Phil Davison, above, who has a master’s degree in communication, eventually lost the Republican nomination to become Stark County, Ohio’s Stark County treasurer.

When one of his friends told him that the video of his speech “had gone viral,” apparently he asked, “What does that mean; am I sick?”

I’m guessing Mr. Davison is glad he lost (and that he’s not sick), since he’s been bombarded with media requests.   (It’s not as if the person who won the nomination has been interviewed by the BBC or Good Morning America.)

With all the free airtime to broadcast his political views, he’s probably the first person in history who has a higher chance of winning a state senate seat than a party nomination to become the treasurer of Stark County, Ohio.

Hopefully, he can figure out a way to transfer his Internet celebrity to a paying job before this meme loses steam.  Otherwise, all those fair use artists are going to beat him to it:

With thanks to Harry A. and Mike G.

For those unfamiliar with the above Internet meme and all its variants, Pedobear is an icon that is often used to jokingly (and sometimes seriously) accuse someone of having pedophilic tendencies. For example, if someone gushes about how cute 16-year-old singer Justin Bieber is on a chat room, another person might respond with this photo below, with no additional explanation needed.

Pedobear’s legacy seemed to reach a cultural apex when he ended up on the cover of a Polish newspaper in March.  A lazy editor at the Gazeta Olsztynska most likely downloaded an image of the Vancouver Winter Olympics mascots from the Internet, not realizing that a blogger had created a composite image that inserted Pedobear into a drawing of the actual mascots.  This wasn’t even an intentional hoax:

But now, Pedobear has moved on from being from an Internet joke and a fraudulent Olympic mascot to becoming an actual danger to society … according to the Sheriff’s Department in mid-state California. San Luis Obispo authorities are warning locals to watch out for the Pedobear image, suggesting that those who display/send/dress up as Pedobear are signaling their pedophilia. According to KSBY, here is the message that was distributed to parents:

The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department is warning parents about a disturbing new phenomenon made popular by pedophiles and sexual deviants.

The Pedo Bear began as an online Japanese cartoon character, and is known for his “lecherous nature” towards prepubescent children.
Recently, pedophiles have adopted the bear as a mascot.

Although there have been no reported sightings of the image on the Central Coast, individuals dressed in the bear costume and car decals have been seen in Southern California.

Local law enforcement cautions parents to be aware of the image, particularly at public events. For concerns about the image, contact the Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement division of the sheriff’s department at 805-781-4550.

What’s amazing about this story is that the office claims to be fully aware of Pedobear’s origin as an Internet meme.  Yet, despite its history as a shorthand way to accuse someone of pedophilia – thereby serving as an anti-pedophilia icon, at best, and black humor, at worst – the Sheriffs insist, with no support, that Pedobear has now been adopted as a mascot by actual pedophiles.
I find this incredibly hard to believe.  First, do pedophiles really meet as a group to “adopt” things? Second, why would they vote on a mascot?  Third, even assuming they have meetings with agenda items that involve voting on a logo, would they adopt a mascot whose origins are associated with pedophilia?

Are SLO sheriffs also arresting people on suspicion of being homicidal maniacs because they have a poster of Jack Nicholson in The Shining on their walls?

Here is the actual PSA Bulletin that Gawker obtained:

I admit I have some sympathy for the department since the humor involved in Pedobear’s usage is hard to explain.  But a little research would have made clear that those who use it are not, in any way, celebrating, promoting, or tolerating child molestation.

So does this mean that cops in SLO might have reasonable suspicion to stop people with Pedobear stickers on their car?

I suspect this driver might be able to tell us once he’s able to post bail:

Update! Fox 23 in Tulsa inaccurately reported that “in San Diego at the Comic Con festival, police found a registered sex offender who had previously assaulted a child dressed in this suit, handing out free candy.”

Video goodness:

(Thanks to C.H. for the tip)

I just read the opinion of the district court judge in Illinois who, in late July, denied a motion by the Illinois Broadcasters’ Association, Illinois Press Association, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Times to release the names of jurors, upon being seated, in former Governor Blagojevich’s and his brother’s criminal trial.

Judge Zagel held, among other things, that the notoriety of this trial posed too great a risk that jurors would receive improper outside contact if their names were revealed before a verdict was handed down.

It wasn’t until I read the opinion today that I stumbled across this sentence: “It is true that the possibility of jurors being inappropriately contacted by phone is not a new one, but the possibility of contact by email or through social networking sites is relatively recent, and the ubiquity of these media is astounding.”

In other words, the presumption in favor of disclosing jurors’ names was overcome, in part, because jurors have email and Twitter accounts. While most of Judge Zagel’s reasoning centers around the media frenzy regarding the trial and the notoriety of the well-coiffed ex-governor and reality television star, I find it problematic that a general plethora of modern communication tools — a reality in every trial that will likely only get more “astounding” with time — can be used to decimate the presumption toward disclosure.

*

Undoubtedly, the visual exhibits included in the opinion makes Judge Zagel’s decision all the more amusing.

In the opinion, Judge Zagel disclosed the various ways in which he personally has been bombarded by messages to make the point that jurors would likely receive similar communication.

