City Council Can't Take Blogger Criticism And Resigns?

from the there-has-to-be-more-to-this-story dept

Dave W alerts us to a story in the UK of how (allegedly) 11 city council members in a small rural town resigned from the council after getting annoyed by a local blogger criticizing them. Dave notes that the blog in question isn't too bad, but also notes that such city councils are often staffed by people who do the job because no one else wants to do it. Still, if you're going to hold some sort of public office, at some point you would think that you would learn how to take some criticism. It makes me wonder if there's really more to this story beyond just a critical blogger and thin-skinned council members.

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Will Political Ads On Google Need To Include: 'This Ad Paid For By...

from the and-not-much-else dept

Lots of politicians have made use of Google for advertising via keyword-based text ads. However, a mayoral candidate in St. Petersburg, Florida recently ran into trouble when the Florida Elections Commission ordered him to take down his ads and pay a $250 fine for not including a "this ad paid for by..."-type disclaimer, despite the fact that the "required" text of the disclaimer is greater than the 68 characters that you can fit into a Google ad.

The link above goes on to talk about other similar situations -- and notes that many of the local Elections Commissions making decisions on these things are made up of more elderly folks (often retired judges) who don't have the greatest understanding of these new-fangled technology whatchamacallits. It seems like we're going to go through an uncomfortable transition period as these Elections Commissions begin to understand how the web works, and the idea that pretty much anyone can create content online -- rather than just the "professionals." What would have happened, for instance, if it hadn't been the candidate or his campaign that bought the ad in the first place... but a fan?

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Newspaper Proudly Announces It Will Only Cover Political Candidates Who Buy Ads

from the fair-and-balanced dept

There's been a lot of talk lately about claims that blogs are somehow posting stories without revealing if companies are paying for them, and even the FTC has announced plans to come out with guidelines to stop such behavior. But, of course, that assumes that it's only "blogs" that do this sort of thing, and not the mainstream press. And, to be honest, I can't think of a dumber thing for a blog to do, because if evidence of such a thing ever came out, it would destroy that blog's credibility. Yet, apparently, some in the newspaper business have no problems overtly and proudly advertising such things. A whole bunch of folks have submitted the story of a weekly newspaper in Key West Florida that alerted local political candidates that if they want coverage, they need to buy ads:

"As far as candidate forums and debates, we'll cover those when we can, but if candidates want their campaign covered, they have to pay to play.... I gotta pay the bills."

While a bit shocking in its honesty, it also should raise pretty serious questions about the credibility of the publication, which promises "fair reporting and fair representation." Though, given that it looks like the Conch Color website was designed in 1996 (yes, it has a clip art animated spinning globe -- and I'm almost surprised there's no animated "under construction" gifs), perhaps its credibility was already in question.

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Could The Pirate Party Become A Legitimate Political Force?

from the uphill-battle dept

I've said for a while now that I have problems with the Pirate Party's choice of names. While it does get attention, and perhaps helped jumpstart membership interest in what the party had to say, it still feels like a gimmick. Not only that, but a gimmick that limits the party's overall effectiveness in the longterm. It's been easy for politicians to simply brush the concerns of the party aside as being laughable from the start, just based on the name. And yet... the movement keeps moving forward. Obviously, the big win was Sweden's Pirate Party winning a seat in the EU Parliament, but soon after that, a well-known German politician switched affiliations to The Pirate Party, and last week came the news that another prominent German politician, a founder of that country's Green Party, has also joined the Pirate Party in Germany. And, of course, if you actually take the time to understand the party's position, it makes a lot of sense, and isn't the sort of crazy ranting that those against The Pirate Party seem to assume it must be. So, here's the question: can The Pirate Party really become a legitimate political force with such a name? Or will it always been seen as a fringe party?

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Could Evidence-Based Copyright Law Ever Be Put In Place?

from the perhaps-not dept

Recently, we were discussing how copyright law seems to only get worse and worse, and it got me thinking how likely it is that "better" copyright laws could ever be put in place. Michael Geist recently put up a post on how to design copyright law that would last, emphasizing "balance" as being essential for durability. I have to admit, I tend to wince when people talk about a "balanced" copyright law, because it usually means a copyright law where everyone is worse off. A balanced copyright sets up the argument as if there's a real give-and-take, where what's good for some is bad for others.

