Images of factory worker abuse have been around since long before any of us were born. If you think about the industrial revolution in America, you will realize that the modern society we enjoy today was built in the backs of exploited factory workers. While it is true that this may not be a necessary evil, it is an evil many societies have had to endure in the name of building a stronger nation.

Remember when “made in Japan” conjured negative images in our heads? I do, and I don’t believe that is the case anymore. Today, Japan is highly regarded for its machinery and transportation exports. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea have all followed suit and used sweatshop tactics to build their economies. Essentially these nations were hungry and wanted to grow. Some business is better than no business and revenue, regardless of how it’s generated, builds the infrastructure and social programs that characterize a developed nation.

In china citizens flock to employment agencies to except Foxconn jobs because they are not presented with many other viable options for earning a paycheck to feed their families and keep clothing on their backs. Hopefully, none of us want to see others suffer, but we have been blessed in this country because, our forefathers did the work for us. We have the government resources to protect us from employer abuse because, somewhere along the way, somebody sacrificed so we could have it.

Since 1979 when China decided to embraced capitalism nearly 600 million people have escaped starvation and poverty by choosing to take employment in sweatshop-like environments. A perfect example is the Chinese village of Shenzhen. They were one of the first areas to embrace China’s economic reforms and to begin growing the economy. Thirty years later it is a city of 10 million people and a hotbed for manufacturing jobs.

If we take a lesson from history we can conclude that China is progressing very quickly and we may soon begin to see breakthroughs in the way they do business. I think America has a habit of forcing our politics onto other nations before they are ready for them. Sometimes you just need to allow something the freedom to grow and choose its own path.

Consumers should realize that a forced change over in China will end in one of two ways. Either Apple will pull all of their contracts from China over the labor disputes and Chinese workers will be left with no jobs or Americans will have to suffer tremendous price increases. Is an iPod worth $800-$1200 to you? Will you pay $1600- $2500 for an iPad? That’s what manufacturing in developed nations costs and it will be passed on to the consumer.

Apparently not. AdAge is reporting that Twitter is in the process of ticking off more than a few of the hands that might feed them in the future. Of course, Twitter may now be in the position to tell anyone, paying now or possibly later, for their services that they will just have to wait until Twitter is good and ready. While the argument exists that they are truly that powerful it would be a shame that if they used that power as an excuse to ignore the needs of corporate clients.

AdAge reports

On Twitter’s @Hyundai page, there is a collection of 140-character blasts in English and Korean about oysters, cellphones and the Yankees. Clicking on a profile photo reveals a collage of scantily clad ladies bearing cleavage and more, and a caption saying, “Have a Lustful Day.”

This kind of stuff leaves the folks at Hyundai Motor America less than thrilled

After having contacted the social-media site’s headquarters repeatedly to evict the squatter without success, the frustrated automaker has gone so far as to contemplate legal action. “They simply haven’t responded to requests,” said Chris Hosford, VP-corporate communications at Hyundai Motor America. “Our brand name is extremely important to us. … We’re very disappointed that Twitter has shown no interest in protecting brand names.” Unable to use the handle, the company has resorted to sending out official company tweets from @HyundaiNews.

Ughh. The L word. No not that one you sick person but L for “legal”. Last thing any start up needs is the fun and games of legal issues to get in the way of putting together a better service and offering.

The article talks in greater detail about how celebrities have been afforded special badges but the corporate side of the ledger (you remember, the one that could make money) is left to fend for themselves for now. Twitter’s policies are there but there is no guarantee of remedy in a timely fashion so some companies are left to get creative. Of course, one could argue that a big brand being late to the game and not securing these names years ago is on the company. There are two sides to every coin, after all.

So what is Twitter doing, if anything?

Twitter’s head of commercial products, Anamitra Banerji, said, “We understand brands’ frustration when it comes to account verification. We are working on ways to make the process easier and faster …. Given the volume of requests we receive, sometimes it might take a little while to close requests but we are trying to improve that too.” The social-media service, he said, is “[working] with business owners extensively to ensure that they own their trademarks/brand names on Twitter as our terms of service doesn’t allow name-squatting or impersonation.”

Ahh yes. The old volume of requests complaint. That one might have worked when Twitter was the little start up that could but the recent influx of investment takes the air right out of that argument. HIRE SOME PEOPLE, TWITTER!

So it’s interesting to see that not everyone is bent out of shape on this issue

Not all marketers are ruffled, though. Pfizer doesn’t own the handle @Pfizer, and a mystery tweeter is regularity tweeting updates about the company. Ray Kerins, VP-worldwide communications at Pfizer, told Ad Age that the company isn’t planning to take any action. “We are obviously watching any site that discusses our company or our products,” Mr. Kerins said. “We’re going to continue to watch. These social communities are actually very self-policing.”

Wow, now there is either great confidence in the ability of people to keep the street clean or a level of naiveté that will end up badly when the next brand firestorm comes up for Pfizer and the fake account is at the center of it. Maybe the folks who make Viagra are suffering from one of those side effects than impair judgment. Just a thought.

