley Madison Was A Dating Site, With A Twist
For those of you who don’t know, Ashley Madison was a dating and social networking service that originally launched in 2002. Unlike standard dating apps like Tinder or Hinge, which allow you to make connections with like-minded singles in your area, Ashley Madison came loaded with a disgusting gimmick: the site was designed for married people to have an affair.
As the Ashley Madison documentary on Netflix explains, the site, which obviously relied heavily on protecting the privacy of its users, was hit with a massive data breach in 2015, which held disastrous consequences for everybody involved.
A Problematic Business Model
The first episode of the Ashley Madison docuseries on Netflix focuses primarily on the site’s rise, showcasing its unabashed marketing strategies including the slogan “Life is short, have an affair.”
Needless to say, the site’s advertisements garnered significant push-back from reporting outlets and the general public, as people expressed disgust at the notion of a business entity intentionally encouraging adultery. The legitimacy of the site is also called into question, as millions of users surreptitiously sign up to speak to other unhappily married minglers in their area.
The Highly-Public Downfall Of Ashley Madison
As the Ashley Madison Netflix documentary continues, the second episode explains, through dramatizations and interviews with real users, how the website came to suffer one of the largest cyber attacks in the history of dating services.
The hack exposed the user data of more than 37 million people, destroying their already-strained marriages, and sending financial institutions into a frenzy as droves of users rushed to change their compromised credit card info. In the third and final installment, the hackers had heel-turned and targeted the CEO of the morally ambiguous dating service, putting the nail in the coffin for the site as we once knew it.
Surprisingly, There Are Still Plenty Of Subscribers
Shockingly, Ashley Madison is still around today, though some nations have rallied against establishing servers within their borders, due to the site’s blatant disregard for family values and traditional morals.
Those looking to embark on extramarital affairs in places like Singapore must only do so the old fashioned way, by simply lying about their relationship status to a gullible partner in person. As Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal on Netflix explains in their final episode, the site now maintains over 60 million active users, who engage in an estimated one million affairs per month.
Stream The Ashley Madison Docuseries On Netflix
GFR SCORE
Those interested in catching Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal can stream the docuseries on Netflix today. I found the series to be especially informative, as I had only a passing familiarity with the scandal before checking it out. Putting actual faces of the Ashley Madison users impacted by the breach made the story far more compelling than I ever could have imagined, and the docuseries overall serves as a highly effective cautionary tale for internet privacy.
