In a bizarre sort of tribute to Jennifer Lawrence, while Redditors shared and viewed her stolen nude photos, they also donated to a a prostate cancer research charity in her honor. However, the Prostate Cancer Foundation returned the money, saying that to accept donations on those terms would be contrary to their standards.
A Redditor joked:
Guys, we’re literally worse than cancer.
The subreddit ‘the fappening’ quickly turned to a new idea: instead, they would donate to water.org. One Redditor posted, saying,
Since the PCF has returned donations I say we instead donate to water.org. Water is a fundamental human need and right and, since we all seem to be thirsty [redacted profanity], it seems like the place to go.
A page was set up for Reddit donations, but it didn’t last long. Links that used to lead to the Reddit donation page to water.org now merely lead to the site’s main page.
Clearly, the clean drinking water charity did not want to be associated with ‘the fappening’ either.
Water.org has made no public statement on the matter.
The ‘fappening’ subreddit erupted in debate over whether the charities are morally wrong to refuse the donations, with several admitting that they wouldn’t want to be publicly associated with ‘the fappening’ themselves, and recognizing that such an association would damage the image of a charity and turn away other donors.
Meanwhile, others argued that the charities had their priorities out of order and should be accepting any donations from any source.
Both charities still have donor pages that accept donations from individuals, and presumably have no problem with accepting donations from Redditors, including those involved in ‘the fappening,’ but accepting them as a mass donation directly associated with illegal hacking, data theft, and sexual violation of a number of women is a different thing.
[photo credit: pdxdiver via photopin cc]