Remember a few months back when I warned John Biggs that spycam Barbie was child abuse waiting to happen? Well guess what, America? I freaking CALLED IT.
The FBI – avid TechCrunch TV readers to a man – just made the plastic doll the subject of an official FBI memo, with agents warned that she might be implicated in sex crimes. Like a plastic Julian Assange.
Says the Huffington Post…
‘Beware of Barbie. That seems to be the message from the FBI after an internal memo reportedly leaked from the agency’s Sacramento field office this week. The memo (PDF) warns that Barbie Video Girl, a doll with a built-in video camera capable of recording for about 30 minutes, is a “possible child pornography production method…
The FBI memo, dated November 30, seems to be a few months behind TechCrunch, where reviewer Paul Carr called the product “child abuse waiting to happen” during a review at the time of the product’s release. He described it as “creepy,” then read from a press release from the PR firm that sent Tech Crunch the toy: “Unsuspecting subjects won’t know that Barbie is watching their every move.”
Amusingly, though, Jezabel’s coverage of the story slightly over-exaggerates my involvement…
“According to HuffPo, the FBI warning stems from a TechCrunch review in which Paul Carr goes off on the doll, calling it “child abuse waiting to happen” — because “pedophiles” could use the doll to record child porn and upload it to the Internet via Video Girl’s built-in USB port.”
…which is not quite what HuffPo said. But, yunno, I’ll take the credit. You’re welcome, America.