For example, he received one call with the following message: “F#@k you, Judge Zagel. You f#@king arrogant bitch ass mother f#@ker. F#@k you, f#@k you, James B. Zagel. F#@k you.” Sounds like somebody’s been taking poetry classes from Rod Blagojevich! Of course, the call transcript did not include any #’s or @’s because you can’t speak those symbols.

He also received a call explaining that “the federal government has developed a new kind of electronic where they can copy exactly the voice of someone and then pretend that they are that person.’” Sounds like somebody’s watching the second season of Heroes!

The judge also received a “letter, claiming to be from President Barack Obama (written on a facsimile of White House stationery, though postmarked Cedar Rapids, Iowa), … that pursuant to his executive powers, the President has decided to dismiss Defendant Rod Blagojevich and has ordered me to close the case against him.”

These exhibits were included in the opinion:

I know that our country is going through tough economic times, but you would think that the White House would be able to afford printed envelopes or some return address labels. The March of Dimes gives those things away!

Best of all, the judge received an email from “the King of Japan” asking the court to arrange for the collection of $200,000 that Gov. Blagojevich promised to leave in an envelope for “her.”

If I were in a juror in the Blagojevich retrial, I’d probably be grateful for this decision to avoid the harassment that might befall me and my family.

That said, I’d probably endure all the lunacy if I knew I could talk to the person who is not only Japan’s first king, but Japan’s first female king!

Whether it’s YouTube’s copyright policy or Facebook’s privacy policy or an employer’s speech policy or a private Internet filter’s code, most content control has little to do with a state actor.

For example, Digg.com, which is supposed to be the ultimate user-driven, democratically-elected collection of the best speech on the Internet, is becoming a major source for allegations of speech suppression.

According to this Alternet article:

One bury brigade in particular is a conservative group that has become so organized and influential that they are able to bury over 90% of the articles by certain users and websites submitted within 1-3 hours, regardless of subject material. Literally thousands of stories have already been artificially removed from Digg due to this group. When a story is buried, it is removed from the upcoming section (where it is usually at for ~24 hours) and cannot reach the front page, so by doing this, this one group is removing the ability of the community as a whole to judge the merits or interest of these stories on their own (in essence: censoring content). This group is known as the Digg “Patriots”. …

The primary function of the Digg Patriots is to censor politically progressive content from the upcoming Political, Political Opinion, World News, and Business sections, so that conservative stories have a better chance to get more traction. To do this, they constantly monitor these sections, progressive submitters, and news websites.

This isn’t the first time that Bury Brigades have been highlighted. The LA Times, for example, did a story on how stories critical of Senator McCain were disproportionately buried during the 2008 election.

The ability of a small cabal to distort Digg demonstrates how the “democracy” of Internet voting can be easily manipulated.

It’s also a sad statement that the Bury Brigades feel it’s a better use of their time and resources to suppress information, rather than advocating their own viewpoint. (For the record, I have no doubt that bury brigades run on both ends of the ideological spectrum.) Don’t they have better uses of their time like, say, rigging American Idol voting?

For me, the story also highlights the importance of key platforms that promote speech to a wide audience. The Internet may be a public forum where all speakers have the same ability to reach an audience of millions, but its democratic architecture and minimal regulation hasn’t exactly translated to a Utopian public forum where all ideas stand on similarly-sized digital soap boxes. While “ordinary” citizens have certainly gained more of an ability to create, spotlight, and promote content, the power of a massive audience still remains in the hands of a concentrated few. While Digg “Patriots” attempt to bury an article and, in response, a progressive movement may attempt to promote the same story, the speech being buried (or promoted) are articles or essays tend to originate from a concentrated few.

Finally, even as major publications decline and the popularity of user-generated content rises, I have no doubt that the ability to reach the eyes and ears of millions will still rest with a few key outlets such as Digg.com or Yahoo! or MSN.

Meanwhile, I hope you’ll Digg this article.

Having been a contestant on a trivia game show, I can say that this is a horribly unfair way to assess Wolf Blitzer’s intelligence.

Nonetheless, Wolf’s final score of negative $4,600.00 might have damaged the image of news anchors more than Ron Burgundy.

And this is a “remix” of his cry using, among other things, AutoTune software to create a melody from the pitch of his cry:

The creators of this remix (whose names aren’t identified) have created a new song that isn’t far in production value from what T-Pain might create. What’s impressive is that it’s a musical creation based off a non-musical piece of audio. There is no melody, no beat, no chorus, no hook, no bass line, and no real sense of pitch in the original audio.

But if the creators of the remix wanted to sell the entire work — including the video — without the permission of A&E or the men in the video, could they do so without risking a lawsuit for copyright infringement?

In my opinion, there’s no doubt that they should be able to raise a fair use defense. It’s completely transformative and it has no potential to hurt the earning potential of A&E or the men in the video. If anything, A&E gains because I hadn’t even heard about Intervention prior to this video. Plus, the men in the video now have a real chance of profiting off of their Internet fame.

Yet, because the video consists entirely of clips from the show and because any parodic message is hardly obvious, it’s easy to imagine how a judge might fail to see any valid fair use defense.