Ex Ashley Madison employee reveals major issue with dating site’s name
If there's a sniff of a scandal, you know that Netflix producers are going to be all over it like a rash.
So when there's sex, lies, and a security breach involved too, you can bet your bottom dollar that the streaming platform is going to get the scoop on it - just as they have with the new series titled Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal.
Take a look at this:
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It's been a couple of weeks since the three-part documentary dropped and knocked Baby Reindeer off the top spot, exposed the truth behind the website for extramarital affairs and the effect the data leak had on it's users.
If you aren't aware already, Ashley Madison is a dating website specifically targeted towards married individuals who fancy having a fling that will stay secret - or so they thought.
As you can imagine, numerous marriages were destroyed and several people lost their jobs following the security breach, which made names and addresses of users public knowledge - while at least two people committed suicide due to it.
It wasn't just subscribers who's lives were turned upside down by the scandal though, as a former employee has now revealed what impact the fallout had on her, as well as discussing the company's questionable conduct over the years.
Sarah Symonds has opened up about her time working as a publicist for the controversial dating website after the damning Netflix documentary 'opened old sores' for her.
Speaking to The Sun, Symonds alleged that he asked her to go on dates with married men and to 'set up bogus profiles' to help entice people to sign up to the site, adding: "I found the whole thing sleazy and tawdry."
As well as claiming Biderman wanted her to contradict her job role by venturing into the 'murky area' of dating subscribers, while also acting as the firm's publicist, she has said that the entire company 'was a contradiction'.
Symonds said: "They told me they came up with the name ‘Ashley Madison’ because they were the two most popular children’s names at the time.
"Biderman’s whole mantra was to get men to sign up and get them to cheat, without thought for the consequences to families and kids."
Let's not forget, this is a bloke who also got caught cheating on his wife of several years when the Ashley Madison data breach went down too.
"He always had an answer as to how his site was ‘providing a service'," Symonds continued. "It was a horrible experience I am trying to forget."
The 54-year-old, from Newport, South Wales, explained that she was first approached by Ashley Madison in 2007 to represent the firm as they worked on expanding across the US and UK - and eventually worldwide.
She had been on Oprah to promote her book Having An Affair? A handbook for the Other Woman just beforehand, so you can see why ex-CEO and self-proclaimed 'King of Infidelity' Noel Biderman hit her up.
Luring subscribers in with the slogan 'life is short, have an affair', the company became the go-to place for unsatisfied husbands and wives to head to if they fancied a covert romp without breaking up their relationship.
Users got quite the rude awakening though when a cyberattack on Ashley Madison in 2015 ending up exposing the details of three million people - including well-known celebrities and politicians.
Topics: Jobs, Netflix, Sex and Relationships, Social Media, News
Olivia Burke