I don't think copyright law needs to be that way. If the real purpose of copyright law is to "promote the progress," then why not make sure it's doing so? In other words, why not have actual evidence-based copyright law? There's a lot of historical evidence that can be looked at, and different ideas around copyright law can be empirically tested. If it doesn't promote the progress, get rid of it. If it does, then shouldn't that make almost everyone better off?

The real problem, though, is that there is a very small group of companies who disproportionately benefit from today's copyright laws -- at the expense of the public. And they have a ridiculously powerful lobby who aren't about to give up their monopoly rights, no matter how much evidence there is that it harms the public and does not promote the progress at all. So we're left with a bad system that continually gets worse. And no evidence-based system will ever be allowed, because it would almost certainly strip that small, but powerful, group of their monopoly rents.

People often assume that I'm in favor of just tossing out all copyright law. I'd argue that I'm more agnostic on the subject than anything else. I don't care about "copyright law" per se. I care about what's going to best promote the progress. If someone can show me that copyright actually can do that, I'm willing to understand how. But if we can't present the evidence of how, or actually defend what good copyright does, the I'm left wondering why it's there at all.

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Did People Think No One Would Recognize REAL ID If Introduced Under Another Name?

from the pass-id,-indeed dept

Last year, it became clear that REAL ID was dead on arrival as pretty much everyone was against it, and states were refusing to implement it. With the changing of the administration, it seemed like REAL ID was finally going to die completely... but apparently not just yet. EFF alerts folks to the fact that the same concept has basically been reintroduced under the name PASS ID, as if that would trick people:

The plan sounds equally as bad and unnecessary:

Proponents seem to be blind to the systemic impotence of such an identification card scheme. Individuals originally motivated to obtain and use fake IDs will instead use fake identity documents to procure "real" drivers' licenses. PASS ID creates new risks -- it calls for the scanning and storage of copies of applicants' identity documents (birth certificates, visas, etc.). These documents will be stored in databases that will become leaky honeypots of sensitive personal data, prime targets for malicious identity thieves or otherwise accessible by individuals authorized to obtain documents from the database. Despite some alterations to the scheme, PASS ID is still bad for privacy in many of the same ways the REAL ID was.

But why let that stop the gov't from coming up with more ways to keep tabs on you?

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Moving To A Single Currency... Or Lots Of Local Currencies?

from the or-a-combination-of-both? dept

A few days ago, Kyle Brady sent over his blog post wondering if the world would eventually move to a single currency. His suggestion would be that it would be based on the Euro, though can you just imagine the political uproar in the US if anyone actually took a step in that direction? Politically, it's a total non-starter. If you think that people are freaking out over health care reform, just wait until anyone in power suggested something like this. It simply won't happen. Brady's post goes on to suggest that this could help us move to a more digital currency, though I think we're already pretty much there. Actual paper money is a tiny fraction of the real money supply these days. Money is digital for all intents and purposes right now.

However, just after reading that... I came across an article suggesting pretty much the exact opposite: that we're perhaps more likely to move to more splintered currencies as local regions start creating their own currencies. The article, in particular, talks about Brooklyn trying to create a Brooklyn-specific currency. Such things are hardly new. Having spent five years of my life in Ithaca, NY, I was quite familiar with Ithaca Hours, the local currency that is often held up as the model on which such local currencies can work. Of course, we've seen other attempts to do this in the past, and I'm not sure any can really get big enough to matter. But I can see how they are appealing to some during economic downturns, as they look for better ways to try to get people to focus on local businesses. Designing a currency that encourages you to spend locally might seem like a good idea, and it can work in small doses. In the end, though, I doubt either movement (single world currency, splintering local currencies) is likely to become that big of a deal in the near future. The system we have now actually works pretty well (despite the economic mess faced today).

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Biologic Drugs Likely To Get Separate 12-Year Monopoly Protection Beyond Patents

from the and-for-that,-we-all-suffer dept

A few weeks ago, we noted that some biotech firms were pushing hard to get a separate monopoly on biologic drugs, that went beyond patent protection, as if that wasn't enough. While we had some thoughtful comments from some industry insiders, claiming that the issue could be more about liability. If that's the case, then deal with the liability question, not the monopoly protections. Either way, Robert McClelland alerts us to the unfortunate news that our elected officials have caved in to what the big pharma companies wanted and agreed to a new plan that would give a twelve-year monopoly on these sorts of "biosimilars." It's still not clear why this is needed at all, other than to wipe out competition and make drugs much more expensive. The two congressional reps who pushed this through were Representatives Anna Eshoo and Joe Barton. This is no surprise from Barton, but Eshoo, who represents part of Silicon Valley should know better than to be increasing monopoly protections.

