Erin Andrews Nude Video Means We Should Regulate The Internet?

from the please-explain dept

In talking yesterday about the legality of viewing the “spy camera” footage of sportscaster Erin Andrews in her hotel room, someone pointed out in the comments that some journalists are now claiming that this shows why the internet needs to be regulated. Wait, what? How? Why? Creating the video was already illegal. What kind of regulation is needed here and how would it actually change anything? It seems that any time something “bad” happens some people suddenly jump up and insist “their oughta be a law!” without actually thinking through what that actually means.

Meanwhile, some others have noticed that this video apparently has been online for many months, and no one paid any attention at all to it until ESPN made a big deal out of it. Now, you can understand ESPN’s general position, but it makes you wonder if there wasn’t a better way to handle this that could have involved tracking down who was responsible without putting out a big press release and kicking off all this interest in the video. It’s almost as if (perish the thought!), ESPN is actually trying to exploit this situation (and Andrews) to draw more attention to itself…

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Companies: espn

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Comments on “Erin Andrews Nude Video Means We Should Regulate The Internet?”

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26 Comments
RD says:

Yes! OF Course!

Yes…because it CAN BE PUT ON the internet, its the FAULT OF THE INTERNET.

Seriously, do ANY of these idiots even understand HOW the internet works? It’s not RESPONSIBLE for ANYTHING. Its a tool, at best; technically its just a set of communications protocols. It enables things, but its not the CAUSE of these behaviors. Sheesh, what kind of a backwards, luddite, Salem-witch-hunt country is this becoming?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Yes! OF Course!

Technically a gun is just a controlled gunpowder demolition system, and newspapers are just organized tree fibre sheets.

The issue isn’t “the internet” as a thing, it is “the internet” as it operates. If a posted video came with a trace back to the original poster, let me assure you that you would have never seen that video online. The anonymous nature of the internet is it’s major weakness in the end, allowing all sorts of e-scammers and e-vandals to come online every day and do the equivalent of rioting or painting graffiti on the Lincoln memorial, with the near total assurance that nobody will ever track them down.

Until that changes, the internet is the wild west all over again.

SuperNig (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Yes! OF Course!

This is hogwash. Stupidity is as old as humanity. In the past 5000 years of “civilization” no law has changed that fact. The internet is a medium. Not very diferent than the phone or smoke signals for that matter. There are already ways to track people’s actions online. LEAVE THE INTERNET ALONE. The issue here is the titilative value of the naked human form in society. Deal with the cause, not the medium.

RD says:

Exactly

“That’s a vary good point. It’s a platform that the tools are built upon. It’s like going after the steel manufactures that make the bars that the gun was made out of.”

Exactly! If this were the case, then you need to “stop” AT&T because “bad things” happen on their phone network, or you need to “do something” about sporting goods stores because thats where the guns are sold.

It’s time for the return of personal responsibility to the world.

Dave Beck (profile) says:

I don't live in the US, who is Erin Andrews?

Perhaps the other 4 billion people have an interest in whether the Internet is regulated. In England this is called a “tempest in a teacup”, a largely (on a worldwide basis) unknown person has an innocuous but embarrassing video posted on the ‘Net. The person is a journalist?, so journalists are outraged. Remind me, who cares?

Bradley Stewart (profile) says:

Not Only Haven't I Seen This Video

but I Haven’t even looked for it. A Colony of Space Aliens seen from one of our high powered telescopes going through their daily routines. Yeah this would peak my interest but a video of some naked sportscaster. EH, so what. For anyone who hasen’t figured this out yet, basicly we have two body types on this planet. One of the two each of us has. For most of us we have already seen the other one.

James says:

Erin Andrews video

If you take the time to watch the video, the girl is curling her hair in the nude?!?! Now I am not Hugh Hefner or anything but I have lived with a few girls in my 40+ years, and some of them were nicer looking than this girl, IMHO. One thing I NEVER saw them do was curl their hair in the nude.
As I was watching the video I also noticed she is checking out her own butt in the mirror and kind of doing a little bouncing up and down thing here and there – all in the nude mind you, while doing her hair, with a HOT IRON in her hand.
Something else that didn’t click – this girl bends over and MAGICALLY the cam in the “peep hole” DESCENDS – now I don’t know what kind of “peep-hole” was in the door, but a peep-hole that slides up and down?!?!? I find that to be a first in my 40+ years as well.
Based on these 2 things – and the fact that my wife said the video looked like she was “playing to the camera” I have come to the conclusion that little Erin in looking for some attention.
I kind think this video might be a bit of a staged up fake, but hey maybe not?!?! I wasn’t there – and if I had been I sure would not have wasted video space on flat chest here. 😉

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