YouTube battling 'Porn Day' campaign

YouTube was busy deleting porn videos on Wednesday after users of forums at a rival site and an imageboard site declared a "Porn Day" campaign against the popular video service.

The forums at video site eBaum's World and 4chan organized the mass porn "carpet bombing" on YouTube, according to Ars Technica.

YouTube has been removing the videos as fast as it can, but even videos that are removed are still showing up in search results with explicit images in the thumbnails, the report said.

"It could take a couple of days for all the explicit results to be removed from the search results," Google spokesman Scott Rubin told Ars Technica.

In a phone interview with CNET News late on Wednesday, Rubin said that in addition to the porn videos were removed as soon as community members alert YouTube to them, certain channels where the posters were bragging about the campaign and listing the videos were being disabled.

"This group of pranksters thought it would be funny to load a bunch of porn to YouTube," he said. "This is an unfortunate, and I think poorly directed, prank. I think our systems are doing really well at removing content that violates the guidelines."

Twitter Porn Names Scam

Social networking site Twitter's current top trending topic (things that are twittered the most by user members) has a security hole. The hole is no technical snafu, rather it traces back to human error or sneaking social engineering.

The "twitter porn names" game is a fun distraction that gives you and your friends something to tweet about. However it is actually nothing more then a disguise to get users to publicly post answers to your own online security questions. With that information Web scoundrels can hack into your personal online accounts.

The current game has a few variations but the information it illicit is all the same. To find your "porn name" you are asked to take the name of your first pet, combine it with the street you grew up on or your mother's maiden name. Yep, all of these are common security questions to access your online accounts and bank information.

Be wary of this and other combinations of the game that might entice you to reveal potential answers to your security questions. Be sure to pass along the information to your friends if they have been unwittingly providing answers to their security questions.

If you have publicly revealed answers to your online security questions delete the post, change your passwords, and updating your security questions.

Mother criticizes American Apparel store for displaying pornographic magazine

A West Vancouver mother says she is angry a popular clothing store has openly displayed a pornographic magazine featuring explicit homoerotic images.
Trina Campbell contacted CBC News here in Canada on Tuesday and said she and her 13-year-old daughter saw the magazine sticking out of a backpack on display inside the American Apparel outlet at the Park Royal Shopping Centre in West Vancouver.

"I pulled it out and I went to open it and it flipped open to a double-page spread of two men having full-on sexual activity, not just suggestive," Campbell said.

"I don't think this is something that the average person wants to see unless they're ready or going out of the way to see it."

The quarterly magazine, BUTT, focuses on homosexuality, and it is available for sale worldwide.

Campbell said she complained to store staff, who said it was a head-office decision to put the magazine in the display.

It was reported by CBC News that repeated calls to American Apparel's U.S. head office were made, but were not returned on Tuesday.

Staff at the Park Royal mall's American Apparel outlet said they sell the magazines only to people with identification to prove they are over 18, and they keep the magazines behind the counter.

"This was right there, and whether we had to produce ID to purchase it or not, we didn't have to produce ID to look at it, and it was too easily accessed," Campbell said.

A spokesperson for the Park Royal Shopping Centre said there's little mall management can do about how a store displays its products, as long as it is acting legally.

The spokesperson added that mall officials spoke to the American Apparel store once, requesting the magazines to be put in a more discreet location.

West Vancouver, like many B.C. cities, has a bylaw regulating the display of adult publications. They must be on a shelf at least 1.2 metres up from the floor and must be behind a sheet of opaque plastic.

I'm very open-minded about issues of freedom, liberties, sexuality, and the like. I'm not against the sale of such material in a clothing store.

But I have to agree with the mother in this case. She's absolutely right. As a consumer, I like to have the freedom to access mature material - but as a consumer, she has the right not to be exposed to it if she doesn't like.

It's like smoking - you have the right to smoke, but I have the right not to have to smell it at the next table. Please smoke in the appropriately designated place.

The magazine should be accessible to 18 upon request, and/or displayed in a room or on a shelf where there is a clear sign - "The material within contains explicit sexual content."

