The Fappening / leaked celebrity photos

Beginning August 31, 2014, hackers posted hundreds of stolen private nude photographs of female celebrities—obtained through targeted phishing of Apple iCloud accounts—affecting more than 100 victims including Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst, and Kate Upton. The images first surfaced on 4chan before being widely redistributed, and Reddit became a primary hub through the subreddit r/TheFappening, which drew enormous traffic, reportedly tens of millions of views within days, and overwhelmed the site with takedown requests.

Reddit shut down r/TheFappening on September 7, 2014, citing the volume of DMCA copyright claims, the impossibility of keeping reposted images down, and rule violations including nude images of a minor (gymnast McKayla Maroney). CEO Yishan Wong defended the delay in his "Every Man Is Responsible For His Own Soul" post, framing removal as a response to legal pressure rather than moral objection. The episode intensified scrutiny of Reddit's hands-off moderation and directly fed into the company's February 2015 policy banning involuntary pornography. Several perpetrators were later prosecuted under federal computer-fraud statutes.