Oh wait... a quick look over at OpenSecrets.org shows that (take a guess...) the single largest contributor to Eshoo's election campaigns has been (yup) pharmaceutical companies. Oh, and they've already been the largest contributors to her 2010 re-election campaign. And people wonder why Larry Lessig's Change Congress movement is getting attention. Even if she's being totally sincere in her position, how else can you look on this without saying it smacks of corruption with bought-and-paid-for legislation that gives pharma companies an extra monopoly to gain significant monopoly rents at the expense of the public?

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Copyright Lobbyists Celebrate Latest Bogus Stats With Willing Gov't Officials

from the this-is-depressing dept

Every day, we see greater and greater evidence that too stringent copyright laws are harming creative efforts rather than encouraging them. The evidence is all around us and growing. But, very few in the government recognize this. They don't actually look at the real research on these things. Instead, they accept as gospel the ridiculous debunked research that comes out of the industry lobbyists who benefit the most from such protectionism that limits real and meaningful competition. And no one calls them on it. Take, for example, this Internet News report on how lobbyists for the music, movie and software industries all got together with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, and talked up a new and misleading study from the International Intellectual Property Association that talks up the importance of copyright.

Unfortunately, the report has many, many problems. It mistakenly assumes that anything covered by copyright (i.e., any sort of creative output) is created solely because of copyright. Plenty of content/software/etc. is not created because of copyright -- but this study assumes that it is and that it needs to be protected -- even though for much of it, that's unlikely to be true. That leads to a very distorted picture, because it makes you automatically think that granting more copyright is better, even if much of that output would have been done anyway -- and even if there would have been more output without copyright. It falsely assumes that the production is because of copyright, rather than just covered by copyright.

But, with such bogus stats -- and gullible gov't officials -- it's easy to push for more protectionism and stronger copyright laws as being necessary to "protect" these industries. The industry officials went on and on at the get together, falsely blaming "piracy" for the music industry's troubles -- ignoring that real studies (i.e., not lobbyist-backed ones) are telling quite a different story. The overall industry is actually thriving -- in part because of the better ability to distribute and promote content and software at greatly diminished costs (often free). Ignoring these benefits, and treating them all as harm is a huge mistake.

But, it's these lobbyists and their bogus numbers that have the ears of our elected officials. What a shame. No one was invited to suggest the countering viewpoint or to show why the industry's numbers were clearly false. No one was there to discuss how stronger copyright actually harms creative output, and to show how these very industries have repeatedly fought against and shut down innovations that could have helped the economy. No one was there to question why politicians would simply accept industry-financed studies. And, no reporters seemed to have asked these questions, either. It's just politics and business as usual.

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NPR Plays Spot The Healthcare Lobbyists At Healthcare Reform Hearing

from the nice dept

As those involved in public policy issues know all too well, much of what happens in DC is driven (or at least heavily influenced) by lobbyists. But, for the most part, the lobbyists stay out of the spotlight, allowing politicians to present their positions for them. But the lobbyists themselves are never far away -- it's just that the press always has the cameras facing the politicians, and the lobbyists go undetected. That's why it's great to see that NPR actually has tried turning the cameras around (found via Jerry Brito). At a hearing on healthcare reform, NPR photographers turned around and photographed those in the audience, and then placed the photo online, asking viewers to identify the lobbyists in attendance. Brito points out that it's not clear that enough people who would know actually have looked at the photo, but it's still a nice idea.

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How The Entertainment Industry 'Launders' Policy Pronouncements

from the policy-laundering dept

It's no secret that a great deal of regulations and policies are really written and pushed by lobbyists, and politicians just put their own names on it. We've seen it quite blatantly at times, such as the case where a politician being quizzed about legislation he introduced deferred questions to the industry lobbyist in the room. However, Michael Geist has done an amazing job taking the recent plagiarized and deceptive report from The Conference Board of Canada, which had been totally rewritten due to complaints from lobbyists and has used it to demonstrate exactly how this "policy laundering" process works. Policy laundering is such a great and accurate term. The industry basically comes up with some totally bogus numbers and keeps pushing them over and over again, trying to get other sources to cite them. Then, once that happens, the numbers are now backed up as "fact" by some other citation, and things get even more involved. It's a neat little trick. When people actually go back and look for the specifics (like Julian Sanchez did recently) they discover a mess of smoke and mirrors and nothing whatsoever at the foundation. But because the numbers have been quoted so widely, often by "legitimate" third parties, they're suddenly taken as fact. Policy laundering indeed.

