Home | Gay Porn Reviews | Gay Porn Galleries | Gay News | Web Directory | Fab Free Sites | Tube Videos

One thing you will notice after reading the comments section of many online news and pop culture sites is that there are a lot of stupid, insensitive and downright hateful people out there. And often, as with a recent Yahoo! News article on Adam Lambert and his new CD, the comments can be extremely homophobic.

Following the piece, several people decided to share their not-so-nice opinions. The most disturbing comment: "It would make my day if someone was to do to him what those men did to Matthew Shepard."

The company's Terms of Service state that it “does not allow content that promotes hatred against users or groups of users. Protected categories include, but are not limited to race, ethnicity, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity."

GLAAD was advised of the comments and demanded Yahoo! do something about them. Yahoo! suspended all commenting on the article and removed several of the offensive posts.

"Young music fans should be able to interact and comment on sites without seeing violent, hateful comments directed at LGBT people," said GLAAD's Director of Digital Initiatives, Allison Palmer. "Yahoo! did the right thing by taking immediate action to enforce their Terms of Service, setting an important example for other leading websites and tech companies."

Of course, it is always easy to say nasty things when you can hide behind a screen name. 

Yahoo! Teams with GLAAD to Remove Anti-LGBT Comments from Adam Lambert Interview [Hollywood Reporter]

GLAAD: Yahoo! removes violent anti-gay comments from Adam Lambert interview [Miami Herald]

A 37-year-old furniture maker in Lithuania took great offense when Lady Gaga criticized his country over its treatment of gays. During a concert in Rome, Gaga denounced countries like Poland, Russia and Lithuania for not doing enough to protect the LGBT community.

The unnamed furniture maker was so angry, he wrote on Facebook: "What we need is another Hitler to exterminate those fags ‘cause there’s just too many of them multiplying."

A Lithuanian gay group got wind of the post and raised the issue with local authorities.

The man was charged with inciting hatred, and was fined $594 by the First District Court of Vilnius. The judge said the man was guilty for using "inflammatory rhetoric and encouraged mockery, defiance, discrimination and physical violence against a group of people or its members on the grounds of sexual orientation."

The man returned to Facebook to issue an apology. "It was not my intention to call for violence against gays and I feel sorry for what was written," he wrote. "I did not expect that this comment would insult anyone in the public domain."

He sounds like the kind of guy who is forced to apologize a lot.

Lithuanian Man Who Called For 'Another Hitler' To Kill Gays ... [Huffington Post]

Twitter announced last week that it is hoping to expand into new territories, like China and the Middle East. To make that happen, the company is promising to censor tweets on a country-by-country basis, in compliance with each country's individual laws.

Explaining the new policy, Twitter's blog said: “Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country – while keeping it available in the rest of the world.

“We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.”

“We are very concerned about this new development," responded Dan Littauer, executive editor for Gay Middle East. "Twitter has an enormous impact in spreading news and media, especially regarding Human Rights, including LGBT rights across the world and in particular the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

"Twitter has been essential, for example, in helping the Arab Spring protests and also spread of information regarding LGBT issues in the Middle East and North Africa."

He explained that countries that do not tolerate homosexuality will be able to request all gay-related tweets be blocked.

"This is a very dangerous precedent,” added Littauer.

"While censoring tweets that break the law in individual countries is preferable to taking down the content altogether, we're going to be monitoring this very closely to ensure Twitter's commitment to free speech isn't watered down," promised Mike Harris, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship.

Of course, Twitter is not the only company to do this. Google, eBay and Facebook already have similar policies in place. And you thought the Internet was all about free expression?

Twitter faces user backlash over move to censor messages [The Independent]

New Twitter censorship function prompts concern in anti-gay states [PinkNews]

If you hooked up with a man named Eric Wilson (aka ciremuse, pictured), you may want to check XTube to see if your intimate time together has been shared with the rest of the world.

Wilson is in trouble for filming an encounter he had with a man he met online. The man, who said the sex was consensual, stated he never agreed to being filmed, but the very next day he discovered a video of him and Wilson posted on XTube.

