It must have been embarrassing for Google to be accused of delivering live wiretaps to NSA. No matter if they did it or not, the story has been interesting to follow from a pure PR perspective. What would they do? They wrote this blog post where they denied any such involvement.

It’s quite convincing, but was it convincing enough for people and media to forget about the NSA story?

Apparently not!

The company has now announced that they will invest $5 million (!) “to eradicate child abuse imagery online”.

Sounds good, no? Child abuse imagery must be just as “disgusting” as Google calls it. But of course, as we know from plenty of examples in the past, “child abuse imagery” can mean virtually anything, from Japanese comics to teenagers photographing themselves in the nude. (Though Google is smart enough not to use the term “child porn”, which the reporting media do – I guess that means we’ll still be able to see GQ’s infamous Glee cover starring some 20-something models engaging in child porn according to some “concerned parents”, at Google would have put it.)

Response has been tremendous. A reader called Dieter gives Google “+1.000.000″. No doubt he’s a good and moral person who protests publicly against child porn with one million plusses! But a bit further down, Sandy comments: “Go Google! +5,000,000,000,000 ……” I guess that means she hates child sexual abuse much more. Too bad, Dieter! You should have added some zeros!

So, can we all leave the Google + NSA story now? After all, this was a masterpiece of damage control – and an expensive one at that. But probably worth it. Watch and learn, PR people!

Japanese model and porn actor Koh Masaki (left) died 18 May 2013 at age 29.

It seems the cause of death was peritonitis.

I haven’t watched his films, but recently saw a short documentary about him and his Chinese boyfriend:

He seems to have been very sympathetic. It’s especially touching to hear him explain how he must take care of his boyfriend since it’s not easy to be Chinese in Japan.

Rest in peace, Masaki-kun.

Read more at Queerty and at Koh Masaki’s homepage.

BBC reports that Venice has decided to remove a controversial statue of a naked boy, after protests from locals.

The 2.5 meter (8 ft) tall “Boy with Frog” by US sculptor Charles Ray has stood at the tip of the Punta della Dogana for almost four years.

The boy will be replaced by a lamp-post.

“Workers began to remove the sculpture overnight on Tuesday ready to clear the space early on Wednesday”, BBC writes.

In London, there have been calls to remove Eric Gill’s 1932 statue “Prospero And Ariel” from the building of BBC. The statue resembles a man holding a naked boy and is supposed to be a symbol for broadcasting:

The reason why some people want it removed is that the artist, who died in 1940, reveals in his diaries, published in 1989, that he had sex with his daughters and a dog. Sydney Morning Herald writes:

Now Fay Maxted, chief executive of The Survivors’ Trust, a body which represents organisations supporting survivors of rape, sexual violence and childhood sexual abuse, told the London Journalism Centre: “It’s an insult to allow a work like this to remain in such a public place. It is almost mocking survivors, it is intolerable.”

BBC has no plans to remove the sculpture, according to a spokesperson, but it’s no surprise that the trend to call for removal of controversial artworks is gaining ground.

We recently reported that Moscow’s famous Bolshoi Theatre has added a fig leaf to cover the genitals of their Apollo statue, a move that had a striking resemblance to US Attorney General John Ashcroft clothing the statues outside the US Department of Justice.

The Guardian reports:

Chris “Mac Daddy” Kelly, one half of the 1990s rap duo Kris Kross, has died at an Atlanta hospital at the age of 34, a Fulton County Medical Examiner’s spokesman said on Wednesday.

Kelly died on Wednesday evening, said Dumonder Dawson, an investigator for the medical examiner’s office. He declined to discuss the cause of the rapper’s death.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper reported that Kelly had been found unresponsive at his home and that an autopsy had been scheduled for Thursday morning.

Kris Kross were long-time favorites at the editorial offices of Destroyer. I wrote about them in Destroyer 06, and used their smash hit Jump in the trailer for the last Destroyer:

It’s a brilliant song that uses the classic baseline from Jackson 5′s I Want You Back, subsequently also used by Max Martin in his Britney Spears hit Crazy.

On a political note, one can wonder whether Kelly’s death was related to him becoming a performer at an early age. If child stars in general are more prune to get problems later in life, one should consider banning children from such adult professions as long as they are minors.

Rest in peace, Mac Daddy. (He’s the one on the left in the image above.)

I’ve written an important text at Breaking Boy News, about the content of the “Perversion Files” that the Boy Scouts of America released last Thursday.

One of my points is that there is a thin line between the gays that everyone loves – and that the Boy Scouts newly were criticized for not letting in – and the so called child molesters that the Boy Scouts now are criticized of actually having let in. Is for example the 18-year-old Scout leader who was suspended from the Scouts in 1993 for having had sex with a 16-year-old “child” really a child molester, or is he in fact just a gay man?

The public may have easier to judge the three examples below, but they are still very much in the gray zone.

Richard H Williams was 21 years old in 1985, when he was arrested for having had sex with a 13-year-old:

Robert W. Wilber was 32 years old in 1963, when he confessed to “undecent acts” with two boys, 14 and 15 – something that is not a crime today in Europe’s biggest country Germany:

Frank Zahn was 24 years old in 1967, when he was accused of having had sex with a 12-year-old over a period of half a year:

Read the full Special Report here!