A 15 year old girl has been charged with several counts related to "child pornography" for sending out pictures of herself to several people she chatted with. As more and more teens use webcams for all sorts of things from keeping in touch with friends, getting strangers to buy them things from their wishlists and making some $$$ this has caused a little discussion. As she did not "force" herself, how does this intersect with recent attempts to criminalize "virtual" child porn as both situations have at their heart whether the primary issue is coercion/harm or the concepts images themselves. At the risk of "Newsfiltering", I am interested in opinions from a less histrionic group (thats you) than some others who are discussing it.
posted by soulhuntre on Apr 3, 2004 - 77 comments

It's the end of an era. On Dec. 31, the Jennicam shuts down for good.
posted by PrinceValium on Dec 7, 2003 - 45 comments

A new kind of child porn? Teenage girls set up webcams, ostensibly to extend their social network through interactive technology. Sick bastard male voyeurs create Web site so they can spy on all their "hotties" simultaneously. Thank heavens for little girls? Some of these girls are only 14, and look nothing like what a 14 year old should look like!
posted by johnnydark on Mar 27, 2001 - 104 comments

when do web-cams stop being fun? So when is a web-cam inappropriate? I mean, we've all seen the coffee-pot cam, the jenni-cam, etc. But when do you cross the line with web-cams? Is it reasonable for your work to setup a web-cam? How about a school? A funeral home?

Basically, when does the web-cam stop being fun? I think I have a candidate. crime.com is the first site on the net to have a web-cam in a working jail. Please discuss.
posted by cornbread on Mar 26, 2001 - 24 comments

Small town America. In the wake of a scandal involving a hidden video camera taping in the girl's junior high locker room, teacher Dennis Curtis and Assistant Principal Gary Ferguson have been recommended for dismissal.

So what's the problem? Curtis and Ferguson are the whistleblowers, not the alleged culprits. Harry "Noonie" Red Eagle Jr., seen positioning the camera on one of the tapes, has resigned. His father is the superintendent of the school system, and recommended Curtis and Ferguson be fired.
posted by lescour on Sep 29, 2000 - 1 comment

Will this Kritter be the next step in web cams? It uses firewire, instead of USB and claims to offer 30 fps with no compression. Is the video phone here (and functional)? -g
posted by Taken Outtacontext on Sep 24, 2000 - 10 comments

I guess this is proof you can web-enable anything. The New York Taxi.com company launched this site to accompany their internet-connected cab which features live shots from the streets of NYC. While not exactly as exciting as HBO's Taxi Cab Confessions, it is an interesting use of the web.
posted by mathowie on Feb 17, 2000 - 0 comments

Jason's bookmarklets rock. By modifying one of them, I now have links to my workcam and my homecam. Seeing all the bookmarklets gives me an idea for a bookmarklet I haven't seen before: an instant spellchecker. Highlight a word on a page, go to this new bookmarklet, and it would load the word into dictionary.com (which has predictable URLs). Looks like I'm going to have to dig into the bookmarklets site to figure out how it's done.
posted by mathowie on Jan 24, 2000 - 4 comments