What’s your experience with getting Twitter to help in these situations? Should Twitter care? Happy Monday Pilgrims, let’s hear it!

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Users can report things like community guidelines violations, privacy issues, sexual abuse, hateful content, suicide, cyberbullying, impersonating, spam and phishing, etc. They can also get tips about how to handle different situations.

"The center features straightforward safety tips and multimedia resources from experts and prominent safety organizations," says the YouTube Team. "We are empowering people with the information and tools they need to help them deal with issues like cyberbullying, online harassment, and hateful content.

YouTube has shown it really cares about abuse and safety lately. Apart from this, they have gotten stricter with their policy on sexually suggestive content, and encouraged users to report minor violence. Now users have a place to go when any problems arise, as well as a useful resource for keeping their YouTube experience wholesome. It should be very useful to protective parents.

The IWF have shared information about 2,092 child sexual abuse Web sites this year with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and Interpol for investigation and removal.

The IWF runs a hotline that offers assistance to all UK Internet users who run across images of children being sexually abused. Research by the group has revealed that one in 20 adult Internet users or 12.5 million people have been exposed to such images.

IWF CEO Peter Robbins said, "Our analysts witness the results of terrible sexual abuse being inflicted on very young children around the world and then circulated online."

"With the help of the online industry, the 28 Hotlines we work with around the world and our law enforcement colleagues, the public can help us to remove these websites and end the abuse that is perpetuated every time the images are viewed."

AOL, Google, MSN and Yahoo are just some of the companies helping to promote the IWF’s hotline, which allows Internet users to report child sexual abuse sites.

The IWF said of all the sites reported to them this year only one percent originated from a UK server, compared to 18 percent 10 years ago.

Confused? This should help:

1. Chris Knight creates a funny video as part of his campaign Rockingham County Board of Education.
2. Viacom’s VH1 takes the clip from YouTube and uses it in a VH1 segment, without Knight’s permission.
3. Knight’s flattered and uploads the VH1 clip to YouTube.
4. Viacom accuses Knight of copyright infringement and YouTube takes down the video.

Absurd? It doesn’t get any more ridiculous than that!

Knight is obviously feeling victimized by Viacom…

What does this mean for independent producers of content, if material they create can be co-opted by a giant corporation without permission or apology or compensation? When in fact, said corporations can take punitive action against you for using material that you created on your own?

That’s what’s happening to me right now, folks. Viacom is penalizing me for using my own original material, which they used without permission to begin with.

He says he doesn’t have the money to fight Viacom. Maybe Google could chip-in and help or perhaps the EFF might take up the cause.

Want to watch the VH1 clip?

via

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The No Nofollow Highs

Last week the No Nofollow | I Follow | Dofollow community on Bumpzee crossed the 100 member mark, and 100 blog mark. This week we are already up to 137 members and 132 blogs. What is more encouraging is that I see a lot of members actually using Bumpzee for browsing blogs.

Some interesting points:-

• 2nd Highest Number of blogs – the blogs were individually submitted to the community
• 4th Highest Number of Members – we could well overtake Jim’s How to be successful community in a couple of weeks.
• Many of the communities already overtaken have been established much longer

There are hundreds, even thousands of blogs I could add to the community, but I would really prefer people make the decision themselves.
Every blog included is vetted. I pick up lots of blogs that don’t have nofollow removed correctly, blogs made from affiliate datafeeds, blogs that are mainly resyndicated content, and even blogs with totally broken comment systems.

There are no requirement to use the Bumpzee widget to be listed, or the voting button, although blogs that do include the voting button do gain more traffic if their readers are Bumpzee aware.

If a blog doesn’t have a visibly active community, leaving comments on a regular basis, I am going to go snooping around and your chances of being included are reduced.

The community didn’t benefit from being the first on Bumpzee, such as the Affiliate Marketing community, and the first managed blogs such as the SEO/SEM, How To Be Successful, and Next Gen Marketing, the later communities I might add also had a few non-member blogs added.

The Lows – Dofollow Abuse

I suppose if you model yourself as the internet equivalent of Ghengis Kahn then the idea of charging people to have nofollow removed from their comments would be attractive, but I have noticed that many of John Chow’s readership (the grown up ones with money) don’t appreciate it.

If I was an advertiser buying reviews on Johns Blog, I would worry about how the quality of readership is deteriorating as his readership supposedly increases, though I am sure his readership will appreciate the male enhancement text ads.

Some of my readers have already been writing about this

Chris thinks this is a bit of a perversion of the Dofollow movement and goes on to say:-

Personally, there isn’t a blog on the planet that I would pay to have a followable comment link on, nor would I ever charge for one. Followable comment links are a nice thing to give away, but I just don’t feel there is any benefit at all to buying one. Well, apart from to Johns bank balance of course.

Webstractions gives lots of reasons why you shouldn’t pay for the links, and why you shouldn’t use the plugin John is selling on your own blog.

