NBC Employee Fired For Reposting Of "Internet Clip" From 1994

An NBC worker who posted old footage from the "Today" show of the hosts wondering, "What is the Internet anyway?" has been fired, the network confirmed, saying the person had a history of distributing material without permission.

The footage, in which Katie Couric, Bryant Gumbel and Elizabeth Vargas try to figure out the Internet and e-mail addresses, made the rounds via said Internet last week, posted and re-posted to Facebook pages and sent via email.

Filmed in 1994, the clip features Gumbel demanding, with a befuddled expression: "What is the Internet anyway?" and Couric stumbling to define it as: "that massive computer network, the one that's becoming really big now."

In a statement, NBC confirmed it fired the employee responsible for first distributing the footage.

"The individual in question violated the company's standards of conduct by repeatedly copying and distributing a variety of materials without permission," the statement said. It was reported on media-watching websites including All Things Digital and PaidContent.

In the clip, Gumbel also complains about e-mail addresses, particularly "that little mark with the 'a' and the ring around it."

As the clip gained attention, "Today" itself featured the footage and current host Matt Lauer laughingly noted: "We all felt that way at the time. It was a mystery to all of us."

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Quote Of The Day............

Why Internet Debates Are So Awful................

"I have thought a lot about why people get so hostile online, and I have come to believe it is primarily because we live in a society with a hypertrophied sense of justice and an atrophied sense of humility and charity, to put the matter in terms of the classic virtues. ... In our online debates, we not only fail to cultivate charity and humility, we come to think of them as vices: forms of weakness that compromise our advocacy. And so we go forth to war with one another."

--Alan Jacobs, professor of English at Wheaton College, writing at Big Questions Online. (Via ArtsJournal.)

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Adult Services Section Is Shut Down On Craigslist

(Sept. 4) – Craigslist, the classified ads website, took down its "adult services" section after criticism that it enabled prostitution.

The adult services section, which previously contained solicitations for sex, has been replaced on the Craigslist homepage with a sign saying "censored."

The section is still open for people browsing the Web from outside the United States, CNN reported.

Last week, attorneys general in 17 states wrote an open letter to the website's founder, Craig Newmark, and CEO Jim Buckmaster, urging them to permanently close the section.

"Ads for prostitution -- including ads trafficking children -- are rampant," the letter said, according to CNN.

Craigslist did not immediately respond to e-mails from AOL News seeking comment.

The adult services section has been a huge money-spinner for the classified site, even in a sluggish economy.

According to an April report by media consultancy the AIM Group, Craigslist's adult services section accounts for 30 percent of the site's total revenue -- an estimated $36.6 million in 2010.

The website "turns so much profit that it's a gold mine for its owners," Peter Zollman, founder of the AIM group, said on the company's website.

Still, Craigslist had faced biting criticism from a range of sources for openly advertising sexual services on an easily accessible site that is commonly used to rent out bedrooms and sell old furniture.

Frank Franklin II, AP

Attorneys general in 17 states recently wrote an open letter to Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, above, and CEO Jim Buckmaster, urging them to take down the "adult services" section.

The attorneys general highlighted a letter that appeared in the Washington Post in which two girls claimed that they were sold for sex on Craigslist.

Rep. Jackie Speier set up a House Judiciary Committee hearing to look at how websites such as Craigslist are used to "facilitate criminal activity," the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Speier claimed she had met with a minor who was pimped via Craigslist and forced to have sex as many as 10 times a night.

"It's a crime against these young women," Speier said.

Craigslist describes itself as having a "relatively non-commercial nature, public service mission, and non-corporate culture." Still, the company is a for-profit and has fought back against claims that it facilitates exploitation.

Founder Craig Newmark highlighted that the site has 50 million users, and that the crime rate was "very low."

"We just don't tolerate (illegal services)," Newmark told True/Slant in April.

Buckmaster, the company's CEO, also wrote a blog posting in which he said he hoped that the people behind the trafficking of the girls mentioned in the Washington Post were "behind bars."

Sympathy for Craigslist regarding the closure of its adult services seems muted. In a comment on an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, one poster dismissed their "self-righteous attitude."

"Whenever somebody dares to question them about anything they do, they get defensive and spout off about how virtuous they are," the commenter wrote. Craigslist "provides thieves and scammers with an online home, and enables a lot of unsavory activities."

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