InDiggnation: New Fox News Porn Parody Banned By Online Community

Just over a week ago, the folks over at Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films launched a broadside at Fox, assailing them for pimping racy "after-hours" content, "frequently in stories condemning precisely such images in the media as morally corrosive." Yesterday, BNF followed that up with an enhanced parodic effort - a new video and a mock website that mimics the candy-coated come-ons frequently found on the sites of online purveyors of pornography. Uhm...or so people tell me.

But a funny thing happened on the way to one of the internet's most popular online fora. The editors at Digg.com banned Brave New Films from posting these new offerings on their site, citing a violation of the rules set down in their Terms of Service that forbid "adult content."

Emails obtained by the Huffington Post document the back and forth exchange that transpired between Brave New Films' Jesse Haff and the editors of Digg. In them, Haff writes:

Within the past few minutes, someone at Digg apparently deleted a Digg submission entitled "FOX News Porn. All porn, all from FOX News. Seriously. (possibly NSFW)" by the user account "bravenewfilms". Clearly someone thought this was an actual porn site -- but it's not it's a PARODY site. It's taking images and video broadcast by the FOX News Network and putting them together on a website designed to LOOK like a porn site, encouraging people to contact FOX News advertisers.

Digg sent a boilerplate response:

That submission had Adult Content included within it and is not allowed on Digg, as per the TOS you agreed to when you signed up. If you agree not to submit material that breaks the TOS again, we will reinstate your account.

In a second email, Haff protested that their "submission" merely "contained content that FOX News had broadcast."

Digg won't allow content that FOX News will air? Seriously? Please double check the web site...and please confirm that Digg doesn't allow content that is broadcast on FOX News. That's all I ask.

To which he received the following reply:

Yes, that submission was Adult content. Yes, it was against our TOS, even though it was broadcast on FOX. Unfortunately the domain will not be unbanned.

For their part, Brave New Films deemed the kerfuffle to be proof of concept: "We thought we were doing parody, but apparently we weren't. According to Digg, FOX News IS porn. No irony necessary." And naturally, they urged people to "Digg [their] story on Digg about Digg blocking [them] from Digg."

But, in seeming to agree with BNF's overall point, was Digg just trying to be agreeable to NewsCorp? As one commenter on the competing "social bookmarking" site Reddit darkly mused, "The last time Digg censored something the users revolted. I don't think Digg will last long under the influence of Fox News, but maybe that's News Corps plan." And, it's true--Digg and NewsCorp have 'sniffed around' each other before. Back in October of 2006, Digg's "acquisition dance" with the multi-tentacled Murdochian beast was well documented.

It seems unnecessary anymore to preface this with the word, "ironically," but...ironically, Digg's ban has only fanned the flames of attention. Brave New Films' parody ended up hitting the #1 spot at the aforementioned Reddit, and Digg users have started rebelling in earnest.

Comments

[jennylens]

05:48 PM on 11/16/2007

LOVE your post so much I blogged about it and submitted it to bloggingzoom.com. Of course I included your name, your link and huffingtonpost.com link. Hope it spreads throughout the blogsphere!

I'm a long time fan of Greenwald's. This time he's really touched a nerve, not just about Wal-Mart, but peeps who love to spread these kinds of stories, are quick to do it, and quite persistent.

I wonder what, if any, long-term fallout towards Digg. They are the HOT smo, but others are nipping at their heels. The other hot online controversy is Google and text link ads. Due to Google, a lot of peeps are gonna lose a lot of income, while the spammers, sploggers and spinners make out like the bandits they are!

These companies depend upon bloogers and net users for their audience, their ad rates, their perceived market value. Then they do this. alienate the peeps who made them big. But myspace survived Murdoch -- is that what Digg is going for? Figure they are infallible?

It's going to depend upon just how far, wide and deeply this story spreads. Cos in case Fox and Digg haven't heard this, the blogsphere is mighty huge. And we love to spread the word.

I've channel surfed late in evening, before Fox shows the porn, but they have an hour dissing Hollywood, and sound like a bunch of drunken frat boys. It astounded me that no one has called Fox on that! Cos let anyone else do it, and Fox is all over them, whether broadcast, print or online.

[Jazzylady26]

04:03 PM on 11/16/2007

Either last night or Wednesday night, Neil Cavuto, at the end of his finance spot on our local fox station, did a snippet on the strumpet who was accused of being improperly dressed on a plane. He had her dressed in that totally too skimpy outfit and then touted the fact that she had decided to bare it all; in the second pic she was dressed in nothing more than a barely there thong and bra.

[rixhex56]

01:25 PM on 11/16/2007

Could "Brave New Films" have written a better script??? LOL!

[patricethree]

01:07 PM on 11/16/2007

Oooooo this writer and many of you seem to be obsessed with Fox News. Is it jealousy? maybe. I think it galls you guys that people have a different opinion than you all. Well there are millions that do have a different opinion. So what? They have a right just like you do.

[wadenelson1]

11:00 AM on 11/16/2007

FOX proving once again there's no pox like hipocrasy.