How Many People Have Seen Anthony’s Wiener by Now?

Adrianne Jeffries — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 09:49:09 -0400

Source: capitalnewyork.com

Rep. Anthony Weiner finally admitted to being the twit behind the crotch shot blasted from his Twitter account last week, but the story just won't die. "I am deeply sorry I lied about this, but at the end of the day, I lied because I was embarrassed,” he sniffed during a 27-minute press conference that was as excruciating for the audience as it was ignominious for the speaker, in part because conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who broke the story of the mistweet, hijacked the podium, Kanye-style, demanding "vindication."

But if Rep. Weiner was embarrassed about a photo that was visible for 12 minutes before he erased it, he must be mortified now. The "the now-infamous grey underwear photograph," as Mr. Breitbart's Big Government called it, aired on The Today Show with some pixelation about the bulge. Rep. Weiner's old pal Jon Stewart showed it, unobscured, to The Daily Show's 2.3 million viewers. The photo was posted on hundreds of blogs; it got about 270,000 views on Gawker the first day; 50,000 views the next day, and about 60,000 views on the day of the presser, 1,000 of which converted to Facebook "likes."

The photo wasn't just seen--it was heavily scrutinized, for days, as amateur detectives analyzed the facts. One Tweeter dug through his computer's temporary memory to find a larger version of the photo; bloggers examined the file for clues--the wrong time stamp! an "oddity in the header"!--as readers wrote in with tips.

Two parody Twitter accounts, @AnthonysWiener and @AnthonysWeiner, launched with the crotch as their avatars. "Battle of the 'Weiners'!" a Time blogger declared, prompting @AnthonysWiener to wonder, "My 15 minutes isn't up yet?"

Considering the tabloids this week, looks like the answer is no.

Plot Thickens: @RepWeiner Says Crotch in Pic Could Be His, as Internet Sleuths Up New Evidence

Adrianne Jeffries — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:41:01 -0400

Rep. Anthony Weiner's new lawyer should just tell him to shut up and let Twitter do the talking.

Technology seems to support Rep. Weiner's story that some hacker was responsible for tweeting a picture of a crotch in briefs at a 21-year old girl from the congressman's official account, and the congressman has enterprising bloggers, Twitter users and commenters to thank.

We ran down the myriad web evidence supporting and contradicting Rep. Weiner's claim that he was hacked yesterday, but local Reuters blogger and hyperlocal Tumblr mogul Anthony De Rosa went even further down the rabbit hole. He compared the metadata of the alleged raw file of the crotch photo with a past photo from the representative's yfrog account, and discovered the two don't appear to match; at which point commenters jumped into the investigation.

"The one thing I would check is what happens when you use the phone's down-scaling feature," Nate Westheimer commented helpfully. "I would find someone with a Blackberry and see what happens when you use the native ability to downscale photos."

"Note the lack of date and time in the dick picture. Highly suspicious," another commenter weighed in. Another blogger got a tip from a reader demonstrating a loophole in the yfrog photo service that allows users to upload photos with just an email address.

Support from the Twitosphere! But the congressman keeps digging himself into a hole. An official statement claimed he had been tweeting about a hockey game minutes earlier and so noticed the photo right away; in fact he started tweeting about the hockey game after the photo, according to the current version of his Twitter stream. The congressman also admitted that the photo could be of him, as he's not sure if he's taken similar photos in the past.

Rep. Weiner has hired a lawyer but has not said he's pursuing any kind of criminal case.

Betabeat » weinergate

How Many People Have Seen Anthony’s Wiener by Now?

Plot Thickens: @RepWeiner Says Crotch in Pic Could Be His, as Internet Sleuths Up New Evidence