Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Flesh, Porn, Smells
But quality movies like "Ishtar" are still available. After last week's (somewhat) surprising public announcement that Yahoo! would straightforwardly feature a section of pornographic movies in its online store, it seems that quite a few readers were disappointed enough to send in news that it was not to be.
phunk, for instance, writes: "Swamped with thousands of complaints from users, Yahoo! Inc. said Friday it will stop selling X-rated videos and other pornographic material on its Web pages. The flap comes at a difficult time for Yahoo, which had been one of the biggest Internet success stories but is now struggling to make money and just announced layoffs."
I'm surprised they didn't simply rebrand that part of their site and quietly subsidize the rest of the company with it.
When you practice to deceive, plain text is a good format. Spatula writes "Hidden in the bowels of their media update on the security vulnerability in their DSL modems, Alcatel makes some very revealing statements.
Alcatel recently came under fire over a security vulnerability in one of their DSL modem products that could potentially allow a hacker to gain full control over a user's Internet experience. Many were shocked by Alcatel's subsequent remarks, especially that the company had no plan to release a patch for the flaw, suggesting only that users run firewall software.
In a "media update" MS Word document, one can view the changes that were made before the document was released to the public, which includes some interesting remarks, such as "What are you doing to provide a legitimate fix?" and "Why don't we provide this level of security for all our customers?" morons.org has all the details."
Printed because printed matter matters. Mark Harrison writes: "The Central Europe Review has an interesting review of Stanislaw Lem's newest book, Okamgnienie (A Blink of an Eye). Lem has been writing interesting and provocative works for the past 50 years. Many slashdotters should be familiar with his works such as the Cyberiad, which narrates the adventures of constructor robots Trurl and Klapaucius, and which inspired Sim City. According to the back cover of this newest book, it addresses questions such as "Is final knowledge of the processes which led to the genesis of life on earth possible? Will science bring us immortality? Are we alone in the Cosmos? What are the odds of meeting an extraterrestrial civilization? Is Nature an evolutionary monopolist? What do cloning and genetic engineering portend? Will humans produce artificial intelligence? What will be the consequences of the lightning-fast unfolding of communication technologies?""
And fishbonez points out this NY Times " book review of "Republic.com" by Cass R. Sunstein. In his book, the Sunstein argues that the Internet makes it possible to customize media experiences, which has the effect of limiting knowledge and narrowing readers' minds. Does this customized news effect apply to /.? Or does the ability to read numerous viewpoints overcome it? As a side bar, it would be interesting to know which filters are the most popular."
That stinks. An Anonymous Coward writes: "Remember when it was the iSmell that /. was asking for one-liners for?
Well it looks like they are going to have to go back to using good old-fashioned soap and water.
No more money and they where oh so close to shipping."
Another way to look at this is that one great travisty of democracy and capitolism, no matter how much we love them, is that a tiny, but vocal minority can influence the lives of the majority. Worse, the people who did this didn't stop Yahoo because the availability of porn harmed them, but rather because the freedom of others to buy it is an affront to their sensibilities. N. J. Fuzzy fuz@raisingcain.com
Ha! Wow, /. is clever and hilarious.
Hmmm... just last week, you said that porn is wrong. Now, apparently, it's manna from heaven. How's the school experiment going?
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I just love how people will complain that Yahoo started selling porn, but don't complain that they sell porn banner ads based on keyword searches for for sexual terms. If you're in the smut biz, your're in the smut biz. What's the difference?
Friggen hypocrites.
You have zero right to go to Yahoo and purchase pornography. Nobody had ANY right to post OT III, a copyrighted document, to Slashdot's site.
These are not rights.
Yes, this was astroturf, and they should know better.
BTW: for those who aren't political junkies, a layman's def. of astroturf. Well, when people act, it is grass-roots, right? So grass-roots lobbying involves inflaming people to get them involved and cause fear. You generate a genuine interest, perhaps enough to shift opinion polls 5-10 points. This terrifies politicians, because that is a margin of victory. Astroturf = fake grass roots. Nobody actually cares, but a handful of people make a lot of noise and TRY to pretend to have grassroots support. They make no change in the numbers or the poll results, but they generate a lot of letters/emails.
However, I think that we should support the AFA's right to freedom of expression. The AFA is entitled to its opinion, as are the members of it (actual people, not conceptual people, they just don't share your views).
Yahoo realized (correctly, IMO), that porn sales through Yahoo may or may not make a lot of money. However, tarnishing their brand would not be worth it. Yahoo is seen as the nice way to reach the Internet. If this group and others like it boycott Yahoo, etc., then Yahoo is in trouble.
Quick show of hands, of all you libertarian, "open-minded", anti-religion Slashdotters, how many of you go to Yahoo?
In middle America, G-d-fearing country, these are Yahoo's users. Offending their target market to please people that won't use their products? Not a good plan.
Now, I would argue that Yahoo gets a LOT of searches for sex from the unknowing, and they need to profit off that. However, tarnishing their brand is wrong. While the same people might protest the sex site and use it, you don't offend those people by attaching your brand to sex.
Keep it separate.