Twitter and Nielsen pair up to publish new "social TV" ratings

 Nielsen Holdings NV, the television viewership measurement company, said on Monday it will partner with Twitter to publish a new set of ratings that measure chatter on Twitter about TV programming.
The new measurement, dubbed the "Nielsen Twitter TV Rating," seeks to tap into the stream of viewer commentary and armchair musings generated on "second screens" - the smartphones and tablets perched on Twitter users' laps while they watch, say, Monday Night Football or the latest episode of "Homeland" on their TVs.
The new ratings, to be launched next fall, arrive at a moment when media and advertising industry executives say they are observing a shift in TV viewing habits that include the rise of "second screen" use.
But significant questions remain for advertisers over how best to interpret the data and whether a Twitter ratings system is meaningful at all.
In September, Nielsen ratings showed that TV viewership for Viacom Inc's MTV Video Music Awards, which coincided with the Democratic National Convention, plummeted by more than 50 percent from a year ago. Yet social media chatter tripled, according to the research firm Trendrr.
Brad Adgate, an analyst at Horizon Media, said advertisers will view the Twitter ratings as a useful layer of information about a show's popularity, but it is "not going to be close to the currency" of existing ratings metrics.
"It lets producers and creative directors know if the storyline is working, like a huge focus group," Adgate said. "But I don't think you can translate comments to ratings for a show. Right now I think the bark right now is bigger than its bite."
The new ratings will measure the number of people discussing a show on Twitter, as well as those who are exposed to the chatter, to provide the "precise size of the audience and effect of social TV to TV programming," Nielsen said.
"As the experience of TV viewing continues to evolve, our TV partners have consistently asked for one common benchmark from which to measure the engagement of their programming," Chloe Sladden, Twitter's vice president of media, said in a post on the company blog on Monday. "This new metric is intended to answer that request, and to act as a complement and companion to the Nielsen TV rating."
Mark Burnett, executive producer of NBC's hit "The Voice," argued that advertisers should value programs that can attract a high level of social media engagement from viewers. Deeply embedded social media elements, such as live Twitter polls, were critical in driving "The Voice" to the top of the Tuesday night ratings among viewers between 18 to 49, Burnett said.
"If you're an advertiser, wouldn't you want to know whether people are watching this show passively or if they're actively engaged in the viewing experience?" Burnett said. "Five years from now this will make traditional television ratings seem archaic."
For Twitter, the partnership with a recognized measurement company like Nielsen emphatically punctuates a year-long effort by its media division to bring second-screen usage into the mainstream.
Twitter's convergence with television has been on display during sporting and major news events, which have provided some of the biggest viewership moments for both broadcasters and the social media company.
During the Summer Olympics in London, Twitter set up a page for the event that displayed photos from inside an event venue or athletes' tweets to complement what was being broadcast on NBC. Advertisers like Procter & Gamble Co, for instance, which advertised heavily during the Games, tried to bridge the two mediums by airing an ad on TV, then sending out a tweet soliciting viewer feedback about the ad.
As news organizations tallied votes on election night in the United States on November 6, worldwide Twitter chatter hit a peak of more than 327,000 per minute, the company said this month.

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Florida man sentenced to 10 years in "hackerazzi" case

 A Florida man who pleaded guilty to hacking into the email accounts of celebrities to gain access to nude photos and private information was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a federal judge in Los Angeles on Monday.
Former office clerk Christopher Chaney, 36, said before the trial that he hacked into the accounts of film star Scarlett Johansson and other celebrities because he was addicted to spying on their personal lives.
Prosecutors said Chaney illegally gained access to email accounts of more than 50 people in the entertainment industry, including Johansson, actress Mila Kunis, and singers Christina Aguilera and Renee Olstead from November 2010 to October 2011.
Chaney, who was initially charged with 28 counts related to hacking, struck a plea deal with prosecutors in March to nine felony counts, including wiretapping and unauthorized access to protected computers.
"I don't know what else to say except I'm sorry," Chaney said during his sentencing. "This will never happen again."
Chaney was ordered to pay $66,179 in restitution to victims.
Prosecutors recommended a 71-month prison for Chaney, who faced a maximum sentence of 60 years.
TEARFUL JOHANSSON
Prosecutors said Chaney leaked some of the private photos to two celebrity gossip websites and a hacker.
Johansson said the photos, which show her topless, were taken for her then-husband, actor Ryan Reynolds.
In a video statement shown in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, a tearful Johansson said she was "truly humiliated and embarrassed" when the photos appeared online, asking Judge S. James Otero to come down hard on Chaney.
Prosecutors said Chaney also stalked two unnamed Florida women online, one since 1999 when she was 13 years old.
Chaney, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, was arrested in October 2011 after an 11-month FBI investigation dubbed "Operation Hackerazzi" and he continued hacking after investigators initially seized his personal computers.
Shortly after his arrest, Chaney told a Florida television station that his hacking of celebrity email accounts started as curiosity and later he became "addicted."
"I was almost relieved months ago when they came in and took my computer ... because I didn't know how to stop," he said.

