Peter Black's Freedom to Differ

What others are saying about Ice TV Pty Ltd v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd

Yesterday the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in Ice TV Pty Ltd v Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd, bringing to an end legal proceedings that have been going on for the past three years.  (I first blogged about the case in October 2006 here.)  I had hoped to post a summary of the decision as well as some comments by this morning but unfortunately it now appears that I'm unlikely to get the time to write anything until the weekend.  However, a few other Australian blawgers have posted their thoughts on the decision:

• My QUT colleague Kylie Pappalardo has an excellent summary on her blog OctaviaNet here.
• Warwick Rothnie posted his initial thoughts at ipwars.com here before a posting a more detailed summary and analysis last night here.
• On Australian Regulatory Compliance Review David Jacobson highlights a particular interesting part of the judgment here.
• Joshua Gans comments briefly here.
• Law student Katherine Liew has also written up her reaction to the decision here.

I'll continue to update this list as more people post their thoughts on this decision ...

One aspect of the decision that hasn't really been commented on yet was the nature of the divide on the Court.  Although all six justices agreed that the appeal should be allowed, the court divided into two groups of three justices each.  One judgment was authored by French CJ, Crennan and Kiefel JJ, and the other was authored by Gummow, Hayne and Heydon JJ.  This seems to be part of ongoing trend that suggests that maybe there is a divide on the Court emerging between the more established justices (Gummow, Hayne and Heydon JJ) and the more recent appointees (French CJ, Crennan and Kiefel JJ).  In particular, I can't help but wonder if there is minor battle taking place behind the scenes of the High Court between the new Chief Justice and the longest serving member of the Court, Gummow J, for the intellectual leadership of the Court.  If my suspicisions are correct, it will be fascinating to see how it plays out.

Podcast of The Tangled Web: Beyond an Internet Filter

On Tuesday night I had the pleasure of chairing a newmatilda.com public forum on the internet regulation debate in Australia:

newmatilda.com presents a series of public forums about the internet regulation debate in Australia.

The Federal Government's proposal to block internet sites with a mandatory filter has drawn overwhelming opposition from voices across politics and civil society. So what are the real questions for policy-makers?

These forums explore the ethical, social and political questions raised by government regulation of the internet. With the growing intersection between technology, politics and media, how do existing and proposed classification regimes measure up?

Is filtering inevitable? Or are there better ways to regulate the world wide web?

Chair:
Peter Black, QUT Faculty of Law

Speakers:
Senator Scott Ludlam, The Australian Greens
Irene Graham, libertus.net
Nic Suzor, Electronic Frontiers Australia

A podcast of the audio recording of this forum can be downloaded here:

Heart by The Richter Scales

At The Crunchies, The Richter Scales debuted a brand new song, Heart. In a post at TechCrunch, Jason Klncaid says the song "depicts a hilariously overoptimistic startup and pokes fun at just about everything in the tech industry, from overhyped launches to ridiculous product ideas."  Here is a video of the performance:

Other songs from The Richter Scales include Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and Here Comes Another Bubble.

How newspapers failed to invent the web

In Slate Jack Shafer has a great piece that charts the various attempts the newspaper industry have made to respond to new technologies, before explaining how ultimately the newspaper industry has failed when it comes to the internet:

Newspapers deserve bragging rights for having homesteaded the Web long before most government agencies and major corporations knew what a URL was. Given the industry's early tenancy, deep pockets, and history of paranoid experimentation with new communication forms, one would expect to find plenty in the way of innovations and spinoffs.

But that's not the case, and I think I know why: From the beginning, newspapers sought to invent the Web in their own image by repurposing the copy, values, and temperament found in their ink-and-paper editions. Despite being early arrivals, despite having spent millions on manpower and hardware, despite all the animations, links, videos, databases, and other software tricks found on their sites, every newspaper Web site is instantly identifiable as a newspaper Web site. By succeeding, they failed to invent the Web.

Read more here.

History of the Internet

History of the Internet is an animated documentary from PICOL that explains the major inventions of the internet:

History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

Obama really wants his Blackberry

The New York Times reports that Obama is still trying to hold on to his Blackberry:

President-elect Barack Obama has yet to relent, but he conceded that he might be losing the battle to keep his independent lifeline to the outside world.

“I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday. “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.”

