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Tag: Drew Curtis

  • Popular Site Aims To Set ‘Blueprint’ For Fighting Online Misogyny

    Last week, Drew Curtis, CEO of the popular news aggregation site Fark, announced that the site is cracking down on misogyny in comment threads.

    Do you think popular websites do enough to keep misogynistic comments away from users? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    As you probably know (especially if you’re a woman), there are a lot of terrible people saying terrible things about women on the Internet, and much of it goes unchecked. Curtis decided that he’d had enough of this happening on his site, and expressed regret about not coming down harder on it sooner.

    Curtis tells WebProNews that Fark is “working on a blueprint for others to follow.”

    “Every community should consider doing this,” he says.

    Curtis said in his announcement that Fark has been tightening up moderation style related to this stuff for a while, but last week, they updated the official rules. He noted that the move represented “enough of a departure from pretty much how every other large internet community operates.”

    Here’s an excerpt from the announcement:

    There are lots of examples of highly misogynistic language in pop culture, and Fark has used those plenty over the years. From SNL’s “Jane, you ignorant slut” to Blazing Saddles’ multiple casual references to rape, there are a lot of instances where views are made extreme to parody them. On Fark, we have a tendency to use pop culture references as a type of referential shorthand with one another.

    On SNL and in a comedy movie, though, the context is clear. On the Internet, it’s impossible to know the difference between a person with hateful views and a person lampooning hateful views to make a point. The mods try to be reasonable, and context often matters. We will try and determine what you meant, but that’s not always a pass. If your post can be taken one of two ways, and one of those ways can be interpreted as misogynistic, the mods may delete it — even if that wasn’t your intent.

    Things that aren’t acceptable:

    – Rape jokes
    – Calling women as a group “whores” or “sluts” or similar demeaning terminology
    – Jokes suggesting that a woman who suffered a crime was somehow asking for it

    Obviously, these are just a few examples and shouldn’t be taken as the full gospel, but to give you a few examples of what will always be over the line. Trying to anticipate every situation and every conversation in every thread would be ridiculous, so consider these guidelines and post accordingly. I recommend that when encountering grey areas, instead of trying to figure out where the actual line is, the best strategy would be to stay out of the grey area entirely.

    Whenever a foot is put down on what can’t be included in Internet comment threads, there are inevitably some that cry, “Censorship!”

    Curtis tells us, however, that so far the response has been “nothing but positive,” and that there has been no uptick in commenters testing Fark’s new policy.

    “It’s been surprisingly smooth,” he says.

    As a story at Vice recently put it, Fark banning misogyny actually “facilitates free speech,” because it means women can be more comfortable expressing their thoughts without worrying about the dregs of the Internet threatening to rape them or otherwise harass them.

    Fark’s move could indeed provide inspiration for other online environments to take similar action, and that’s one of the reasons the site has gotten some national news coverage for it.

    Gawker also recently cracked down on users posting “rape GIFs” on its Jezebel site, though only after Jezebel called out the company itself in a blog post. This story also put the spotlight on the Internet’s rampant misogyny.

    These moves from Fark and Gawker aren’t going to solve the whole problem, but they’re certainly positive moves in a better direction. Any other sites inspired to follow suit will just serve as additional steps.

    Do you think online misogyny can be largely stamped out? Let us know what you think.

    Image via YouTube

  • Reddit Challenges Policymakers on the Open Internet, Creating Jobs

    Reddit Challenges Policymakers on the Open Internet, Creating Jobs

    This year’s internet blackout and the fights against SOPA and PIPA show that the community of the internet, as diverse and weird as it can be, does have a common intrest in keeping the web open for everyone.

    Reddit, the popular social news and entertainment website, led the charge for the internet blackout protest and has now embarked on a tour across the middle of the U.S. The Internet 2012 Bus Tour has traveled from the first presidential debate in Denver, Colorado and made its way to Danville, KY, where the vice presidential debate will take place tonight.

    Along the way, the tour has held panel discussions highlighting local internet businesses in places such as Lincoln, Nebraska and Des Moines, Iowa. Last night, the tour held its final panel discussion about the “Future of Local Communities” at West Sixth Brewery in Lexington, KY and WebProNews was there to take in the event. The discussion emphasized that the internet is creating jobs all across the country – not just in coastal cities.

    Do you or does someone you know have a job that was created by the internet? Tell us about it in the comments.

