Blog Owner, Keith Levenson, Kicked Out and Censored from Handing Out Stickers

BlogWorld’s Opening Night Party and 2007 Weblog Awards at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas started out terrific. Some attendees showed up in their pajamas, which was the theme of the party, and some dressed in business casual attire. The music was pumping, the food was excellent, and the liquor was overflowing.

Keith Levenson, the owner of Vibrator.com, began working the room and meeting fellow bloggers like everyone else at the party. The one thing he did differently was to hand out stickers to attendees, who loved his Vibrator.com concept. They often laughed and wanted to know more – the stickers were everywhere! They were so popular, in fact, that a number of people approached Keith and asked for one to put on their pajamas.

Everyone loved the fun, bright pink Vibrator.com stickers! Everyone, that is, except Libby Durfee, co-founder and event producer of BlogWorld. Without any advanced knowledge of a problem, Keith was asked by an event bouncer to leave the party. When he inquired as to the reason why, the bouncer said people had been complaining about the stickers. One of Keith’s friends, who had watched Keith hand out sticker after sticker to excited party-goers, knew that was ridiculous and said so to the bouncer. Keith then spoke to the bouncer privately and learned the real reason was that Libby Durfee herself had asked for Keith to be kicked out. So Keith amicably told the bouncer he would not hand out any more Vibrator.com stickers. As a result, the bouncer let him stay. When Durfee found out that the bouncer had been reasonable and allowed Keith to stay at the party, she became even more angry and again demanded that he be kicked out - even after stopping the distribution of Vibrator.com stickers! Durfee was furious that Keith was such a great networker, and that stickers seemed to be on almost every event attendee at the party. The event sponsors paid a lot more money for promotion, and were getting much less exposure.

When Keith saw Durfee at the entrance of the party as he was being thrown out by the event bouncer, he spoke to her directly. She said the reason why he was being kicked out was because of the message that Vibrator.com stood for - which in her opinion was the promotion of sex toys, which was supposedly not acceptable to BlogWorld. Keith confronted with the fact that a sexy pin-up girl with a calendar and a blog was exhibiting next to a Christian blogger at BlogWorld. Durfee’s argument against Vibrator.com clearly didn’t hold water, so she changed her tune – saying that event sponsors would be upset. Ironically, several of the event sponsors were wearing the Vibrator.com stickers!

Is this censorship? You decide. Vibrator.com thinks it is ironic that the largest blogging show is trying to censor one of its own. Blogging is all about freedom of speech. Maybe Libby Durfee needs to read the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. What do you think?