We may have seen a classic case of karma yesterday. You may recall that the most famous name to come out of the Ashley Madison hack was none other than Josh Duggar. Well, yesterday, the cheaters’ haven confirmed what has been suspected since last summer—Duggar, and several other male cheaters, may not have been talking to real women after all.
In their first public statement since taking over Ashley Madison parent Avid Life Media three months ago, CEO Rob Segal and president James Millership revealed that Ashley Madison had indeed utilized “fembots” to make male members think they were actually on the verge of nabbing an affair. According to an Ernst & Young review, Ashley Madison stopped using febots disguised as American, Canadian and Australian women in 2014. However, it didn’t shut them down elsewhere until 2015.
We first learned about Ashley Madison’s fembot army soon after the hack, when Gizmodo revealed that Ashley Madison operated over 70,000 fembots, or “engagers” as they were called inside the company. Some of those bots were used in a premium service for men who wanted a “guaranteed affair.” These fembots wrung the men for credits before handing them off to a third party who connected them to an actual woman.
Segal and Millership have said that they wanted assurances that all bots were deactivated before they took over the company. It may not be enough to save Avid Life Media from getting in deep doo-doo. The FTC is investigating Avid Life, and while the focus isn’t unclear, it’s nailed at least one dating company in the past for using fembots.
So a guy who was cheating on his now-wife soon after they were engaged and kept looking for hookups after they got married may have actually been talking to a bot. Frankly, it would serve him right.