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Universities Struggling To Deal With Law Requiring Them To Fight File Sharing

from the what-a-waste dept

For years, Hollywood pushed Congress to pass laws that would hold colleges and universities responsible for cracking down on unauthorized file sharing that happened on campus. The threat was that if universities didn't stop file sharing, Congress could withold federal financial aid funds from students. That's quite a big stick. What justified it? Well, the MPAA put out a report claiming that 44% of "losses" from file sharing came from college campuses. Of course, the number (like so many out of entertainment industry lobbyists) was entirely made up. In fact, it was so ridiculous that even the MPAA came out and publicly admitted the numbers were bogus and apologized!

You would think, after that, Congress would think twice about passing a law that was written based on such bogus numbers. Think again. Congress had no problem rushing it through and getting it signed by the President.

So now what's happening? Well, universities and colleges are wasting a ton of time, money and effort to try to comply (found via Michael Scott, who notes, "what a waste of resources."). The article talks about how universities feel punished for something that isn't even a problem:

"We have not received one complaint about one student. Yet now we have to go out and incur the cost to solve a problem that we didn't really have.... Tying actually capital and operating dollars to it in this economy to solve a problem we don't really have at our scale has been an issue."

Thanks, Hollywood and all those politicians who approved this. Now you're taking away important resources from our educational institutions for a problem that isn't even a problem.

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Student Found Guilty Of 'Disturbing The Peace' For Sending Nasty Political Email To Professor

from the wow dept

As we all know, online debates can spiral out of control pretty quickly -- with name calling and people quickly jumping to extremes. This is especially true in the political arena, where various positions are stereotyped and extreme passions come out quickly. I tend to find such discussions tiresome. However, they occur all the time (occasionally here in our own comments). But could you consider such a conversation disturbing the peace? It appears that's exactly what happened to a student in Nebraska who had a rather nasty political email exchange with a professor.

The student and the professor exchanged a series of emails over a short period of time. The two were at opposite ends of the political spectrum (which side was which, honestly, doesn't and shouldn't matter), and the student used some nasty language and accused the professor of being a traitor among other things. To be honest, if you've spent any time in online political discussions, this really isn't particularly out of the ordinary -- and (somewhat amazingly) after a back-and-forth exchange where the professor asked the student to stop emailing him and noting how insulted he was by the emails, the student did send a long apologetic email, telling the professor he was sorry that he got so riled up, and he really liked the professor and just wanted to debate someone intelligent who viewed the world from a very different perspective.

A few months went by, and then the professor received two anonymous emails from a new Yahoo email address that used the professor's name as part of the address (the username was "averylovesalqueda"), again ranting politically against the professor. The professor found the emails threatening and turned them over to the police. The police eventually tracked the emails down to the same student who was then charged with disturbing the peace. Yes. Disturbing the peace. For sending a nasty email.

First Amendment scholars look out. Who knew that sending a private ranting email could disturb the peace?

Amazingly, a lower court and now the appeals court agreed and the student has been convicted of disturbing the peace for sending those emails. The court even claims that the email address itself is libelous which seems quite difficult to square with reality. No one would look at that email address and assume that it was actually from the professor in question, and there's no indication that anyone outside of the professor himself ever saw the email address in question. O'Toole, in his post, puts the blame not on the judges, but on the student, who chose to defend himself, and appears to have done a pretty poor job of it, now leaving this ruling to be used as a citation in other cases. This is bad news no matter how you look at it. Even granting O'Toole's premise that the student is at fault for defending himself (and doing such a poor job of it), it's still bothersome that a judge wouldn't take basic First Amendment rights into consideration here.