Of all the fights facing Mr. Obama as he prepares for the White House, one of the most maddening for him is the prospect of losing the BlackBerry that has been attached to his belt for years. It is, he has vigorously argued, an essential link to keeping him apprised of events outside his ever-tightening cocoon.

“This is a concern, I should add, not just of Secret Service, but also lawyers,” Mr. Obama said, speaking in an interview with CNBC and The New York Times. “You know, this town’s full of lawyers. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

Mr. Obama shared his agitation at the prospect of losing his last form of direct communication with friends and other advisers who sent him e-mail throughout the presidential campaign. But he, like President Bush before him, is being advised for security reasons and his own legal protection to refrain from sending e-mail during his presidency.

“I don’t know that I’ll win,” Mr. Obama said. But, he added, “I’m still fighting it.”

Read it here.

"The world smirks at Conroy's censorship plan"

In today's Crikey, the Vice Chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia Colin Jacobs had an excellent piece on a new study published by Brooklyn Law School entitled "Filtering in Oz: Australia's Foray Into Internet Censorship".

The rest of the world has been smirking at Stephen Conroy's ill-conceived plan to censor Australia's Internet for a while now, but a new study published by Brooklyn Law School entitled "Filtering in Oz: Australia's Foray Into Internet Censorship" is a serious embarrassment.

This report is important. Not only is it authored by a reputable and neutral foreign observer but it also focuses more on the legitimacy of the scheme than the technical concerns, and it finds some serious problems. Despite the sober language, phrases like "troubling", "worrisome", "politically motivated" and "unaccountable" are common.

Contrary to persistent claims by the Minister, the study finds that Australia "will likely become the first Western democracy to block access to on-line material through legislative mandate."

Read the rest of piece here and download the full report here.

"Everyone's digital these days"

In the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz talks about how Dr Sanjay Gupta used Twitter to confirm he had been approached by the Obama administration about the US Surgeon General's post:

I confirmed yesterday that Obama has offered the job and that Gupta had all but officially accepted. Got it up on the Web site at 2:36 p.m., mere moments after filing the story. Cyberspeed comes in handy sometimes. CNN, where I host a weekly program, didn't report it until 3:59, but the blogs went crazy--lead story on HuffPost, top of Drudge's page, then the NYT and others. Gupta wouldn't comment to me--while not denying the story--but confirmed on his Twitter feed that he "has been approached by the Obama administration about the U.S. surgeon general's post." Everyone's digital these days.

Read more here.  Interesting that Gupta wouldn't speak to a journalist but would comment on Twitter.  Is it a sign of things to come?  Should journalists be worried?

The Australian Constitution on your iPhone or iPod Touch

Ben Kremer (who blogs at Lawfont) has created an iPhone and iPod Touch application that contains the text of the Australian Constitution.  You can download the free application at the iTunes Store here.

Best internet and technology posts from 2008

Continuing my end-of-year wrap ...

Here are what I consider to be some of the "best" internet and technology themed posts from 2008.  Again, some of these posts are academic, some are trivial, some just link to what other people say, and some are a little random, but they do represent what interests me and what I have posted on this blog in 2008.

Social networking:

• Email or social networks? - will social networks replace email?
• Now I know what to call them: "Facebook refusenicks" - what to do with people who refuse to join Facebook.
• All my friends are leaving Facebook ... - a friend explains why she left Facebook.
• Are you getting bored of Facebook? - two Facebook themed songs.

Twitter:

• The rise of Twitter - Twitter seemed to really take off in 2008.
• Twitter: getting fired at Yahoo - the Silicon Alley Insider blog charted the last day of a Yahoo employee via Twitter.
• I do ... on Twitter - marriage proposals on Twitter.
• What is Twitter? - trying to explain exactly what Twitter is.
• Influential Australian Twitterers - the top 100.

Blogging:

• Censored!  - apparently my blog is blocked in China.
• What do people think this blog is? - I look,ed at the Feedburner statistics for my blog and was amused - and a little horrified - to discover what the top search terms that resulted in people visiting my blog were.
• Reflections ... - some thoughts about the direction of this blog.
• Blogging resumes - more thoughts about the direction of this blog.

Online video:

• Cewebrities and other internet people - as I was writing a piece for The Courier Mail on cewebrity, I couldn't get this song out of my head.

Business

• The story of the week: Microsoft and Yahoo - one of the big tech business stories of the year.
• There is something wrong here - the corporate social media curve.

