THE SEX FILES: Caught in the Net
Ok, so here are some Internet-centric sex happenings…
1.) For the past 3 weeks (it will be four by the time you’re reading this) the social networking site Manhunt has been asking its members to send ‘polite requests’ to the mighty God Facebook in the hopes of getting some explanation why Manhunt was thrown-off the behemoth social network. With ‘likes’ of over 174,000 nobody at Manhunt can say why this has happened but the rumor is that there might be some politics involved.
Johnathan Crutchly, co-owner of Manhunt is said to be a Log Cabin Club Republican who has supported many pro-gay Rebublicans, while also contributing to John McCains campaign. Larry Basile, the other Manhunt owner is a very liberal Democrat and supported almost every Gay group known to man. Could either of these guys’ affiliations have cost them their place on Facebook, and if so, which would it be?
Or is it simply Facebook trying to distance itself from what is its obvious raison de tete…hooking people up, helping married people to cheat and bringing sad and distant ex’s back together so they can experience even sadder moments of attempts at catching their youth? Not to worry though, as any good social community would, Manhunt continues on Twitter and YouTube while its removal from Facebook remains a mystery.
2.) Symantec says that in many cases, religious and ideological websites might actually carry three times more malware threats than porn sites. Announcing their findings in the annual Internet Security Threat Report, the huge security firm claimed religious sites carried around 115 threats to the much smaller 25 porn sites usually have. Symantec also claims that only 2.4 percent of porn sites were found to be infected with malware, compared to 20 percent of blogs.
Supposedly threats to mobile devices are increasing as well, particularly with Google’s Android mobile OS with more than half of all Android threats collecting device data or tracking user activities.
3.) And here I thought Craigslist sex crimes were a thing of the past after the obvious unfortunate rash of body dumps found on Long Island the past 2 years, but it seems, as Richard McGuire, our own Nassua assistant chief of detectives claims: “Craigslist has become the high-tech 42nd Street, where much of the solicitation takes place now.”
July raids of Cook County, Ill., rounded up 43 women ‘working’ the streets, while 60 were found to still advertise on Craigslist. In Seattle, a November police sting resulted in the arrests of 71 men looking on CL for ‘companionship’. And in Jacksonville, FL. police posted one ad for only three days on CL catching 33 men.
As I report here often, as I have made many of my connections these past few years and as I believe so many of us enjoy our prurient interests, sex and the internet have become so intertwined. But authorities claim that prostitution is flourishing online as never before and Craigslist and prostitution seem to go hand in…well, pick whatever body part you like. The ‘missed connections’ section, searching ‘w4m’, if you want it you can find it on Craigslist. But how smart is it for us to do so?
One day not so long ago 9,000 listings were added to the Craigslist “Erotic Services” category in our area alone.
4.) Britian is seeing quite the uproar over their government’s proposal to block Internet porn. British Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said that the government wanted to cut off access to pornographic websites to protect children, which anybody would be for of course, but the new proposal would see a block on all household computers from all porn sites with adults who wanted to watch porn having to opt in, specifically requesting the ability to view porn websites.
Is this a slippery slope of worse government intervention to come? Is it even a way to monitor what private adults might be watching in their homes?