Technology

Céline Dion bans ridiculous pictures of Céline Dion

Why even the silliest blogs deserve to be defended

The publisher of the Tumblr blog Ridiculous Pictures of Céline Dion has scrubbed the site of all but one ridiculous picture of Céline Dion, citing a threatening legal note from the singer’s representatives as the reason. The site is almost certainly legal, but its author Duckumu writes that  “though this blog is well within the realm of ‘fair use’, I don’t have the money or time to get a lawyer to respond.”

Too bad. When it comes to hyper-sensitive multi-millionaires and their aggressive lawyers, only “important” cases of celebullying get challenged. If you’re trying to expose crazy Tom Cruise’s bonkers Scientology tape, Gawker’s got your back (and is happy to collect the web traffic). But what about the silliness of it all? Those who blog not for holy causes or big pageview numbers but for shits and giggles deserve protection too. Perhaps we need some sort of Electronic Foolishness Foundation to fight for our right to have a laugh for its own sake (note to self: we do; it’s called 4chan).

Meanwhile, if Dion wants to scrub the Internet of ridiculous pictures of herself, she’s got her work cut out for her.

Jesse Brown is the host of TVO.org’s Search Engine podcast. He is on Twitter @jessebrown.

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