Politics:

• The RNC tries make a point with humour - the RNC set up a parody Facebook for Barack Obama, BarackBook.com, to highlight some of his lesser known associations

Education:

• Facebook = cheating? - student collaboration on Facebook.
• "The Professor as Open Book" - a look at how university lecturers/professors are using social networks to connect and engage with their students.
• Turning the wireless off - a look at wether universities should turn the wireless network off in classrooms.
• Blackboard to sync with Facebook - unfortunately QUT refuses to allow this feature dues to "privacy" issues.
• Academics on Facebook - the role Facebook can play as a channel of communication between academics. 

Other:

• Regrets ... - take a moment to stop and think about the big picture.
• Strange online communities - some of these are simply bizarre.
• Web 2.0 companies I couldn’t live without - a list of the Web 2.0 websites I couldn't live without.
• Bill Gates' Last Day - if you haven't seen it already, you really must watch this hilarious video depicting the last day of Bill Gates at Microsoft:

People's Choice Open Web Awards Winners

Mashable has announced the winners of The 2nd Annual Open Web Awards, a multilingual, international online voting competition that covers major innovations in web technology.  Through an online nominating and voting process, the Open Web Awards recognizes and honors the top achievements of websites and services in 26 categories.

Over 100 Blog Partners (including this blog) helped make this the biggest Open Web Awards to date with 50,000 total nominations, 80,000 total votes in the first round, and 90,000 votes in the final round.  The blog partners come from 25 countries and are written in 10 different languages.

There were two sections in the Open Web Awards: the People’s Choice and the Blogger’s Choice. The Blogger’s Choice winners were announced last week (see here). 

The People's Choice Winners are ...

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Mainstream & Large Scale Social Networks

Winner: Netlog
Runner-up: Platinum Lounge

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Embeddable Widgets

Winner: Qoof
Runner-up: Sprout

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Blog Plugins

Winner: ShareThis
Runner-up: AddThis

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Social News

Winner: Help a Reporter Out
Runner-up: Hubdub

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Social Networking Applications

Winner: Artition
Runner-up: Digsby

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Social Bookmarking

Winner: Diigo
Runner-up: ShareThis

---

Search & Social Search

Winner: Scour
Runner-up: Artiklz

---

Sports & Fitness

Winner: Gyminee
Runner-up: FitFiend

---

Photo Sharing

Winner: ipernity
Runner-up: TinyPic

---

Video Sharing

Winner: ffwd
Runner-up: YouTube

---

Start Pages

Winner: Google
Runner-up: iGoogle

---

Places & Events

Winner: Doodle
Runner-up: Muchmor

---

Travel

Winner: SpottedByLocals
Runner-up: GeckoGo

---

Music

Winner: Noisetrade
Runner-up: Last.fm

---

Social Shopping

Winner: Pikaba
Runner-up: A Full Cup

---

Fashion

Winner: Coolspotters
Runner-up: Polyvore

---

Celebrity & Gossip

Winner: Oh No They Didn’t
Runner-up: BollyScoops

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Mobile Applications

Winner: Evernote
Runner-up: MocoSpace

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Dating & Romance

Winner: Zoosk
Runner-up: DateHookup

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Wiki

Winner: Encyclopedia Dramatica
Runner-up: WikiHow

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Politics

Winner: Politics4All
Runner-up: CreateDebate

---

How-to

Winner: A Full Cup
Runner-up: College Cram

---

Environmental

Winner: Ecomii
Runner-up: Gazelle

---

Non-Profit Causes

Winner: Stop Political Calls
Runner-up: SocialVibe

---

Online Games

Winner: Playfish
Runner-up: Power Pets

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Niche Social Networks

Winner: The Star Tracker
Runner-up: Wadja

A really early adopter

Mashable reports on a precocious baby twittering from the womb:

Think you’re an early adopter, huh? @kickbee has you beat.

Expectant father Corey Menscher wanted to “create a device that would give me a chance to be aware of our baby’s movements”. He created a waistband for his wife which sends a Tweet everytime the baby kicks, naming the project “Kickbee”. Corey writes:

The Kickbee is a wearable device made of a stretchable band and embedded electronics and sensors. Piezo sensors are attached directly to the band, and transmit small but detectable voltages when triggered by movement underneath. An Arduino Mini microcontroller transmits the signals to an accompanying Java application wirelessly via Bluetooth. (a SparkFun BlueSMIRF v2 module that communicates serially with a Macbook Pro)

The Java application receives the sensor values and analyzes them. When a kick event is detected, a Twitter message is posted via the Twitter API. I chose to use Twitter because it is easy to initiate an SMS message to any mobile phone when a kick is detected. It also acts as a data log that can be accessed programmatically for visualization or archiving.