Police arrested Wilson, charging him with two felony counts of unlawful surveillance and two counts of dissemination of an unlawful surveillance image. He is being held on Rikers Island in lieu of $15,000 bail.

Wilson isn't shy and has posted several videos of himself engaged in sexual activity with many other men, with “video views” exceeding 6.5 million. As of today, however, all but a single video remain on his profile.

Listen, if you meet someone through XTube who is known for filming his exploits, take a minutes to check his room for cameras.

NYPD Busts Man For Secret Taping Of X-Rated Tryst [The Smoking Gun]

Last week, the US Department of Justice announced that it had charged the owners of popular file-sharing service Megaupload with online copyright infringement.

Seven people were indicted by a New York grand jury and charged with engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering, and criminal copyright infringement.

The DOJ alleged that Megaupload, and its related sites, caused more than $1 billion in harm. It boasted 180 million registered users and saw more than 50 million daily visitors.

Megaupload Limited founder Kim Dotcom was arrested in New Zealand. He has been denied bail, pending his trial.

But the arrest affected more than just Megaupload and its users. Similar companies are reconsidering their role in the online file-sharing world.

X7.to has completely shut down its operation. Sites like UploadStation and FilePost no longer offer an affiliate and reward program; it is rumored both sites are aggressively deleting user accounts and files. Uploaded.to cannot be accessed via U.S. IP addresses. 4Shared has canceled its affiliate program.

Even well known FileSonic has disabled all sharing functionality on its site, noting "Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally."

Will the DOJ focus its resources on this one case and hope to make an example of it, or should these other companies be putting their lawyers on speed dial? Time will tell.

After Megaupload, Storage Sites Shutter Services [PC Magazine]

If there's one thing US politicians learned last week, it's this: don't mess with the Internet.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate had been considering bills designed to address the issue of online piracy. Supporters of both SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) said there was a need to protect intellectual property, and in turn the jobs and revenue it created, with stronger laws.

Once passed, the bills would stop networks and payment companies from doing business with pirate websites, search engines would not be permitted to link to said sites, and Internet Service Providers would be forced to block access to pirate sites.

Hollywood and the music industry were behind the proposed laws. Many of the big Internet companies -- and users -- were not.

As widely reported last week, some major Internet companies took action against the two bills. Most noticably, Wikipedia blacked out its pages for 24 hours and Google placed a black square over its logo. Other sites created a new landing page on which details of how the bills could negatively alter the web were listed.

Opponents of the bills argued they would stifle the Internet. Popular sites like Facebook and Google and YouTube would cease to exist. Smaller sites could be falsely accused of using copyrighted material, be blocked by Internet Service Providers, and then face a costly court challenge to get back up and running. Still others saw the move as nothing more than the government looking to quietly suppress speech it didn't like.

The strategy worked. Over 7 million Google users signed a petition demanding the legislation be dropped. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided to postpone a test vote set for today “in light of recent events.” House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith quickly followed suit, saying the House bill would be postponed “until there is wider agreement on a solution.” Several politicians even removed their names as sponsors of the legislation.

But while the current versions of SOPA and PIPA are much too overreaching, legislation is still desperately needed to protect the rights of content creators. Piracy is completely out of control; all the "free" stuff people are downloading costs money to produce and the ability for gay porn companies (many of which are small operations)  to turn a profit is evaporating. Piracy is directly responsible for the current stressed state of the gay porn industry, with employees being laid off, weaker companies being forced to merge and many others simply closing down. But the government has to be careful in how it addresses this issue; making  sweeping changes without weighing all the consequences is not the answer.

Reid postpones Senate vote on anti-piracy bill amid storm of online protest [The Washington Post]

SOPA and PIPA: What Went Wrong? [PC World]

Collapse of Piracy Bills Leaves Hollywood Seeking a Truce [Business Week]

Elijah Whitney Cohens II will be spending the next 14 years behind bars after being convicted on Tuesday of robbing several men he met through gay chatlines. 