RT has actually already written twice about it, first of all in one of his drivebys where he said:-

After reading the news about it at Blog-Op and then reading the source article myself at John Chow dot Com, I’ve decided that John’s money-grabbing link whoring has turned me off for the last time. So much so that I’m removing his links from anything I have, including my feed reader. See ya later, John!

He later went into even more depth about John Chow:-

I may not have the best blog in the world (far from it) but I refuse to have it even remotely associated with bloggers that use or abuse their readers in any way, shape or form. Sure, their blogs are their blogs and they have the right to use them anyway they want. I’m sure it won’t bother them to lose just little old me as a reader, but if more people know and more people follow suit, I’m sure it’ll bother them a whole lot more.

The Paper Bull had equally strong words about John Chow

He can call it whatever he wants – but selling a $10 monthly membership to turn off the no-follow tag on comments is about as distasteful a scheme as I’ve seen in a while. Blogs are built upon conversation and are wholly dependent upon comments left by readers who valued the article enough to spend a few moments to tap out a response. Using comments as a means to extract coin is disgusting.

Reputation Management Lesson

Alienating your most valuable readers to gain more 13-year-old kids isn’t good practice.

Tip of the Nofollow / Dofollow Iceburg

Over the last 2 months the number of references to Dofollow shown in Google has increased by 50,000, and over the last 6 months it has more than doubled.
Whilst that is significant, I would love these isolated blogs to become part of the no nofollow community on Bumpzee where they can share their link love, and interact with blogs talking about similar subjects.

Only you can make it happen

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*Originally published at AndyBeard.eu

He’ll be 55 when he gets out, which is enough for angry fathers to plot a more fitting revenge (or maybe, with some luck, the government to understand pedophiles can’t be rehabilitated and need much more severe deterrents – 24 years isn’t enough – or maybe just enough to create a hardened criminal pedophile).

Kistler took on the name of his teenage ex-stepson, whose name is now forever sullied by his mother’s mistake, and told the girls he was too embarrassed to be on camera in his dying condition. He sent them instead pictures of Trevor, his former stepson.

His creepy antics went along smoothly until one victim landed herself in the hospital after a suicide attempt. Her harrowing testimony can be found at kgw.com. After duping her into pornographic acts on camera (they were "in love" she says), the girl began cutting herself, an act that was replaced by pot smoking.

When she was 13, she attempted suicide, and after a stint in the psychiatric hospital, she resumed her relationship with Kistler, who told her his friend had committed suicide because of her. And so, she tried to kill herself again.

Fortunately, she wasn’t very good at that.

Of the more heartbreaking parts of the testimony:

He took things from me that weren’t his to take; things that no one has a right to take from another human being.

I, all of a sudden, didn’t believe in God, because I thought if there was a God, why would he let this happen to me?

No, 24 years just isn’t enough.

Following a raid of Kistler’s residence, seized computers revealed various computer media containing sexually explicit images of minors – he secretly recorded all of his interactions with the underage girls. The creep admitted he knew his behavior was illegal and told federal agents that he had "always been a collector."

The case was prosecuted by trial attorney Steve Grocki of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity section of the Criminal Division and by Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Nyhus of the District of Oregon.

All of Kistler’s victims were ages 12-15.

With the NSLs, federal agents could collect telephone, Internet, financial, credit, and other personal records about Americans without the need for judicial approval. The vast amount of power that this gave the FBI became a major concern in Congress once the Justice Department came forward with its reports of how the system had been misused.

"Congress has already dedicated several hearings to the FBI’s abuse of investigative power and is thinking about how to prevent such abuses in the future," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann.

"But if there is going to be meaningful debate about this issue, we need more information than what the Administration chooses to make public, and we need it now."

The EFF filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act demanding that the FBI release all records pertaining to the NSL abuse, hoping that the information will spur meaningful and informed debate concerning the implications surrounding the government’s methods in gathering the personal data of ordinary American citizens.

"There are a lot of questions right now about the government’s integrity when it comes to domestic surveillance. The FBI must follow the law and release these records to the public," said EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel.
 
Considering that search records have been used in federal cases involving murder, any conversation about the topic of privacy has to be inclusive of online practices. ISPs are already selling clickstream data to third parties, and it’s doubtful that the government would have to do much arm-twisting to get their hands on that same information.

Tag:

Nate Anderson reports the Electronic Frontier Foundation – a nonprofit group that looks to protect digital rights and free speech – is suing Viacom for its misuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Among thousands of DMCA takedown notices sent out, is one of a Stephen Colbert parody video that the EFF claims doesn’t violate any copyright laws.

The video does contain clips from “The Colbert Report,” but the EFF argues that these qualify as fair use, since parody has a well-recognized copyright exemption. “Our clients’ video is an act of free speech and a fair use of ‘Colbert Report’ clips,” said EFF staff attorney Corynne McSherry in a statement…

We’ll keep an eye on this for you, as its important the courts recognize your rights to “fair use” of copyrighted content, otherwise, we’d all be in hot water.

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