What do you think: a sweet gesture of solidarity with his wife, or a bit too much time on his hands?

Read it here.

Digital for Good

Check out a new blog by my friend Eddie Harran, Digital for Good.  This is how Eddie describes it:

"DigitalForGood" Exploring Digital Technology as force for positive social change/ The Mainfesto for Geeks Who Care/ This blog explores the emerging digital space and its cross section in business, society, and the world

So check it out here.

Two weeks without sex or the internet?

Bits (a blog of the New York Times) reports on an Intel survey on internet reliance:

Intel came up with a novel way to show how important the Internet and computing have become in the lives of Americans. In conjunction with Harris Interactive, the company conducted a survey of adults in the United States under the prosaic-enough banner “Internet Reliance in Today’s Economy.”

But the first “key finding” from the study is a little more attention-grabbing. According to the study, 46 percent of women and 30 percent of men would opt to forgo sex for two weeks instead of giving up access to their precious Internet for the same period.

More broadly, those surveyed said access to the Internet ranked highest among the discretionary spending items they could not live without. Cable television, dining out, shopping for clothes and gym memberships followed in declining importance.

Along similar lines, 61 percent of the women surveyed said they would rather go without TV for two weeks than lose access to the Internet for one week.

Read more here.  I know what I'd rather give up.  What about you?

What's so great about Macs?

Tim Barribeau asks looks at those crazy Apple fans (of which I am one):

Apple users have a reputation of having drunk a bit deep of Steve Jobs' Kool-Aid. Whenever he gets on stage, the "reality distortion field" kicks in, and everyday features become mind-blowing to the devoted.

That said, their fanaticism occasionally masks a hardware and software set known for amazing design aesthetic, durability and ease of use. As with any devotee to a single brand (see Holden v Ford), the fanboy arguments are hilariously inane. Watching Apple fans go at it against Windows users, while the occasional bearded Linuxer sticks in their oar, is a daily occurrence of deliciously sad comedy.

Because, when it boils down to it, Apple products look a little better, are a bit easier to use, and cost a little more. And that's it. If that's what you want, buy it.

Read more here (form The Age).

Forum: Internet filtering and censorship proposals

Tomorrow (Thursday 27 November) the UNSW Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre is hosting a forum to explore aspects of the Australian Government's current internet filtering and censorship proposals. The aim of the forum is to "get beyond the more heated claims and counter-claims circulating at present and explore some of the underlying issues and constraints, hopefully giving room for various perspectives and arguments to be considered on their merits". It promises to be an excellent event.  For more details about the forum visit the resource page for the event here.

Stilgherrian will be live blogging the event with others (including myself and Michael Meloni):

Vote now in the Open Web Awards

Nominations are now closed and voting open for the Second Annual Open Web Awards.

The Open Web Awards is the only multilingual international online voting competition that covers major innovations in web technology.  Through an online nominating and voting process, the Open Web Awards recognizes and honors the top achievements in 26 categories.  Freedom to Differ is proud to be one of the blog partners backing Awards host Mashable for the event.

Over 43,000 verified nomination were received and the 10 most-nominated sites and services in each category (where 10th place was a draw, more than 10 nominees were allowed in that category) selected for the voting round.

The first of two voting rounds starts now, and you can vote for one company in each category per day until midnight on November 30th.  There are 26 categories.  Vote with this voting widget:

Obama's tech policy

With only a few days before the US Presidential election Barack Obama has released a web ad that is being aimed directly at the science and technology sector:

Moving on

This YouTube video effectively describes the phenomenon of early adopters moving on to from one Web 2.0 fad to the next.  For me it is not just Facebook to Twitter, but also blogging to Twitter - compared to 12 months ago I spend very little time on this blog, but a considerable amount of time each day on Twitter.  I wonder what I will move on to next?

Searching iPods at customs?

