wrmineo condemned for ShoutWire Article

Wow! I love the democracy of the Internet.

I published a story today about the porn ads on ShoutWire; read here.

Here was the comment on the blog within minutes of publishing it:

I'm sure that this comment (letter) was not by one of the very administrators to which I referred to in the article

Man, my daily visitors of 20K is likely to drop all the way down to 19,999 now ....

 

here's a Shoutwire's response.

http://www.shoutwire.com/comments/21114/On_Shoutwire_Kiddie_Porn_and_Deleted_Articles

Still reading it. I'll give you my opinion in a sec.

 

Well.. I saw same pic just 30 minutes ago and I was wondering same thing, I did not click the link, but I had my "ideas" what it could have been.

 

Here are some cached links to prove you weren't lying. Look at sidebar below top stories. Not pretty.

http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=3860990794859&lang=en-US&mkt=en-US&FORM=CVRE

http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=3803072758477lang=en-US&mkt=en-US&FORM=CVRE2

http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=3860990789831lang=en-US&mkt=en-US&FORM=CVRE6

I think Shoutwire didn't know what was going so you might have been a bit harsh. But let's see what happens as the details spill out.

Skinny

 

That would be fair if they hadn't been there for a few days or longer; others have sent me notes saying they've been there for awhile.

Did I throw a punch at them? Absolutely and I don't apologize for it - they struck first blood as the saying goes if you'll recall the bashing a few of their admins did here back in January ....

Also, I did try to email them this morning - it bounced saying I was not "authorized" as if I weren't on a whitelist of sorts.

 

wait for it... wait for it... wait for it... and punch back.

If you PM me the URL of the offending advertiser, I will do some in depth research of site and get back to you

 

Hmm seems like the adserver has killed the accounts of these porn guys. They can't connect to the image via cache any longer. But they were there.

Skinny

 

I think your being a bit harsh labelling it kiddie porn, I doubt the site who the ads belong to are stupid enough to advertise underage porn on any website let alone a mainstream site. The site in question most likely has 2257 docs linked at the footer anyway. No need for calling it kiddie porn I dont think.

 

I don't mind admitting that the title was a bit controversial - it was obviously intended for shock value, but did you see the ads that were running there?

These look like underage girls if ever there was, which was obviously intentional on the advertisers part. No I can't fault ShoutWire for the advertiser, but I can fault them for having the advertiser.

ServerUnion - I don't have it, but I'll see if I can locate it and PM it to you ... not going to 'promote' them here.

 

It probably worked for shock value but really labelling stuff as kiddie porn without any proof is just making you yourself look bad imo.
They do look young but you should understand in the adult industry theres alot of demand for young looking girls so companies may choose girls that look young but are 100% legal age.

 

Yea I sent him the URL.

It was in cache before it could no longer connect.

Skinny

 

I think his comments were completely fair. Granted it could have been worded less controversially but the ad was completely inappropriate and the insinuation was there in the ad especially when one found out what the landing page contained.

Saying Shoutwire didn't know what is going on is nonsense. Site owners are completely responsible for the ads displayed on their site. As such they have the responsibility to ensure that their ad broker has some kind of robust control mechanisms to ensure that these types of ads don't appear. This should have never been allowed to happen -- period.

 

If adsense slipped up and displayed porn ads on your non adult site would you blame yourself?

 

Obviously as the site owner I'm going to really complain to Google, however, I did make the decision to use AdSense and allow graphics. I also know that my users wouldn't care why it happened, they would blame it on me.

This is why I'm extremely selective as to what ad brokers I use especially when it comes to graphics ads. I do not want any nasty surprises. Yes I could earn more money by not being so picky as to the ad provider I use, but I am not willing to allow a screwup like happened to Shoutwire tarnish my sites's image.

 

Yes, blaming the ad company is a complete cop out. Take onus of the situation and move on.

Shoutwire removed the article and then published their own as you can find above in Skinny's post - more responsible, mature, professional journalism: squash the original article, pull excerpts for your own rebuttal and immediately post an editorial to the front page (by the way, under the editorial category of Education ... huh?)

I tried to give credit to one SW team member who actually made a concise, professional response - flatline - who acknowledged the porn ads and said it was under investigation; even admitting that it was "embarassing and unfortunate" - all the while, the rest of the SW team refused to admit the ads were even there, or else blamed everyone but themselves for allowing that to happen - but I was unable to as the account was disabled (I didn't see that coming ) Apparently they love opinions, but only there own; else, they knew that they couldn't continue the path without having their childish rants and illogical rationales intelligently challenged.

For those that may not have seen or don't know, a few SW admins have come here to DP and put as "bastards" in our place not too long back ... ShoutWire Threatens DigitalPoint

SW states they have no agenda, but every single article one of their admin/editors publish are automatically promoted to the homepage - and I'm actually cool with that; hell, I'd do the same ... but don't deny it when it's been proven time and again:

They complain about pointless articles and self-promotion - take a look at their home page - every celeb gallery article they have up there is an editor / admin site because they didn't like DP member SVZ and others getting so much attention and traffic in that genre. Again, I'm cool with them pushing their own folks' stuff; but don't deny it - admit it proudly!