    FARK founder Drew Curtis led the panel, which consisted of Reddit General Manager Erik Martin, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and Michael Beckerman, CEO of The Internet Association, a new policy advocacy group founded by some of the biggest internet companies around.

    The panel preached the virtues of the internet, lamenting that politicians too often don’t understand the technology or its culture.

    “There’s no instruction manual, there’s no puppet master at the top,” said Martin.

    “All of the best stuff that has come out of Reddit has come from people that don’t work at Reddit,” added Ohanian. He pointed out that President Obama’s Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview took place on a section of the site that was user-created.

    It’s easy to see how a system with no appointed leaders might seem foreign to politicians. However, those same politicians will soon be making decisions and implementing legislation that could affect the structure and freedom of the internet for decades.

    “Politicians saying they don’t understand the internet is like someone in 1980 saying they don’t understand TV,” said Curtis. “That’s how long this technology has been around.”

    Beckerman made a point of stating that internet freedom isn’t just about the great content it produces. Those jobs that politicians are always speaking about creating could, given an open internet, be found online.

    “It’s about jobs and growth, and we’re gonna tell policymakers about it,” said Beckerman.

    The panel also encouraged attendees to build their own local communities and experiment with their own internet startups.

    “The communities we have online are not that different from the ones we have offline,” said Ohanian.

    Zach Cohn, a representative from Startup Weekend, told the crowd that starting their own internet business could be easier than they imagine.

    “If you do something, something happens,” said Cohn.

    Startup Weekend is a global organization that helps individuals and teams create startups in only 54 hours.

    After the panel, the tour settled in for beers and more personal chats with the people at the event. Betsy Barrett, the communications director for The Internet Association told WebProNews that the goals of The Internet Association are very similar to those of the Internet 2012 tour.

    “We want voters, the public, and congressional members to understand that there is a unified voice, there is a public policy advocacy group on behalf of the internet for internet freedom, for economic development, and for empowering users on the internet,” said Barrett.

    The Internet Association’s policy stances are driven by its members, which include companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook.

    Martin and Ohanian, when chatting with WebProNews, reemphasized that the internet revolution and startups don’t have to just benefit New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

    “With the internet, you now have the ability to start a company anywhere,” said Martin. He went on to explain that successful startups need talented people, money, and a supportive community surrounding them, which are things that could be cultivated in places such as Lexington.

    “What we’ve seen from Denver to Danville is Americans all over care about this issue – they care about internet freedom, and the are going to make their voting decisions based on it,” said Ohanian. “So I hope that every politician, no matter what district they represent, no matter what state they represent, knows that their voters are going to care about how they decide the fate of the internet.”

    How will the issues surrounding internet freedom affect your vote? Let us know in the comments.

  • Fark’s Drew Curtis In TED Talk: Don’t Negotiate With Terrorists (Patent Trolls)

    TED has posted a new video with Fark Founder Drew Curtis, which Fark, of course has shared with its audience. He talks about how Fark was sued, along with Yahoo, Reddit, MSN, AOL, TechCrunch and others by Gooseberry Natural Resources.


    TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington wrote about it in early 2011:

    We, along with our fellow defendants, have allegedly been violating US Patent No. 6,370,535, titled System and method for structured news release generation and distribution. The invention underlying the patent appears to be the notion of typing text into an admin system, storing that text on a server, and then publishing it on the Internet. The patent was awarded in 2002.

    Curtis talks about the patent being for the creation and distribution of news releases via email.

    “One of the major problems with patent law is..that when you are sued by a patent troll, the burden of proof that you did not infringe upon the patent is actually on the defendant, which means you have to prove that you do not infringe upon the patent they are suing you on, and this can take quite a while,” he says.

    “You need to know that the average patent troll defense costs $2 million and takes 18 months when you win,” he says. “That is your best case outcome when you get sued by a patent troll.”

    He goes on to say how he hoped he would be able to team up with some of the larger companies that were being sued, but one by one they all settled out of the suit, even though none of them were infringing – because it’s cheaper to settle than fight the suit. He ended up beating the troll by simply asking them to provide screenshots of the infringing content on Fark, and they settled for zero dollars.

    “Don’t fight the patent. Fight the infringement,” he recommends. Secondly, he says, “Make it clear from the beginning that you have no money at all or that you would rather spend money with your attorney, fighting the troll than actually giving them the money.”

    Finally, he says to make sure to tell them you’ll make the whole process as annoying and painful for them as possible. The whole thing, he says, boils down to one thing: “Don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

    As usual, there are plenty of entertaining comments on the Fark post. Here are a few:

    i patented purple shirts. you owe me!

