After the resignation of New York governor Eliot Spitzer in March 2008, coverage turned to the 22-year-old Ashley Alexandra Dupre, otherwise known as Kristen. Most of the background and nearly all of the photographs came from social networking sites, above all her MySpace page. Gawker assembled the images into a package it called Kristen: The Definitive Gallery.
The MySpace page, under the alias ninavenetta, was taken down mid-story and returned the message that the user had cancelled the membership or the account had been deleted — but it remained readable in Google’s cache, which the post took as a reminder that web pages do not really die, they end up on a server somewhere. The photographs had already taken on a life of their own and were easy to find elsewhere. Her music was online too, and so were pages inviting visitors to rate her body. A search of Facebook turned up 13 groups about her, from people claiming to have been in her class to others asking that she be left alone. An update added later recorded that the MySpace profile was live again, carrying messages of support from friends.
The question raised was whether this was an ethical way for journalists to behave. Material posted for a small audience was being harvested for a mass one, and social spaces had become part of routine newsgathering. News organisations were beginning to notice: the BBC was preparing guidelines that would stop its journalists using pictures from sites such as Facebook and MySpace without the copyright owner’s permission.