Teens like to see other teens naked (GASP)

It's all over the news today this week. It's a story that I'm not at all surprised to see. It would appear that teenagers are sending pictures of themselves to each other using their cellphones, and most likely IM applications. The issue that has raised the ire of -- well, almost everyone, is that these are NAKED pictures -- and videos. I'd imagine, as the article here suggests, that a pictures or video is quickly sent around a group of friends and will eventually make it out into the wild. It may have already happened, and there may be places on the Internet to find these explicit videos. I certainly hope there isn't.
There is one thing that I find ridiculous though. The story I linked to states that the principal of one school where the students are participating in this trend doesn't get it. "They don't see any thing wrong with it, it leaves me speechless."
It should be a bit of a surprise, but to be left speechless, to be utterly dumbfounded by this turn of events only shows how out of touch adults are with the lives and times of the teenagers of this Internet age. It's simply preposterous to think that teenagers will have at their disposal the tools that allow them to communicate with voice, images and video and not use it to transfer sexually explicit content. Using themselves as the subject is simply a natural progression. A teenager in the world today is bombarded with sex, and is caught up in his or her own sexual awakening. To them it's natural, and in someways may be healthy. The danger of course, I alluded to earlier. These images and videos will find their way onto the internet at large, and their explicit nature will begin a political king-of-the-hill battle to see who can pass the most laws the fastest. It has already begun with the bullying and beating of teenagers videos that have made their way onto YouTube. It's simply a retelling of the bum fight videos and every other type of offensive content to be discovered on the internet. It's a good thing that these media types seem to never have heard of 'tubgirl' or the other rick-rolling images and videos that seem to pop up every few weeks... We might not have an Internet at all if they did.
I'm going to read more about this story, and see which way the winds are blowing but I predict that any historical evidence of this happening with traditional media (magazines, video tapes, etc) will be ignored or glossed over and the 'absolute insanity' 'danger to the health and well-being' of our teenagers will be glossed over because this 'Has Never Happened Before And The Scale And Ability To Access This Type Of Thing Has Been Expanded Into Infinity Thanks To Devices Like Cell Phones And The Internet!' So, the answer you and I will be hearing over the next week or so will be that children need more protection from the government, and the way to do that is to 1)Ban all cellphones in schools 2)force YouTube to filter content and remove/punish anyone who posts anything 3)Tack on some arbitrary official-looking data from some researcher that positively proves that anyone under the age of 18 who ever sees a nipple will be scarred for life and become a sex-pervert, run away from home and pick up where Jack-The-Ripper left off.
Update: In this article a member of the FBI Cyber Crime in Ohio seems to think that the teens doing this sort of thing are laboring under a belief that

"You name it, they will do it at their home under this perceived anonymity."

If I may use the internet meme -- LOL! I'd like to interview a few of the guys and girls doing this and ask them how far they think, or hope, that these pics and vids will go. I'd bet that most of them have no reservations that their recordings will make the rounds in their school, and perhaps, even to the internet at large. (if they're not posting directly to the internet themselves that is.)

An up and down of writing

Writing -- producing a collection of published words, is once again becoming sacrosanct. The first shock came with the invention of the printing press. Shortly after it was invented, almost anyone could publish their ideas for anyone to read. The next shock came with the explosion and expansion of the Internet. Today, literally anyone can find a place for their voice to be heard. In both cases there came a backlash from established and recognized authors who felt threatened by the ability of anyone to publish their beliefs. Between those two times, the art of authorship has risen and fell as opinion of its creators changed.
Shortly after the invention of the printing press, those in power, mostly the clergy -- but some young governments as well, scrambled to keep control over the new invention. Approval was needed before a work was published and due to the process of approval, printing of little more than bibles was approved. But as the technology progressed, and became more widely available, works of individuals found their way into the hands of the people. Criticism of those in power and social and scientific exploration were next to be printed. The exact things that those in power sought to stop.
But today's story isn't about those things. They have been covered elsewhere. Today's story concerns those who later managed to grasp and hold the technology of printing hostage. The 1920s saw the build up of monolithic empires founded on the power of words. It was an exclusive group funded vicariously by the pockets of the people, but filtered through the government, and those in power. Words had so much power then that a career in creating them was seen as a powerful goal. Therefore, functional literacy in developing nations began to rise. Individual freedoms were partly express with the ability to read and write. Slowly, inextricably, the opinions of those who were not in power began to be heard.
Fast forward 50 years. In the U.S. of the 1970s and 80s a glut of opinion was available. Authorship, something that almost anyone could do, was looked down upon unless the author was already famous. Millions of books lined the shelves of huge bookstores, hundreds of newspapers were available daily in large metro areas. Authorship, at this point, even though widely available, was segregated. There were those who did it, and those who did it well. The stigma attached with bad authorship began to have an effect on the populace. Functional literacy began to decline. The line of authors waiting for an agent, or those who were taken in and broken by publishing companies seemed insurmountable to many whose books or newsletters would be printed -- if only self-publication was cheaper.
Fast forward twenty years. The Internet boom had come and gone by the late nineties. The survivors of the crash, left to sort through the ashes, discovered something particular. The expansion had been fueled the most by social interaction like email and instant messaging, personal web pages with opinionated statements of the day and pages plastered with the creators artistic displays. Those in position to foster the growth of this new communications medium started work on Web 2 point Oh.
And now here we are. Literally anyone who can get access to a computer connected to the Internet has a voice. Bloggers create more pages and content in one day than was produced in the first hundred years after the invention of the printing press. Individuals are clamoring to find a voice and learning to read an write to do so. It is 2008, functional literacy is starting to increase, the middle class is standing up more often and voicing their opinions to those in charge. And the backlash has begun anew.
Once more the highest paid producers are looking down upon those who are using their voice to spread dissent, expose falsehoods or challenge the old guard on their own territory. Backlash towards bloggers and hobbyist authors has increased and laws have been proposed, or even passed, to try and limit their voice. Those in charge are searching for loopholes in current law to try and revoke the rights of press from the amateurs and return it fully to the hands of those paid by lobbyists to tell a better version of the truth.
Those actions have began to change the opinion of the public and will result in the same correction seen only a few decades ago. The people will be told that only the established sources should be trusted. That these bloggers are neither right, nor should they be trusted. They don't have the sources, or the integrity needed to carry the torch of authorship and reporting. The forcing down has already begun. And it will continue until either the bloggers give up, or the establishment is forced to change. Those who have been attacked include: Wikipedia, Craigslist, Mac Rumors, and almost every website that tells the story of a consumer being given the shaft, and more whistle blower websites than anyone could count.

Best paragraph ever: ARS FTW

This paragraph:

The 2006 anti-porn initiative was rendered impotent when 16-year-old Tom Wood penetrated the filter system's blocking mechanism. Despite previous failure, the government is now thrusting deep into the public coffers in order to erect a new $89 million ISP-level version that lawmakers hope will include technical safeguards that are impossible to penetrate.

is in This story. All of you should read it.