Cat Fight, Internet-Style: Perez Hilton Slaps the Face(book) of Not-BFF Mark Zuckerberg
by Kara Swisher
Posted on February 17, 2009 at 3:36 AM PT
In a BoomTown post last night noting that users should just get used to not having much control of their privacy and posted content online, in the wake of the controversy over Facebook’s terms of service changes, how could one leave out this gem of a digital diatribe on the issue by gossipmonger supreme, Perez Hilton?
In an item yesterday, Hilton–who has gotten into a lot of copyright infringement legal trouble himself–asked his fans to boycott the fast-growing social-networking site and claimed that Facebook “can license your personal pictures out to companies, make a shizzle of money and don’t have to give you a dime.”
Facebook could certainly use a shizzle or two, but that seems about as likely as people like Hilton laying off of Jessica Simpson for her alleged weight gain. (Speaking of which–Hey, Perez, let’s say we just blame the bad jeans and move on, shall we?)
Nonetheless, it is still kind of fun to watch as different worlds collide so perfectly.
Of course, Hilton’s Facebook app was still up last nigh, although it apparently only has 361 monthly active users, compared to SuperPoke’s sheep-tossing 6.3 million.
Not to be catty or anything!
In any case, here’s a link to the Hilton post and an image of it below (one can only dream that Perez will come after me with that digital Sharpie for lifting it!):
Comments
Herein layeth the backlash from the nirvana ambitions of user-generated content. Millions of images and content created under a blanket caveat of removed responsibility and a concurrent but unsustainable desire to properly monetise that content.
Or as Grandma’s around the world have been saying for generations, ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it!’.
This is only the beginning…
Posted by Jan Simmonds at February 17th, 2009 at 4:48 amI just realized something.
Aside from the PR value (there’s no such thing as bad publicity!) of Facebook once again stirring up controversy on their money losing service, this latest disturbance in the space-time-Internet continuum might have a hidden side effect.
I’d wager that the vast majority of “users generating content” couldn’t care less about the copyright status of their “works” because they have no expectation of ever profiting from them (that is even if they have even worried their pretty little heads with such concepts).
But what about those doing it for the money? Oh, they have reasons to be concerned alright. Andrew Baron, Paris Hilton, boycotting Facebook? Are Scoble and countless other celebrity bloggers going to be far behind?
You just wait, there will be some behind the scenes deals signed with these “commercial” content providers, protecting them from the onerous end-user licenses and somehow cutting Facebook in for a piece of the action (to the extent that there is any action that is).
Facebook is trying to implement the Internet as Microsoft would have had it years ago, with them as the central authority, ruling over all and charging an “Internet tax” that has been for so long postponed by the government to promote the technology.
I suppose if we don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs there is always the possibility it will commit suicide.
Posted by Mac Beach at February 17th, 2009 at 9:47 am