If you're interested, you can Digg this story from the top of the home page of freshdames - the female celebrites site in my signature block.

ADDED:

I should add that through all of the ramblings, excuses, finger pointing et al while SW admins were vehemently denying any knowledge that such a thing even happened, was not their fault if it did etc. that one of them kindly pointed out that SW also owns and runs SpankWire (Internet porn for the masses) .... now, doesn't that seem just a bit coincidental?

 

Google "shoutwire porn" for a good laugh!

 

It's under "education" because I thought i'd take you to school.

At first I wanted to leave your post up and address your concerns in the comments. I figured that it would be better to give your issue an editorial of its very own. Besides, we were inaccurately described in your post as child pornographers. That's straight-up slander. We couldn't leave that up.

Just to clarify (in case you're not following my rants at SW), regular admins and editors at SW are out of the loop in regard to ads and such. As soon as you posted your article, the site developers were informed and the ads were pulled.

I hope you didn't get in trouble at work over the ads.

Anyodd, I hope you didn't take the editorial personally. This whole incident accomplished the goal of entertaining the readers.

BTW, people are emailing me asking for the link to the original article that you wrote. At least you'll get some traffic out of this.

Regards,

Bulshoy

 

Whether you like us or not, your title was an intentionally misleading lie.

You speak of

yet you are not practicing that yourself. Your lie was malicious, slanderous, and down right dirty.

ShoutWire has nothing to do with such foul practices as child pronography. It is not an accusation to be thrown around lightly as you have. Even if myself and the forum goers here at DP don't agree about much, we can at least agree on that much.

What you did was illegal, the very definition of slander. Every day you keep that article visable to the public, you risk a lawsuit.

Your a liar. Worse, your a liar who accuses innocent people of child pornography.

I only hope that one day you will learn that many lives have been destroyed by false accusations of this kind. This isn't a joke anymore. You are a right foul bastard to make light of such a thing.

 

They needn't ask you for the link, just Google "ShoutWire Porn" and there's about 4 front page listings pointing to Digg, DP and the blog - they'll find it easily enough.

Any traffic your sending is to Blogger and Google, not me so to think it was for mere personal gain is the epitome of why people should not ass-u-me.

I appreciate your concern, but no I didn't get in trouble over the ad, I own and operate my own businesses so no harm there; but thanks.

No, I didn't take it personally, I too was quite entertained by the editorial. I'm glad your readers were entertained - Molly at Fox Media found it very intriguing too when they called me for more information about it today from L.A. - apparently they read the FreshDames blog or someone else pointed it out to them; heck maybe they found it on Google too.

Hey look folks - it's another SW admin/editor. You'll recall he loves us so much he called everyone at DP 'basterds' and threatened us all a few months ago ...

By the way, he owns and operates SpankWire, Internet Porn for the Masses, which is directly affiliated with ShoutWire, Intenet News for the Masses ... hmmm, porn ads accidentally showed up at SW ... sure, I'll buy that for a dollar!

NOW ... in all fairness, I have in fact done an edit of the article title on the blog to remove the word "kiddie" but it will remain "Shoutwire Promotes Porn" - you cannot escape the fact that it was there, nor will you be able to convince people that you had no control - especially when you openly affiliate with a porn site.

Slander? Liable? Look up the definitions and compare them to the definitions of opinion in the eyes of the law. My company attorney begged me not to edit the title - he loves these kind of cases, publicity and filing of countersuits; but I did it anyway as I thought it was in fact the fair thing to do as you can read on the blog.

Now openly allowing your staff or members to make threats of bodily harm is of a whole different nature. In the world of post-9/11, these once simple charges get the word terroristic added in front of threatening and now things once simple and fun could become very complicated and serious. I suggest before you take me to school, you go back yourself.

If I weren't so entertained by the high school antics, I would take a completely different approach. Otherwise I would turn this into a bigger media blitz and action than the "AOL Bully" case ... I'm looking to secure retirement, but I'd rather do it in a more honorable way.

If you'd like to continue bumping this thread and matching wits, I'll gladly take the free publicity! Speaking of school, I learned long ago that controversary sells and you're doing a fine job of it for me; this lesson was free.

 

What an asshole.

First off, I dont own Spankwire. I'm staff there, just like I am at SW.

Second, you need to get a new lawyer, buddy. He is just trying to milk you for your cash. Remember, even if you lose a case, he will still get paid.

Third, you changed the name of the article because you dont want a lawsuit, which was never going to happen anyways. It was a mere suggestion on my part, and proved how worthless your blog really is.

Last, you did what I wanted. You changed the name of your article.

I won buddy. Why would I want to "Match wits" with you? Because my name is more recognizable and you would love to say you bested zero, wouldn't you? Be your one claim to fame, huh? Tell your grandkids? More hits for your blog? Want a cookie?

Im done with you. I never heard of you before this and never will after. It's too bad the same can't be said for me, eh?