Slog: News & Arts

RSS icon Comments on Life (and Death) in the Internet Age

1

Why did I look at her myspace page? It's like I just couldn't help myself.

While very sad, there really is no way to protect a child from learning the truth about their parent's embarrassing cause of death. If it's an issue of gossip, the kid should be moved to another town where nobody has heard of it. While it will never leave the internet, most people have short memories, and as long as the kid's name isn't also in articles about the parent (it shouldn't be), no one will make the connection. It doesn't require a crusade to keep names out of salacious articles, which, I agree with David, will never be effective.

Posted by Aislinn | April 24, 2008 10:42 AM
2

Great on the supplememtary moral: I had a profile on gay.com that someone took my picture (g-rated face shot btw)and plastered it all over Manhunt and some BB sex websites. People are fucking assholes on the internet.

Posted by No Shit | April 24, 2008 10:49 AM
3

her profile song is "no air" by jordin sparks. wow.

Posted by wcr | April 24, 2008 11:09 AM
4

The sad truth is things live forever on the Internet and news that once was quiet and local is now global. I feel for Ziptag but I agree with others that it is a losing battle to try and eradicate information once it spreads.

Totally random, funny aside. I was looking for some game tips for my son on the internet and after I'd used Google and searched in vain I told him I couldn't find anything. He looked at me skeptically and said "really, you searched the *whole* internet?"

Posted by PopTart | April 24, 2008 11:20 AM
5

Wow.

Posted by Will in Seattle | April 24, 2008 11:37 AM
6

Way to go justifying being a prick David.

Posted by ecce homo | April 24, 2008 11:42 AM
7

Just remember, Ecce: That prick is somebody's steady-sweaty. Consider his feelings.

Posted by ScrewYouRusty | April 24, 2008 1:27 PM
8

Wow, I don't agree with ecce homo very often, but uh, yeah.

"I feel your pain"? No you don't, or you wouldn't have tacked the mySpace link on at the end. You might still have said, "Well, it's out there and nothing we can do can take that back," but then you would have left it at that. It's one thing to acknowledge the anti-privacy shitstorm that is Internet journalism. It's something else entirely to toss another turd into the tornado.

Posted by Breklor | April 24, 2008 2:11 PM
9

I know it seems like a losing battle when it's fresh, as this story is. But in the last few months my cohorts and I have seen our departed friend's name go from hundreds of hits to tens, and the remaining ones are major news organisations who are refusing to remove multiple mentions on their various pages. It actually is possible in many cases. She wasn't famous, her name meant nothing to the story, and most people have been very willing to help, particularly blogs and forums.

Her son is nine. He does not need to have his mother's death be any worse than it already is, and he is too young to intellectualise the circumstances in which she died.

Her name was illegally obtained in the first place (Thanks, cockbag paramedic who takes bribes from the press! Thanks, immoral cockbag reporters!) and it's inclusion did not add to the story in any way. I think it should be standard practice to omit people's names, even when they are known, in this sort of circumstance. Do we need to know their name to understand this story?

Anyway, I appreciate The Stranger's consideration in this regard. I know nothing about the people in this story, but I do know that it hurts me deeply to think of my friend's child reading a tawdry story about his mother. I don't want to fight the entire internet over this, but surely The Stranger has some journalistic standards.

Posted by ziptag | April 24, 2008 3:57 PM
10

I didn't comment on the original post because I didn't want to be seen as a fun spoiler, but: "news" stories about people dying and being exposed when kink goes wrong seem too much like the urban legends in which someone dies and/or is humiliated for a kink (or for their sexual orientation -ie "man slips on broomstick in the shower").

I've read somewhere, probably somewhere on Snopes.com, that those stories find their appeal in the audience's moralizing desire to see the kinkster/queer punished for their sexual activity by having that very desire kill them in a humiliating way.

Ever since reading that I don't really find those news stories funny, unless of course it happens to some hypocrite anti-sex public figure, in which case the story has them being punished for their hypocrisy, not their kink.

Posted by erika | April 24, 2008 4:53 PM
11

Erika,

I agree completely. Part of my grieving process has definitely to deal with my own thoughts of, "If only she hadn't been into that," and that I don't feel quite right expressing my outrage at the tragedy of her death without parenthetically commenting that I don't think there is anything wrong with what she was doing.

But really, the issue I wanted to bring up was the poor ethics of printing someone's name for nothing other that prurient interest. It in no way informs the reader to know this person's name. People's identities should be revealed only if they are public figures or it in some way is elemental to the story. I am disappointed in The Stranger that this is a standard they cannot see to hold themselves to.

Posted by ziptag | April 24, 2008 6:35 PM
12

Yup,

If there was any doubt about Schmaders lack of moral decency and maturity, it can now be safely removed.

Everyone has gone and jumped off the bridge! It's OK if you do it too.

I know now that you wouldn't mind if I tell the world that your mom died with a stomach filled with the semen of 10 strange black men, and her body was found hanging from a cherry picker where she had been suspended whilst being sodomized by homeless men she met at Gasworks park. Perhaps a link to her home address would be OK as well!

Goody, more funny funs to run with! I am SO creative.

Posted by ecce homo | April 24, 2008 10:24 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).