Cohens pretended he was looking for sex. He'd show up and then rob his victims. In two instances, he at least had the decency to fool around a little before stealing from the guys.

In one case, the victim was tied up and lost $5000 in valuables. A second man, who met Cohens at a mall before driving off with him, was forced to withdraw money from an ATM. One victim was threatened with a knife, while another said Cohens used a gun. Four men in total, ranging in age from 20 to 60, pressed charges.

Cohens was eventually tracked down after police matched DNA on a cigarette he had left behind. (His new New Year's resolution is to quit smoking.) Not surprisingly, he had an impressive history of felonies including robbery, forgery, assault and burglary. 

Cohens pleaded guilty in this case. Judge Angel Lopez sentenced him to 150 months and ordered him to pay $7,000 in restitution.

If you can't trust a complete stranger you met online for sex, who can you trust?

Robber who met his victims on chat lines sentenced to more than 14 years in prison [Oregon Live]

Hoping to keep their good names untarnished by naughty images, universities have started buying .xxx website addresses.

The schools started purchasing the domains two months ago, when ICM Registry gave trademark holders the chance to block their names from being used. And it only cost $200 per address.

The University of Kansas, for example, purchased the rights to several addresses including kansas.xxx and rockchalkjayhawk.xxx and jayhawks.xxx.

Then, when open registration was permitted, the same university bought more domains including kustore.xxx, kugirls.xxx and jayhawk.xxx.

"We settled on the ones that we thought it would be reasonable for us to protect," said Paul Vander Tuig, the university's trademark licensing director. "It's truly a preventative blocking measure, blocking others from doing it."

Michigan, Penn State, Purdue, Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon and Indiana have all done the same thing.

"I think it's a smart thing to do," added Terry Robb, from the University of Missouri.

ICM Registry is the exclusive manager of the .xxx names, selling them through middleman companies such as GoDaddy.com for an average of $100 a year. Its new slogan: ".xxx, the only domain companies are forced to own."

Universities block triple-X domain names [USA Today]

Yesterday .xxx domains went on sale to the general public, so someone decided to drop $107 for the rights to WestboroBaptistChurch.xxx.

Reddit user VinCenzo831 is now hoping to make some money off his purchase. “Help me sell this domain name to a porn website,” he asked fellow reddit visitors. “Since they hate gays so much it would be even better for this to be a gay porn website.”

“Maybe rather than porn,” redditor FockerCRNA countered, “it would be even better it it was a LGBT positive website that educated people about civil rights and discouraged homophobia.”

Since .xxx was designed for adult content, another user suggested that it would be a good idea to combine the two: porn and education. 

“If someone designs a website, I would definitely be willing to do naked PSAs about homosexuality being A-OK,” redditor Scarfington offered.

“I'm on board too. I've always wanted to be a porn star for a good cause!” added another.

Fighting evil with nudity. We like it!

Silencing Westboro Baptist Church with gay porn [DailyDot]

'Tis the season for stupid people ...

School officials at Cherry Knoll Elementary decided that their Christmas concert would be better if the word "gay" was stricken from a performance of "Deck the Halls."

It's a small school in Traverse County, Michigan, after all. No one would notice, they thought.

Well, someone got wind of the idea. A Facebook page was born. And the story went viral.

"Cherry Knoll Elementary School, of which I am an alumna, is removing the word 'gay' from Deck The Halls at the children's Christmas concert," said a source. "Please bring some attention to this issue! As far as I can find there has been no local press coverage, but you can see outrage from some community members at the school's Facebook page. Information to contact the school's administrators can be found here."

Seems people like their carols the traditional way, gay and all, thank you very much.

One Facebook comment summed it up best: "I for one support this decision, and additionally express my concern at other salacious lyrics involving homonyms the teacher may have overlooked. For instance, geeses 'laying,' Santa 'coming' and finding out who is 'naughty,' and of course any instance of the word 'do' or 'did.'"

