nowthatsfuckedup.com

nowthatsfuckedup.com was a controversial website depicting corpses in kill zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. It existed from February 2004 until April 2006, when it was shut down under Florida obscenity laws.

Often known by its initials NTFU, it had an initial focus on user-contributed amateur pornography until it adopted a novel business model whereby U.S. military personnel, unable to use their credit cards due to the point-of-sale being located in high-risk regions and wary of repercussions from their superiors, could gain access to the site's content in exchange for proof of military employment for free memberships. The first pictures submitted were soldiers posing with tanks and other harmless situations. As word spread of the free admittance, so-called trophy photos, or graphic depictions of corpses and other disturbing imagery direct from the kill zones in Iraq and Afghanistan began to be submitted. The site took on an idea of "bodies-for-porn."^[1]

After receiving national publicity, proprietor Christopher Wilson was arrested on 301 total charges, 300 misdemeanors and one felony, under Florida obscenity laws. Wilson hired the high-profile First Amendment law firm of Weston, Garrou,^[2] & DeWitt^[3] as well as received legal assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union and others; they eventually worked out a plea bargain with prosecutors. Under the deal, Wilson agreed to the closure of his business and not to work on any adult websites for five years, and pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges. The website operated for 90 more days, accepting logins from existing subscribers, before being taken over by the Polk County Sheriff.^[4]

See also

• First Amendment to the United States Constitution
• Obscenity Prosecution Task Force

Notes

1. Casualty of Porn, rollingstone.com
2. Firstamendment.com
3. Clydewitt.com
4. Wilson Will Avoid Jail In Plea Deal, Theledger.com

References

• Andén-Papadopoulos, Kari (2009): «Body Horror on the Internet: US Soldiers Recording the War in Iraq and Afghanistan» Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 31(6), 921–928.
• Eastbayexpress.com
• George Zornick, The Porn of War, The Nation October 10, 2005 (web only)
• Dana Wilhoit, "War, Porn Web Site Creator Arrested" The Ledger October 8, 2005
• John Oates, "Porn and Gore man arrested", The Register October 10, 2005
• Rolling Stone, casualty of porn, December 5, 2005
• Firstamendment.com
• CNN.com
• Theage.com

Original site

• Nowthatsfuckedup.com was redirected to a page on the Polk County Sheriff's Office website explaining that "The Polk County Sheriff’s Office now maintains this URL to prevent further transmission of obscene material."

Known archives

• Selected photographs from Nowthatsfuckedup.com
• Last top-level crawl at the Wayback Machine from February 9, 2006. (Mostly skeletal; forum posts, and contributed photos do not appear to have been archived on some pages.)
• pdf of book published in Norway 2011, containing material from the original website.