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US Switches To Digital TV And The World Doesn't End -- Nor Does Hollywood

from the phew dept

We were quite surprised to find no further calls for delays on the switchover to digital over the air TV from analog -- but we're not at all surprised to find out that the actual switchover happened with relatively few problems. Sure there are some people who are confused or who are having difficulty getting their new converter boxes working properly, but there's been no catastrophic failure or problems, and most of the issues seem to have been resolved pretty quickly. Perhaps the gov't really did need a few extra months, but my guess is that the same thing likely would have happened back in February... or if we had done the switchover years ago. So, now can we put the old spectrum to good use, finally?

Separately, the EFF is noting that (once again) it appears that Hollywood lied and exaggerated its claim that it needed a broadcast flag that would stop DVR copying of digital TV or it would start pulling content off the air. Funny thing... that didn't happen. As the EFF notes:

Entertainment industries like to argue that they "need" DRM to make works available. And policymakers have eagerly adopted this argument. But when the bluff is called, it turns out that the DRM wasn't so necessary after all.

So will our politicians recognize this? Or will they continue to believe Hollywood, everytime it insists it needs some new kind of DRM with legal backing from the gov't?

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A Few Million Homes Still Aren't Ready For Digital TV Transition... But Don't Let That Stop It

from the bring-it-on dept

The transition to digital TV, and the shutdown of analog broadcasts, is set to finally go ahead on June 12, after a four-month delay was put into place by Congress. The delay capped off a process that's been pretty bungled from the outset, though things seem to have mostly come together over the last couple of months. Still, though, stories emerge about the 3 million or so homes that aren't ready for the transition, despite the time and money that's been spent on informational campaigns about it. It's been a pleasant surprise to see these stories largely unaccompanied by calls for further delays. The number of unprepared homes has fallen by half since the delay was announced in February, and a good way to get most of the rest (assuming they actually care) to follow would seem to be to go ahead and flip the switch. At this point, if people haven't caught on, perhaps it's the only way to get them to do so. And just in case any Techdirt readers are in that 2.8 million, hit dtv.gov or call 1-888-CALL-FCC to get info and/or help.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Iran Blocks Facebook... Though There Are Disagreements About The Reason

from the let's-vote-for-political-reasons dept

There were a bunch of stories this weekend talking about how Facebook appeared to be blocked in Iran, with many assuming that it was due to upcoming elections, where some reformist candidates have been using the social networking site to build support. Current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is apparently claiming that he has nothing to do with it, and that he "believe[s] in maximum freedom of expression," and that he'll "look into" the block. Meanwhile, others are claiming the ban is for moral, rather than political reasons. The reality is probably a bit of both -- with the government being able to use the cover of "morality" to block an effective organizing technique for an opposition candidate. Either way, this action only seems to be calling more attention to the opposition candidate, so if the goal was to stifle his campaign, it might just have backfired.

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Italy's Troubling View Of The Internet

from the sucks-to-be-an-internet-startup-in-Italy dept

For some unclear reason, this weekend there was a fair amount of press coverage of the fact that Italian officials are suing The Pirate Bay in court. This lawsuit has been ongoing, so there really isn't much new -- other than the recent verdict in Sweden, which is now in dispute over conflict of interest charges against the judge in the case. In Italy, the case first made news last summer, when a prosecutor on the case ordered ISPs to start blocking The Pirate Bay. However, what was really odd was that ISPs weren't just told to block the site, but to funnel all the traffic to a site run by the major record labels. That was quite questionable. Even if The Pirate Bay were found to be illegal, to hand that traffic over to the labels raises plenty of ethical questions. Either way, a judge rejected the ban for the time being, though it could be reinstated later.

But what's struck me is how many of these sorts of stories have been coming out of Italy lately, raising lots of questions about officials there and how they view the internet. The other high profile case involves the decision to charge Google execs with criminal charges because some kids put up a questionable video on YouTube -- which YouTube took down within hours of finding out about it (and, which officials used to track down the kids who misbehaved in the video). It's difficult to think up any reason that would make Google execs criminally liable for a video of dumb kids being uploaded to its site. We're still wondering why other tools used in the video aren't also being charged (for example, one part of the video involved kids throwing a tissue box at a disabled boy -- so, clearly, the execs at the tissue-maker should be equally liable).

However, that's hardly all of the oddities coming out of Italy lately. Of course, like France, the country is looking to implement a three strikes law, but has also required all blogs to register with the government. Then there were the folks who ran an online music store, where they had officially licensed the music for sale, but the IFPI claimed they didn't get all the right licenses, and an Italian court sent them to jail for this (rather than just fining them or passing an injunction). Oh right, and Italian cops have been asking for a back door to listen to Skype calls. And... finally, recently we wrote about a law that the gov't was considering that would ban anonymity online in Italy -- and it just so happened that the law was written by entertainment industry representatives. Add all these up, and it seems that Italy appears to be an incredibly anti-Internet country. You'd have to imagine that can't be good for business.