"It's the frantic hand-wringing of homophobic teachers that are teaching these kids that perhaps there is something wrong with 'gay'," wrote another person. "Way to go. Way to twist the minds of the youth to 'your' skewed views on human rights."

The outrage made a difference. As of yesterday morning, the school announced "gay" would be sung at the concert.

Now if we could harness this same energy for marriage rights we'd be set!

School Removes "Gay" From "Deck the Halls"  [The Stranger]

Michigan School Removes the Word 'Gay' from 'Deck the Halls' ...  [Towleroad]

Fleshbot.com, the adult erotica site that was part of Gawker Media, is up for sale.

"For the past eight years, Fleshbot has made its home at Gawker Media," read a note on the site. "But as [Gawker Media] has grown, its sales strategy and technology platform have ceased to effectively support Fleshbot's needs. We think someone else could be a much better partner to grow the site with us ... and as such, Fleshbot is for sale."

The owner of GM admitted this was something that should have happened a long time ago. When asked why he didn't sell it sooner, Nick Denton said, "Oh, I don’t know. Because I’m slow to realize the inevitable?"

Denton co-founded Gawker Media in 2003, which includes other online properties like Gawker.com, Jezebel.com, Gizmodo.com, and Lifehacker.com.

Although the other sites tend to be liberal in their approach to culture and society, Fleshbot was, of course, the most sexually explicit of the online properties.

"We seek a new home where we can continue to curate the best smut the world has to offer, and continue to grow our traffic (currently at 25+million monthly pages and 1+million monthly uniques).

We're sure it won't be going cheap!

A bill designed to reduce online piracy is facing some major opposition from companies like Google, Mozilla and Facebook. They argue the Stop Piracy Online Act (SOPA) needs to be reworked, or it will negatively affect legitimate companies trying to do business online.

"We strongly support the goal of the bill -- cracking down on offshore websites that profit from pirated and counterfeited goods -- but we're concerned the way it's currently written would threaten innovation, jobs, and free expression," Pablo Chavez, director of public policy at Google, wrote.

The bill was proposed by Republican Lamar Smith, who wanted to help media outlets, software makers and retailers fight the illegal distribution of movies, songs and software, especially through overseas websites. SOPA, which is receiving bipartisan support, would make it easier to shut down websites that carried pirated content, forcing Internet Service Providers to immediately block access in the US to any site that is blacklisted. Billing companies, like PayPal and Mastercard, could also be asked to halt transactions on offending sites.

However, tech companies are not convinced the bill is fair. AOL, eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo, and Zynga all joined with Google to argue SOPA needed to be revised before they could support it. They want to make sure that the government cannot arbitrarily call for a site to be shutdown without a proper investigation.

"We are very concerned that the bills as written would seriously undermine the effective mechanism Congress enacted in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to provide a safe harbor for Internet companies that act in good faith to remove infringing content from their sites," the companies wrote in a letter to the committee. "While we work together to find a way to target foreign 'rogue' sites, we should not jeopardize a foundational structure that has worked for content owners and Internet companies alike and provides certainty to innovators with new ideas for how people create, find, discuss, and share information lawfully online."

Not really. The DMCA has actually failed because it allows websites who do nothing but host stolen content to continue to do so. A site only has to remove content when the copyright holder notifies it about a specific video or image. It can then carry on its merry way distributing whatever stolen content for which it has not been served official notice.

“Inexplicably, and almost overnight, SOPA has morphed into a full-on assault against lawful US Internet companies,” said Markham C. Erickson, executive director of NetCoalition, a group representing Web firms and public interest groups opposed to the law. “This makes no sense to us, nor will it to the millions of Internet users who depend on it for communications, commerce and democracy.”

Hopefully a reasonable law will emerge that will balance the real need to fight online piracy with freedom of expression.

Tech Giants Like Google, Facebook Challenge Online Piracy Bill [PC Mag]

<< FIRST   NEXT >      LAST >>  

© 2000, 2012 Untangled Web Inc.
Duplication of this site in part or in whole is strictly prohibited.
About Us