MeFi Press

MetaFilter and its community have played an active role in today's media, and the stories that have carried significant impact within the press are being collected here.

Press Mentions

2008

January 7, 2008 - Grant Maker Demotes Chief Executive After he Disguises His Identity Online (The Chronicle Of Philanthropy)

After tearing down other non- profit organizations in order to promote GiveWell, Karnofsky was uncovered by MetaFilter users and eventually led him to being demoted within the organization.

October 2, 2008 - Researchers find security holes in NYT, YouTube, ING, MetaFilter sites (cnet News)

In October 2008, the researchers at Princeton University revealed serious security holes on websites, NYT, YouTube, ING and MetaFilter that could have compromised their users privacy, and in certain cases cause substantial money loss as well. Shortly after receiving the notices from the researchers, all security holes were completely patched up to prevent any sort of exploitation and hacking.

2009

February 23, 2009 - Social Pressure Can Solve The 'Copying' Problem Even Without Copyright (techdirt)

With the ongoing debates about the laws of copyright, many people are realizing that public pressure and a loss of reputation are just as powerful in terms of solving the problem. A copying scandal at MetaFilter.com was shut down after users realized that the author of User Friendly (a webcomic) was copying the punch lines for all his jokes directly from the MetaFilter community used social pressure to force him into making it right.

July 9, 2009 - Times Removes Doctored Photos From Website (Accuracy in Media)

Questions were raised when a slide show of pictures taken by Edgar Martins were taken off of the New York Times' website and a note left saying that there could have been possible digital alterations. It seemed as to who altered the photos originally, but thanks to a discussion on MetaFilter, one of the posters left a comment that provided evidence to the digital altering of the pictures. The Times publicist never returned a comment on the subject.

August 24, 2009 - 25 Best Blogs 2009 (Time.com)

Time.com lists the 25 Best Blogs of 2009, and MetaFilter takes home number 4.

2010

May 2010 - see coverage of The Russian Incident.

2011

April 2011 - see coverage of the Scott Adams incident.

May 24, 2011 - Reel Awesome: Local Media Non-profit Takes on Comcast... and Wins (seattlest)

After a tweet from a media educators Twitter account, Comcast communications VP Steve Kipp pulled $18,000 from the "Reel Grrls" summer camp funding for slamming Comcast. Thanks to MetaFilter and the Washington post for spreading the word around and putting pressure on Comcast, the funds were soon thereafter reinstated.

May 25, 2011 - A Twitpic of my dinner- but do I own the rights? (The Independent)

Journalist Rhodri Marsden writes an opinion piece for the British newspaper The Independent, on the rights people have of the pictures they post on the internet. After discussing both sides, she concludes the article with some wise words from MetaFilter user, blue_beetle.

June 9, 2011 - 6 Password Protection Lessons Learned from the Sony Hacker Attack (Savings.com)

After suffering two separate breaches of password security, Sony gets the final blow dealt to them as the hacking group that broke into both the Sony Playstation and Sony Pictures databases release the passwords as a torrent file. Troy Hunts blog post, and the Metafilter discussion offer 6 extremely useful protection tips for all readers to take into consideration when choosing their passwords.

December 1, 2011 - Connecting with Confidence: A Public Discussion Paper (OAIC, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner)

Metafilter is given as a good example of a forum, "characterised by a sense of community, high quality discussion, and robust debate."