The NY Times wrote this morning about a new French law that would fine and/or imprison web site operators who have sites advocating achieving “thinness” via extreme means such as eating disorders, anorexia, and bulimia.
This is the dark side of the long tail. We talk about how the long tail can help small user communities aggregate around an obscure or non-mainstream interest. We usually mean this in a positive sense, a local music band, or an out of print poetry author. What if that interest is something that is decidedly non healthy, and what if site operators openly promote such interests and make it appealing for people to join and try the unhealthy behavoir?
The French have decided to outlaw it in this case. I wish them luck. How can any single nation state regulate the internet? If a US site operator uses a russian ISP and has such information available in French, or English for that matter, what can the French government really do about it? This is the brave new world mankind created with the internet, full of wonderful new things but also with dark corners and alleyways that we have to teach our children to avoid.