The Internet Industry Association has called on the Australian Government to take a "balanced approach" to a proposed but little known Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that could result in customs officials searching travellers' laptops and MP3 players when they arrive in Australia:

The Internet Industry Association (IIA) today called on the Australian Government to take a balanced approach to a little-publicised Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that may be in force by the end of the year.

While nominally targeting major counterfeit operators, ACTA reportedly seeks to impose a new regime of enforcement measures that could undermine Australian citizens’ fair-use and privacy rights.

ACTA negotiations have been held behind closed doors. Information is scant, with the exception of an ACTA discussion document leaked online, documents hosted by the US Trade Representative  and a sketchy discussion paper from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

“Forthcoming talks in Washington DC scheduled for this week appear to be proceeding in the absence of draft text.”, IIA chief executive, Peter Coroneos said.

“Yet ACTA proponents seem bent on having a treaty in place by the end of the year.  How can appropriate outcomes be achieved with such indecent haste?”

The IIA is urging government negotiators to push for a proper timetable so that an inclusive public debate on the proposed measures can take place.

In alliance with CHOICE (Australian Consumers Association), the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and Australian Digital Alliance (ADA), the IIA filed a submission with DFAT, insisting Australia maintains legal rights and due process. In particular, no trade agreement should breach six vital and hard won principles :

1. Transparency and accountability (all stakeholders should see and comment on text before it is concluded)
2. Presumption of innocence (no enforcement, civil or criminal, without independent findings of infringement)
3. Proportionality (all enforcement measures to be proportionate to the seriousness of any infringement)
4. Consideration of impact on other treaties and laws (no doubling up or inconsistency with Australia's existing obligations)
5. Avoiding the prescription of surveillance technologies for IP enforcement
6. Safeguards against liability for intermediaries (such as educational institutions, libraries and Internet Service Providers)

“We are very worried about leaked discussion documents relating to ACTA which would force ISPs to disclose customer information and even disconnect anyone alleged to be an infringer, based on untested and intrusive technological tracking -- without warrant or judicial oversight.” said Mr Coroneos.

“What happened to the presumption of innocence?”

“Whether ACTA ends up seeing iPods and laptops searched at international airports as some are proposing, we can’t say. But we cannot allow it to undermine the balance that exists in our laws.”

“Also what is meant by commercial scale infringement is not clear. ACTA may redefine anyone with an unauthorised copy of a song to be regarded as a criminal, without the minimal protections and subject to disproportionate penalties that go beyond what is legally fair in Australia.”

More generally, the IIA questions the need for Australia to be involved at all in the light of the recently enacted Australian-US Free Trade agreement with toughened intellectual property enforcement provisions in place since the end of 2006.

“We already have new and far reaching legislation that covers off the illegal distribution of digital sound and video recordings via the Internet,” he said.

“We strongly urge the Australian Government to adopt a cautious approach before committing to any sweeping measures as part of ACTA,” Mr Coroneos said.

A copy of the six principles and submission are available at http://www.iia.net.au/images/principles_for_acta_negotiations.pdf

Read more here.  This sounds disturbing to say the least.  In fact, it sounds so ridiculous I find it hard to believe.  Given that I am loathed to comment further until more details come to light.

Vin Cerf on leveraging social media

Vin Cerf discussed how brands can leverage social media:

(Hat tip: Trevor Cook's Corporate Engagement.)

The weekend web

Business Week describes the weekend web:

There's only one Web. At least that's been the standard response in many tech circles to the emergence of the wireless Web. The point? No matter how you get online, be it by PC or smartphone, you'll still do the same things on the Web, using roughly the same sites and services. Really?

David Witkowski missed that memo. Witkowski, an executive at a Silicon Valley startup, behaves very differently when he uses the Web on a PC compared with when he's surfing via cell phone. From the office computer, "I pretty much live on Google," Witkowski says. But from his Research In Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry, the amateur radio enthusiast spends a lot of time searching for gadgets for sale on Craigslist, especially when he travels and on weekends. He also checks local weather forecasts and airline schedules.

Welcome to the weekend Web, where people are spending a bigger slice of time online via wireless devices—and using a different set of sites than during the workweek. "At Google, we see the majority of our desktop traffic [in the U.S.] during weekdays," says Matt Waddell, chief of staff for Google (GOOG) Mobile. "On mobile, the situation is completely reversed." Mobile browsing surged 89% in the past year, with mobile page views increasing by 127%, according to researcher M:Metrics. The increase reflects growing availability of all-you-can eat data plans and increasingly sophisticated handheld devices such as the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.