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Administration Lobbyist Ban Not Doing What It's Supposed To Do

from the too-bad dept

While conceptually, I think many people appreciate President Obama's stance against bringing lobbyists into his administration, in all practicality, the rule has been a combination of meaningless or troubling. Tom Barger points to a NY Times article where many people are upset that some extremely qualified folks who worked for non-profit human rights organizations are being denied positions in the administration. There's been some pushing to get the administration to make an exception for human rights and non-profit lobbyists, noting that the intent of the rule was to bar corporate lobbyists from gaining too much influence, but the administration has struck down those suggestions, saying it leads to a slippery slope.

But, of course, in reality, we know that slippery slope already exists. That's because the ban on "lobbyists" is really only being used for folks who were officially registered as lobbyists. That leaves out tons of people who worked for these corporate entities or even for the lobbyist groups themselves, but weren't officially registered lobbyists themselves. We've already seen how the Justice Department is, for example, being filled with lawyers who regularly worked with the RIAA, MPAA and BSA -- three of the biggest copyright lobbying organizations, and those individuals have wasted no time in expressing their desire to continue pushing those industry's viewpoints in their new positions.

So the idea that lobbyists are being kept out is pretty silly. As the NY Times article notes, all this really does is encourage lobbyists not to register themselves as lobbyists, but to focus on lobbying unofficially, so that they can still get administration positions at a later date. That creates less openness and transparency, and a larger risk of regulatory capture, rather than a diminished one. We all like the idea of trying to keep corporate influence out of the law making (and law enforcement) side of government, but a blanket ban on all lobbyists, while letting non-lobbyist lobbyists in the back door isn't exactly reassuring.

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VP & Commerce Secretary Suck Up To Hollywood, Cite Bogus Stats And Promise Misguided Action

from the just-what-wasn't-needed dept

The Obama administration continues to give in to pretty much every wish of the entertainment industry. At an MPAA-sponsored dinner, VP Joe Biden repeated a bunch of Hollywood talking point myths as fact, and promised stronger intellectual property enforcement. He incorrectly referred to file sharing as "pure theft," claimed that it hurt the economy (with no evidence to support that) and said that it caused lost jobs. Of course, the industry has been putting out bogus studies claiming such notions, but they're easily debunked when you look at the details. Biden also promised that the "IP czar" would be "the right person," which (given the audience was Hollywood execs) almost certainly means someone who will roll over and obey the industry, rather than focus on actually increasing innovation and protecting consumer rights.

Earlier at the event, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke noted that the recent leak of Wolverine "underscores the problem the industry faces," while saying that he "believes in the full and impartial enforcement of the law." Again, as has been discussed widely, the leak of Wolverine doesn't demonstrate any problem at all. Plenty of people will still go see the movie in the theater, and if the industry had reacted intelligently, it could have turned the leak into a marketing coup. Instead, it acted stupidly, and because of that, the administration is going to bend over backwards to help the industry keep acting stupid rather than adapt. What a shame.

These moves represent a real loss to the economy, society and culture. For whatever reason (money has a lot to do with it), the administration seems to have bought into the totally unsubstantiated claim that there is only one business model for entertainment (selling content), and thus it needs to create laws to make sure that such a business model works. In doing so, it's creating massive inefficiencies, decreasing content production and making it even more difficult for new and innovative business models and services to thrive.

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Political Candidate Drops Out Of Race Due To Racy Facebook Photos

from the that-was-quick dept

It really was just three years ago when we were saying we couldn't wait for the MySpace generation to run for office, knowing that the skeletons in their closets wouldn't actually be in their closets at all, but would have been posted online for all to see. While we actually expected that it would lead to a point where people pretty much brushed off and ignored such "youthful indiscretions," we certainly have't reached that point yet. A guy running for office in British Columbia, Canada, has dropped out of the election after images of him groping a woman's breast (that first appeared on his Facebook page) came to light. It's not clear when the photos in question were taken, but expect to see political candidates and their online presence scrutinized in more and more detail in future elections...

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