    I just patented commenting on Drew’s TED patent troll thread, so pay up, biatches!!

    I just patented the act of listening. All you motherf*ckers better settle.

  • Fark.com Takes Humorous Approach To SOPA Blackout

    While some of the clueless minions who populate Twitter try and figure out where their Wikipedia went, the rest of us who actually pay attention to trends that might fall outside of our interests have noticed that many popular websites have gone “dark” in order to protest the apparently undying SOPA bill that, for some reason, Lamar Smith insists on resuscitating.

    One site in particular, however, has taken another approach. Instead of “blacking out” to protest SOPA, Fark.com has “gone white” in order to support the anti-piracy acts. In typical Fark fashion, frivolity reigns, but their message echoes what many other site owners are saying: “We don’t support SOPA,” only this time, it’s done with a tongue-in-cheek approach. Over at Fark.com, their white out in “support” of SOPA is for one reason and one reason only: the anti-piracy acts give them a perfect excuse to quit.

    From Fark’s “white out” explanation:

    While a bunch of other sites are going “dark” to protest SOPA/PIPA, we’re over the moon about the whole thing. Why? Honestly, we’ve been bringing you the latest news happening across the internet for 12 years, and we’re tired. And SOPA/PIPA is the perfect excuse to quit.

    The Fark admins continue their lament:

    While SOPA might be “almost dead,” it’s not quite all the way there, and under various drafts of both SOPA/PIPA, Fark could have its DNS assignment (the thing that turns an IP address, like 10.0.0.1, into words like Fark.com) revoked without notice simply for linking to content that could come under foreign copyright claims. This means, even if it is actual news in and of itself, if we link to it, we can be shut down. And thank God, cause we’re about ready to crack under the strain of being on top of the news all the time.

    A screenshot of the Fark.com welcome screen demonstrates their commitment to SOPA support:

    Fark SOPA

    Offering a quality website does take a lot of work, so Fark’s position is understandable. Drew Curtis’ crew also post a video explaining why we, the people, should support SOPA. It’s some compelling stuff that we should keep in mind the next time Lamar Smith explains why his anti-piracy act is worth supporting:


    I hope that’s clear enough for you to comprehend. If not, ask yourself this question, “Why should I support SOPA?” and watch it again.

    It should also be noted that, unlike other sites that have blacked out protesting SOPA, you can still access Fark.com’s content, and if you navigate to the fark.com/index.html address, you’ll bypass the site’s whiteout splash screen.

  • Journalism Doesn’t Need Saving, Maybe Delivery Just Needs Tweaking

    The state of the news industry continues to be brought up on a frequent basis. Is journalism dying? Should publications put up paywalls? Should they block search engines and news aggregators. These are all questions that continue to be brought up repeatedly.

    This week, Google CEO Eric Schmidt addressed the American Society of News Editors. This came shortly after Rupert Murdoch started going on about blocking search engines, yet again. Schmidt hinted at new ways of making money around online news content being developed (and Google working on this itself). If you’ve got 45 minutes to kill, you can check out Schmidt’s keynote below.

    With the recent release of Apple’s iPad (and even since its initial announcement), there has been a lot of talk about the device playing a role in "saving journalism." I like Drew Curtis of Fark’s take on this mentality – gluing four iPhones together is going to save journalism? In actuality, "Journalism’s fine," he said in an interview we did with him at SXSW last month:

    "The problem you’ve got with journalists is, all of us have got an area of expertise we know something about, and if you read an article in a newspaper about the area of expertise you know something about, they get it wrong right? It turns out that even the journalists get the newspaper industry wrong, and they’re in it, but they’re not like making the decisions about what’s happening, so there’s not really this conscious understanding of what’s actually going on."

    At the news editor event, Schmidt made some comments about blogging that got a few people riled up as he highlighted the need for editors, and while there is certainly merit to his point, Curtis’ point about journalists getting things wrong has merit of its own, and that’s why there is certainly room for both styles of reporting.

    Schmidt must feel the same way, considering Google owns Blogger, Blog Search, and includes blogs in Google News. The fact of the matter is, there is plenty of room for error in either venue, and frankly, online, the lines between so-called professional journalism and blogging are often quite gray.

    I think we’re going to see some more interesting and creative methods for news delivery and consumption in the not-too-distant future (here’s an interesting one that’s already out there), which is what Curtis says the newspaper industry needs, and what Schmidt seems to indicate Google is working on as we speak.