On Saturday, Classifieds Rule

Of course, most Web surfing still happens via PC, but M:Metrics' research shows that when it occurs by way of mobile, much of it takes place on the weekend. The number of unique visitors to the mobile Web spikes on Saturdays, according to March figures compiled by M:Metrics. The number surged to 4.17 million on Saturdays, an 8% increase from Fridays and 4% more than on the next busiest day, Monday, according to the study, which tracked behavior by 1,861 U.S. smartphone owners.

And like Witkowski, lots of U.S. cell phone users flock to a different set of sites via handheld.

Read more here.

Best products of 2008

PC World lists the best tech products of 2008:

After a good deal of--ahem--lively discussion, the editors at PC World have completed this year's list of the 100 best technology products available today. How did we do it? After nominating hundreds of devices, apps, sites, and services we knew to be good, we rated each one on its design, functionality, performance, and impact; the ones garnering the highest total scores made our list. Note that we chose not to rate products specifically on their price or value, focusing instead on their overall quality. After the scoring was over and the dust had cleared, we had a list that served, among other things, to remind us of what an exciting time in tech this truly is, with game-changing product development happening on many fronts.

Read the list here.

Politics and Technology Forum with Matt Bai

Microsoft Australia has confirmed an their inaugural Politics & Technology Forum:

Join Government and business leaders and political bloggers for Australia’s inaugural Politics & Technology Forum, proudly sponsored by Microsoft, on 25 June 2008 at the Hyatt, Canberra.

Over an informative morning, you will hear from keynote speaker Matt Bai, author and political writer for the New York Times magazine. Matt will address the rise of political movements in the internet age, with a focus on new forms of Information technology and how they fashion or replicate the political debate and trends.

Matt will then join two panels of distinguished speakers for a forum discussion on Information Technology and its influence on political movements and campaigning.

Seats are strictly limited. To register visit here. The event ticket code is BAI. Should you have any inquiries email Sassoon Grigorian at sassoong@microsoft.com

More details to follow.

Bodysnarking

At Concurring Opinions Frank Pasquale introduces me to a new term, "bodysnarking":

Author Hannah Seligson coins a new term in her critique of celeb-mocking websites: bodysnarking, which she defines as

the snide, often witty, comments that have become a ubiquitous part of under-30 female conversation. In an age when the digital camera is a must-bring accessory for a night out (how else are you going to upload the pictures to Facebook?), when blogs give everyone with an opinion a venue for comment, and when tabloid culture has made it fine to dissect other women's looks, bodysnarking appears to be a favorite female pastime.

The watershed moment for bodysnarking, Ms. Redd says, came a few years ago when Google introduced its advertising program AdSense. "The program allowed sites to track pages viewed and make ad revenue based on the number of visitors. [Blogger] Perez Hilton realized that nobody cared about his personal shopping trips; they cared when he [mocked mostly female celebrities.]" The masses had spoken: Bodysnarking was now a revenue generator.

As I've noted before, sometimes the technology that "gives the people what they want" serves only to reinforce destructive trends. In addition to Seligson's analysis, I'd say that the rise of the bodysnarkers is an unexpected side effect of the prevalence of plastic surgery. Whereas "defects" in appearance were once largely assumed unavoidable, they can now be "cured." So celebrity's "fans" demand ever more appearance-wise. Given their wealth, whatever can be fixed, must be fixed.

The bodysnarkers may also be reacting to the trend of "faked photos:"

Increasingly, photos for print are enhanced and perfected to an astonishing degree. Not only are moles, acne and subtle facial hair erased from already pretty faces, but retouchers are routinely asked by editors and advertisers to enlarge eyes, trim normal-size ears, fill in hairlines, straighten teeth and lengthen . . . already-narrow necks, waists and legs . . . .

Some of the "10 million women and one million men in the United States who struggle with anorexia and bulimia" turn these impossible standards on themselves. The bodysnarkers choose to reinforce the norms for celebrities. . . and increasingly for others.   It's not surprising that some people simply give up in response. As one article notes, "the contrast between the girls on the catwalks and the girls at the mall is creating an atmosphere ripe for binge dieting and the kind of unhealthy eating habits that ultimately result in weight gain, not loss."

Read it here.