According to TMZ, a user posted “inappropriate” comments on the FoxSports.com team page and was consequently banned. As this course of action probably makes sense among the high-brow denizens who frequent the WPN page, this particular commenter on FoxSports.com didn’t take kindly to being banned and so the troll proceeded to threaten to assault the Fox Sports folks. TMZ recounted the story so eloquently that I can’t possibly improve upon it so I’m just going to share their words here:

The LAPD is on the hunt for a cyber-douchebag who threatened to attack the people at FoxSports.com … all because they blocked the idiot from posting on their message board.

According to official police documents, Fox Sports later received a threatening message which the user sent to the “report abuse” tab … which read, “All you moderators are c**ksuckers and one day you are going to get your faces caved in to your brain.”

The message continued, “You think just because you do this over the Internet you cannot be located. You are wrong …. Watch your ass you f**king b*tches. I am coming for you …”

FoxSports.com security officials told police they were “extremely concerned for the safety” of the staff … and insisted they are “not taking this threat lightly.”

No word on what the “inappropriate comment” was that the troll posted that got them banned in the first place. As much as I want to dimiss these threatening comments as the hollow product of a trifling troll with too much time on their hands, I suppose FoxSports did the right thing in notifying the LAPD because the last thing any of us need is some disgruntled commenter spraying bullets inside the office of people who write things for the Internet – and all because their comment(s) got flagged.

Luckily, I and the rest of my fellow writers at WPN never have to worry about being on the receiving end of this kind of malice and violence.

…Right?

Unless you follow college football, you may not be aware of Tyler’s existence, at least until yesterday. But now, thanks to a video that’s blowing up on TMZ, coupled with the American public’s burning desire to watch football again, Marc Tyler is trending topic (in the public’s eye, not on Twitter). Before the video, a little background on Tyler: He’s a senior running back at the University of Southern California (USC), and he comes from professional football player stock, as his dad, Wendell Tyler, played in the NFL for 10 seasons.

Son Marc has simply following in dad’s successful footsteps, although, without the same degree of success. In fact, Tyler the Younger was already dealing with fallout for an alcohol-related incident. That pales to the degree of scrutiny Tyler faces now, thanks to the “look what fell in our laps” level of reporting from TMZ. The video in question:

USC, they breaking bread!

Screenshot:

Naturally, Tyler has issued the appropriate responses and insists his response was a joke. Nevertheless, Tyler’s father completely supports USC’s decision to discipline his son, based on direct comments on ESPN Radio this morning, as the lesson in dealing with people in the social media age is no doubt resonating throughout the Tyler household. Perhaps even more ironic is USC Head Coach Lane Kiffin’s response to the suspension:

“That is not the way that we expect our players to represent USC and our team,” Kiffin said in a statement, adding, “Although Marc may find this punishment severe, it is imperative we continue to have a high standard for player behavior.”

Ask Tennessee Volunteers fans about the high standard of behavior, especially in relation to a potentially-hypocritical head coach who ran from Knoxville like a thief in the night. It’s doubtful they’d find Kiffin’s response amusing in the least, but I digress.

As for Tyler, he’s just another in the ever-growing list of people who doesn’t seem to understand how to navigate through a social media-connected world. It probably shouldn’t be as difficult as the Marc Tylers and Kenny Britts make it, but here we are, once again.

Yesterday, TMZ caught Brown calling a TMZ cameraman “gay” after they caught him avoiding a parking ticket in Los Angeles. Brown obviously thought that TMZ had tattled on him for parking illegally and asked if TMZ called them and then tried to film the confrontation. He then said “Y’all n**gas is gay.”

Poor grammar aside, this is just another instance of Chris Brown getting into trouble over something he said. Last year, he got in a Twitter feud in which he called someone a “homo” and “dick in da booty lil boy.” And we won’t even get into the whole Rhianna thing…

Last night, Brown issued this tweet about the incident –

TMZ jumped on him for this tweet, saying that he “lied” through his teeth.” TMZ added that he “never apologizes, but instead writes a half-assed, dismissive explanation.”

He’s been hearing it from the Twitter community today. The hashtag #chrisbrownneedsto has been trending the whole day. Some responses have been “…stop using homophopic slurs, the apologizing, then doing it again.” Others have been a little more cutting, such as #chrisbrownneedsto release an album entitled Greatest Hits, I’m guessing Rhianna will be on the album cover.”

And in the last hour, he has rallied off a series of tweets where he calls people who latch onto every word he says “thirsty.” Check out his string of tweets:

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending Chris Brown here, but is TMZ a little too eager to catch him up in something? In their article they call what he said a “nasty slur.” Is simply saying the word “gay” a nasty slur? Believe me, I think homophobic statements are deplorable, but does saying “gay” deserve this kind of backlash? They didn’t even mention the fact the he called them “n**gas.”

But in the case of Chris Brown, if you do a couple of things like beat your girlfriend, smash things with chairs, and unleash homophobic rants, it’s pretty hard to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Remember the UCLA student who didn’t appreciate Asians in the library and the subsequent fallout? Apparently, her lesson only took hold for about, oh, five minutes or so. Just ask Christina Hopkins, an apparent attention whore who recently got kicked off the Oxygen Channel — not just her Bad Girls Club show, either; the network banned Hopkins for life — for a racist rant she brilliantly allowed to be captured on a mobile device’s video recorder.

