‘LA Ink’: Is Jesse James just a Kat Von D marketing tool?

By Liz Kelly Nelson

    

July 29, 2011 12:07 AM ET

Follow @lizkellynelson on Twitter

Is Kat Von D totally manipulating us?

Call us pessimistic (guilty!), but it seems awfully coincidental that Kat Von D’s splashy breakup with Jesse James happened within a week of Thursday’s (July 28) return of “LA Ink,” her super-successful docu-reality show, to TLC.

News of the split broke Friday (July 22) when the couple announced the end of their relationship just months ahead of a planned wedding. Not for nothing, but we found out Kat had thrown over Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx for James just a few weeks before the show ended its fall 2010 run.

Anyway…

Could Kat’s stormy walk out from the set of “Good Day LA” on Wednesday (July 27) morning and subsequeent ‘What can I say? I suck’ Facebook blog post be, well, downright disingenuous? Should we be questioning the validity of the entire ink-stained relationship?

Certainly two vets of reality TV — one of whom cheated on America’s Sweetheart (Sandra Bullock) with a swastika-adorned stripper — would never manufacture a stunt relationship to drum up some press. Would they?

Fans of “LA Ink” (again, guilty) know that Kat is nothing if not utterly self-absorbed, insecure and — to give credit where due — a shrewd businessperson.

But, hey, if she’s guilty of exploiting anyone’s feelings — it’s her own. And we guess that’s okay.

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Group Requests Facebook Censor Anti-Holocaust Groups

Group Requests Facebook Censor Anti-Holocaust Groups

In a controversy testing the parameters of free speech on the social-networking website Facebook, a Los Angeles-based group of Holocaust survivors has asked the site’s administrators to remove “Holocaust denial” groups from its pages.

MSNBC is reporting that a group of Holocaust survivors affiliated with the Simon Wiesenthal Center has sent this imploration to Facebook:

“We, the undersigned, are Holocaust Survivors who saw our parents, children and loved ones brutally murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. We are writing to you to protest Facebook’s policy that categorizes Holocaust denial as “free speech,” rather than the shameless, cynical and hateful propaganda that it is,” the letter read. “Do not permit Holocaust denial any platform on Facebook to preach its inherent message of lies and hate. By allowing this hate propaganda on Facebook, you are exposing the public and, in particular, youth to the anti-Semitism which fueled the Holocaust. Please correct this terrible error in judgment before our generation passes away.”

The Holocaust-denial pages on Facebook follow different trends, from expressing admiration for the S.S. to protesting Israel. One such example, “Holocaust Was Fake,” gives as its description: “The claim that the Jews who died in a systematic manner gives an argument for the necessity of finding a safe haven for Jews in their own state…the need for the existence of the Jewish State of Israel and recognize its right to exist, which means to justify the rape of the Jews of Palestine.”

MSNBC reported that Facebook sent them an email in which the website claimed that despite the nature of the Holocaust-denial pages, they still do not rise to the level of something they would remove. Facebook has removed pages that call for violence against individuals or groups, including removing a page that called for Palestinians to fight Israelis.

“At Facebook, one of the toughest questions we face is how to handle the sharing of controversial ideas and opinions on the site. Recently, there has been a focus on groups created to deny the occurrence of the Holocaust. We find these groups to be repugnant and ignorant, just as we object to some of the other ideas expressed on Facebook,” write spokesman Andrew Noyes. “We have spent considerable time internally discussing the issues of Holocaust denial and have come to the conclusion that the mere statement of denying the Holocaust is not a violation of our terms… However, if the members of the Holocaust denial groups consistently post hateful or threatening comments, we will take the groups down, and we have done so on many occasions… Many of us at Facebook have direct personal connection to the Holocaust, through parents who were forced to flee Europe or relatives who could not escape. We believe in Facebook’s mission that giving people tools to make the world more open is a better way to combat ignorance or deception than censorship, though we recognize that others may disagree.”

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