Remember - we have to respect people's right to define their own sense of decency, and as a mother, she has every responsibility to maintain decency for her child until she's an adult. We'd all be up in arms about what a bad mother she was if she didn't care about what her daughter was exposed to.

However, I would never dream of going into a store and disturbing one of their displays. Most often there are clear signs in the stores not to touch the displays.
This mother goes into a clothing store and sees a display which includes a backpack with a magazine sticking out of it. She takes the magazine out, opens it up and sees "filthy pictures". That's where she sort of loses out on her argument...the magazine was NOT openly displayed...it was in a display. Does this woman make a regular practice of taking things out of store displays? Having worked in retail, I am generally in favor of the rules that ban this sort of magazine from being openly displayed..But before she decided to take the magazine out and "flip through it" and finding "pornographic material" shouldn't her first clue have been the title on the cover, BUTT? was she expecting it to be a catalog of the store items? What she should have done (if she really wanted to disturb the display, instead of just leaving it) is take the magazine, and hand it to a salesperson in the store.

But she is right as a parent, I would not want my children seeing that while out shopping with them either. that's part of being a good parent. good for her for bringing this to light. totally inappropriate.
A magazine with 2 people engaging in a full on sex act is not a magazine depicting a loving scene that children should witness.

This story also seems to have some twists and turns to it...

- A mother and a 13 year old girl go shopping at an apparel store. (fair enough)

- They find a porn magazine in back pack on display. Apparel is clothing. So this a clothing store. Now a backpack is little out of place in most clothing stores but not something you'd never expect to find in one though. Ok this still makes sense so far, somewhat anyways.

- The way I read it, is that the head office says they put the decision to put the magazine on display like this. (hey, all companies have head offices that make some decisions for them that don't always seem to make sense...moving along...)

- Next they say they are selling the magazine behind the counter. I thought this was a clothing store not magazine store? porn magazines are the last thing I expect to see sold in clothing store unless it's one of those store where 13 year old kids aren't allowed into (most clothing stores don't even sell thongs or real skimpy lingerie).

So is this store a clothing store, adult shop or magazine retailer? If it is just a clothing store, what clothing store sells porn to go along with pants?

From the first part of the story, it sounded like someone just slipped the magazine in the display. By the end you it sounds like a magazine shop that sells porn like any other shop.
Also, The magazines are supposed to be located behind the counter (even with that, most people have a hard time asking for condoms that are behind a counter, I can't imagine someone walking up to the counter, where there's nothing else like this sold in the store, and having to ask for one of these magazines) . So if it was on display out in the shop in a back pack I again think some prankster shoved the magazine in there thinking it would be funny.

Thoughts???

Porn industry seeking federal bailout

As the global financial crisis continues...Another major American industry is asking for assistance: Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said today that they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry.

“The take here is that everyone and their mother want to be bailed out from the banks to the big three,” said Owen Moogan, spokesman for Larry Flynt. “The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion. Is it the most serious thing in the world? Is it going to make the lives of Americans better if it happens? It is not for them to determine.”

Francis said in a statement that “the US government should actively support the adult industry's survival and growth, just as it feels the need to support any other industry cherished by the American people."

“We should be delivering [the request] by the end of today to our congressmen and [Secretary of the Treasury Henry] Paulson asking for this $5 billion dollar bailout,” he says.

Flynt and Francis concede that the industry itself is in no financial danger — DVD sales have slipped over the past year, but Web traffic has continued to grow.

But the industry leaders said the issue is a nation in need. "People are too depressed to be sexually active," Flynt said in the statement. "This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex."

"With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It's time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly."

Larry Flynt is probably not completely serious about his request (probably? maybe? hopefully??).
I think his point is that the government is bailing out industries and companies which should never have been bailed out. There has been a very bad precedent put in place by the federal government.

As of right now, there has been no congressional reaction to the request.

I'm still going to ask, as I have in the past.... WHERE'S MY BAILOUT????

China targets Web sites with porn content

China has released a blacklist of 19 major online portals and Web sites, including Google and Baidu, that it claims provide and spread pornographic or obscene content, state media reported.