Naturally, the video was “leaked” to TMZ, who wasted no time in posting it for all the Internet to see, including a copy on their YouTube page. Before playing the video, viewers should be warned it contains racially insensitive content, including liberal use of a particular word that starts with the letter “N.” Watch it at your own behest:

But then again, considering the shocking appeal of the shows that would stoop to give people like Hopkins a showcase, maybe this is the kind of content we want, if, for nothing else, so we can run to the comments section of a TMZ.com in order to revel in the mistakes and poor behavior of others. Unfortunately for those of you who long for these kinds of mishaps, this incident did not continue on Hopkins’ Twitter page. Fear not, however: Now that this story is making the rounds, that could quickly change, reigniting the dumpster fire that is Christina Hopkins’ pathetic racist rant and the resulting reactions.

As for Hopkins, at least she issued a sincere apology, but that didn’t seem to buy her any relief, especially from her previous show mates.

Some might say the Pope while others might say President Obama. It’s total speculation; an argument can be made for just about any well-known person.

Could "The King of Pop" have been considered the most famous person in the world? With global album sales somewhere between 700-750 million, a career that spanned nearly 50 years, two widely covered pedophilia charges and various charitable contributions… Michael Jackson, quite possibly, was the most famous person in the world.

His popularity caused big problems for some of the Internet’s more popular sites as rumors began to swirl about his rumored death.

Famed celebrity news site TMZ was the first to break the news of Michael Jackson’s death. People from all over the world rushed to the site to see the news for their own eyes. Due to the mass amounts of traffic TMZ began experiencing erratic downtimes, which left people searching other sites for confirmation.

AOL, owner of TMZ, released the following statement about the downtime…

"Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We’ve never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth. Historically, celebrity news prompts a worldwide outpouring with several key consumer behaviors – searching, sharing and reacting to the news followed by online tributes has become the modern way to mourn. Princess Diana was the first notable Internet example. Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett are the latest.

With other sites such as CNN reporting that Jackson was still alive but in a coma, that only added fuel to the fire, as people wanted to know the truth. Sadly in the end, TMZ was correct.

Michael Jackson has also been immortalized on the popular FamousDeadDB.com  website.

The Michael Jackson ripple effect wasn’t just felt by TMZ, shortly after Internet users made their way to Perez Hilton’s train-wreck of a blog only to be greeted by the following despicable post by the blogging diva…

You can see that Perez was pretty much calling Michael Jackson a liar. It should be noted that shortly after it was confirmed by multiple sources, Perez updated the post to hide his travesty of a post.

Twitterers weren’t pleased with the post, and #unfollowperez became a trending topic on the famed microbloggnig site.

Some of the major news corporations showed marked slowdowns; Keynote Systems had the following to say about the traffic phenomenon…

"Beginning during the late afternoon Pacific Time major news sites, including those of ABC, AOL, LA Times and CBS all started to show marked slowdowns in performance. Beginning at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time until 8:00 p.m. Eastern, the following sites showed became nearly unavailable (down to nearly 10% availability): ABC, CBS, LA Times, AOL, CNN Money.

Beginning at 5:30pm (EDT), the average speed for downloading news sites doubled from less than four seconds to almost nine seconds. During the same period, the average availability of sites on the index dropped from almost 100% to 86%. The index returned to normal by 9:15pm (EDT)."

With the news of Jackson’s death, people turned to the web like never before. Large traffic spikes were documented, the likes of which have never been seen before.

Below you can see a chart from Nielson, which shows the Jackson death discussion far exceeded those of the inauguration of President Obama and the swine flu.

In the UK it was documented that Twitter had its busiest day, EVER. The traffic spike might not be as large as expected, but this is probably due to the time difference between the US and the UK. You can see the Hitwise graph below…

Yesterday I told you about how Michael Jackson was dominating the Twitter top 10 trending topics, where he held nine at that time. Almost a full 24 hours later and he still holds four of the ten.

The death of Michael Jackson also had other sharing their condolences via Twitter…

The death of Michael Jackson was met with many different opinions; some are looking back at his music career why others only see his alleged wrong doings. However you choose to remember him you can’t deny the fact that his death had a huge impact all over the world… especially the Internet.

Arthur alleges in a lawsuit filed in Texas state court on Monday that Smith’s lawyer and companion Howard K. Stern and others created a fictitious story that she was the mother of her stepbrother’s child to try and hurt her chances of getting custody of granddaughter Dannielynn.

“Their goal was simple and straightforward — to ‘destroy’ anyone that was opposed to Howard K. Stern or his interest," the lawsuit said.

Defendants named in the lawsuit include TMZ managing editor, Harvey Levin, Smith’s companion, Howard K. Stern and his sister Bonnie Stern, and television journalist Art Harris, who runs The Bald Truth Blog and three Texas bloggers.

The lawsuit stems from a story titled “Virgie Has Son with Her Stepbrother” that was published last April on TMZ.com.

TMZ has not commented on the lawsuit. Lyndal Harrington one of the bloggers named in the suit said, “I’ve expressed how hard it has been for me to find an attorney to stand up for my First Amendment rights,” according to the Houston Chronicle. "This is to intimidate us to stop writing."
 

Under the terms of the deal TMZ will supply two or three clips per week to MySpaceTV after the clips have been broadcast on TMZ’s syndicated TV program. TMZ will also provide up to 15 non-exclusive clips on a weekly basis featuring the latest celebrity hi-jinks.

TMZ.com launched on AOL in December 2005 and has become a popular destination for fans of celebrity gossip. The site brought in close to 11 million unique visitors last month, according to comScore. TMZ made the jump to television last September and became the number one new first-run syndicated series of the season.

MySpace’s other partners that have a branded channel on MySpaceTV include, BBC Worldwide, National Geographic, The New York Times and Reuters.

"The MySpace community consumes celebrity and entertainment news at a rapid pace, and ‘TMZ’s’ exclusive content perfectly complements the immersive community experience MySpace offers to our users," said Jason Kirk, VP of Marketing & Content for MySpaceTV.