Why Is 'New York Magazine' Down?

On the same morning that New York Magazine unveiled a historic cover featuring 35 women who say they are victims of Bill Cosby — a handful of women accusing Cosby of the same crimes declined to be profiled for the magazine, but the vast majority are photographed on its cover — the New York Magazine website found itself unexpectedly down, meaning that when you logged on to read the story this morning, you probably weren't able to. Early Monday morning, New York Magazine tweeted: "Our site is experiencing technical difficulties. We are aware of the issue, and working on a fix." As of Monday morning, the site has not returned. (Update: As of noon Monday, the site is back up.)

Why? Well, New York Magazine hasn't confirmed that the site was hacked, but the Daily Dot reports that a hacker has downed the site — not because of the cover, the Daily Dot adds, but because the hacker just really hates New York. Right. It's also theoretically possibly that the influx of traffic to the site caused by the Cosby story played a hand in the site's being down.

The full issue is in stores now, so if you're growing frustrated with the site's refusal to load, you can head out and pick up a print copy of the same article. Alternatively, you could access New York Magazine through its iPad edition, which is still good to go. The magazine also Tweeted that you can see clips via Instagram.

The cover is a powerful testament to the stories of the 40-plus women who allege they were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Bill Cosby, often through the use of what they say was the sedative Quaaludes. Cosby's team has always denied the allegations, but this summer an Associated Press-obtained court deposition revealed Cosby admitting in 2005 that he'd purchased Quaaludes to use for the purpose of having sex with women. Additionally, a damning New York Times report in July featuring another unveiled deposition saw Cosby boasting about his sexual conquests, often with young and impressionable women. (He did not admit to rape in that deposition.)

Due to the statute of limitations, it's unlikely Cosby will ever be charged with any crime in almost all cases — but, given the rapidly rising allegations against him, it's also extremely unlikely he'll ever come close to restoring his reputation.

Image: New York Magazine