The move comes as several Chinese government agencies, including the Ministry of Public Security, launch a month-long campaign to clean up the Web, according to Xinhua news agency.

"The government will continue to expose, punish or even shut down those infamous Web sites that refuse to correct their wrongdoing," Cai Mingzhao, deputy director of the State Council Information Office, said Monday at a teleconference.

"Immediate action is needed to purify the Internet environment," Cai added, according to Xinhua.

Authorities accused the portals, including Sina, Sohu and Netease, and the Web sites of either providing links to pornographic sites or failing to take down pornographic pictures after being notified by the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center.

The center said Google in Chinese had provided "a large number of links to porn Web sites" in search results for web pages and images. The center said it notified Google, but the company did not take any effective steps, according to Xinhua.

Cui Jin, a spokeswoman for Google China, told Xinhua that Google did not spread such items intentionally.

"Google is neither the owner of those Web sites and porn nor does it spread (that) information intentionally," she said.

By the end of June 2008, China had more than 253 million Internet users, Xinhua reported.

China has come under criticism for restricting Web access to ordinary citizens as well as on local and foreign media covering last year's summer Olympics in Beijing.

The U.S. State Department noted in a 2008 report that China had increased its efforts to "control and censor the Internet, and the government had tightened restrictions on freedom of speech and the domestic press" and bloggers.

In an interview seen on CNN in September 2008, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said, "the freedom of Internet in China is recognized by many, even from the West."

"Nonetheless, to uphold state security, China, like many countries in the world, has also imposed some proper restrictions. That is for the safety, that is for the overall safety of the country and for the freedom of the majority of the people."

China targets Google in crackdown on pornography

China has launched a major crackdown on Internet pornography, targeting popular online portals and major search engines such as Google.

Seven government agencies will work together on the campaign to "purify the Internet's cultural environment and protect the healthy development of minors," according to an announcement on the government's official Chinese-language website, china.com.cn.

Pornography is banned in China, though the government's Internet police struggle to block Web sites based abroad.

The government announcement said Google and Baidu, China's two most heavily used search engines, had failed to take "efficient" measures after receiving notices from the country's Internet watchdog that they were providing links to pornographic material.

The statement also named popular Web portals Sina and Sohu, as well as a number of video sharing sites and online bulletin boards, that it said contain problematic photos, blogs and postings.

It said violators will be severely punished, but did not give details or say how long the campaign will last.

A Google spokeswoman in China, Cui Jin, defended the site's operations, saying it does not contain any pornographic content.

"If we find any violation, we will take action. So far, I haven't seen any examples of violations," Cui said.

Baidu did not immediately return an e-mail seeking comment, and phones at Sina and Sohu rang unanswered.

China has the world's largest population of Internet users with more than 250 million. The central government has blocked access to many websites it considers subversive or too political, including The New York Times' website on Dec. 19. It was unblocked a couple days later and remained open Monday.

Beijing loosened some media and Internet controls during the 2008 Summer Olympics -- gestures that were meant to show the international community that the games had brought greater freedom to the Chinese people. During the August games, China allowed access to long-barred Web sites such as those of the British Broadcasting Corp. and Human Rights Watch. Those Web sites remained open Monday.

In the past the Foreign Ministry has defended China's right to censor Web sites that have material deemed illegal by the government, saying that other countries regulate Internet usage, too.

Chinese Internet porn sensation detained by police

A Shanghai woman who became an online sensation after posting a homemade pornographic film of herself on the Internet has been detained in Shanghai, according to state media.

The 12-minute-video showed the woman, surnamed Huang, performing "sex acts," the official China Daily said in its weekend edition, without elaborating further.

"It soon became one of the most popular downloads on the mainland, with thousands of people downloading it last month," the report cited the local police as saying in a statement.

The woman set up a blog, hoping to profit from her notoriety and sell interviews with herself for up to 30,000 yuan (approximately $4,383) a time, the newspaper said.

Despite the police's best efforts, the video is still available online, it added, without saying what penalty the woman may have to pay.

Pornography is illegal in China, although it is widely available on pirated DVDs throughout the country, as well as on the Internet.

Anyone know where this video is located? I sure couldn't find it!