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Massachusetts fines Morgan Stanley over Facebook IPO

- Morgan Stanley , the lead underwriter for Facebook Inc's initial public offering, will pay a $5 million fine to Massachusetts for violating securities laws governing how investment research can be distributed.
Massachusetts' top securities regulator, William Galvin, charged on Monday that a top Morgan Stanley banker had improperly coached Facebook on how to disclose sensitive financial information selectively, perpetuating what he calls "an unlevel playing field" between Wall Street and Main Street.
Morgan Stanley has faced criticism since Facebook went public in May for revealing revised earnings and revenue forecasts to select clients before the media company's $16 billion initial public offering.
This is the first time a case stemming from Morgan Stanley's handling of the Facebook offering has been settled.
Facebook had privately told Wall Street research analysts about softer forecasts because of less robust mobile revenues. A top Morgan Stanley banker coached Facebook executives on how to get the message out, Galvin said.
A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman said on Monday the company is "pleased to have reached a settlement" and that it is "committed to robust compliance with both the letter and the spirit of all applicable regulations and laws." The company neither admitted nor denied any wrongdoing.
Galvin, who has been aggressive in policing how research is distributed on Wall Street ever since investment banks reached a global settlement in 2003, said the bank violated that settlement. He fined Citigroup $2 million over similar charges in late October.
"The conduct at Morgan Stanley was more egregious," he said in an interview explaining the amount of the fine. "With it we will get their attention and begin to take steps in restoring some confidence for retail investors to invest."
Galvin also said that his months-long investigation into the Facebook IPO is far from over and that he continues to review the other banks involved. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan also acted as underwriters. The underwriting fee for all underwriters was reported to be $176 million at the time, or 1.1 percent of the proceeds.
As lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley took in $68 million in fees from the IPO, according to a Thomson Reuters estimate.
Massachusetts did not name the Morgan Stanley banker in its documents but personal information detailed in the matter suggest it is Michael Grimes, a top technology banker who was instrumental in the Facebook IPO.
The report says the unnamed banker joined Morgan Stanley in 1995 and became a managing director in 1998, dates that correlate with Grimes' career at the firm. It also says the banker works in Morgan Stanley's Menlo Park, California, office, where Grimes also works.
Grimes did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and was not accused of any wrongdoing by name.
The state said the banker helped a Facebook executive release new information and then guided the executive on how to speak with Wall Street analysts about it. The banker, Galvin said, rehearsed with Facebook's Treasurer and wrote the bulk of the script Facebook's Treasurer used when calling the research analysts.
A number of Wall Street analysts cut their growth estimates for Facebook in the days before the IPO after the company filed an amended prospectus.
Facebook's treasurer then quickly called a number for Wall Street analysts providing even more information.
The banker "was not allowed to call research analysts himself, so he did everything he could to ensure research analysts received new revenue numbers which they then provided to institutional investors," Galvin said.
Galvin's consent order also says that the banker spoke with company lawyers and then to Facebook's chief financial officer about how to prove an update "without creating the appearance of not providing the underlying trend information to all investors."
The banker and all others involved with the matter at Morgan Stanley are still employed by the company, a person familiar with the matter said.
Retail investors were not given any similar information, Galvin said, saying this case illustrates how institutional investors often have an edge over retail investors.

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ARM security improvement to speed mobile e-commerce

 British chip designer ARM Holdings and its partners Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient have launched a new security standard for smartphones that can speed up e-commerce transactions.
Trustonic, a joint venture between the companies formed in April, said the security standard could be built into every level of a device, from the chip through the operating system to applications.
Ben Cade, Trustonic's chief executive, said it would eliminate the need for third-party devices, like bank card readers and secure ID tags, and enable content to be shared easily between devices.
He said the technology could reduce the time needed for an e-commerce transaction on a smartphone to seven seconds from the two and a half minutes typical today.
"It will enable us to trust our smart connected devices to protect us as they deliver essential services and innovative user experiences," he said.
Security is becoming increasingly important for smartphone users as more operations move from PCs to mobile devices.
Trustonic has signed up partners ranging from chipmakers NVIDIA and Samsung Electronics to payments company Mastercard and content provider 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Cade said.

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Online shopping to breathe new life into run-down sheds

 Owners of run-down warehouses on the edge of European cities could be sitting on goldmines because online shopping will force firms to seek distribution sites closer to customers who think speedy delivery is the norm.
In an increasingly fierce market where the likes of Amazon and Tesco pledge next-day or same-day delivery in specific time slots, warehouse rents could rise 40 percent over the next decade, property consultant CBRE said.
"Your industrial estate (near heavily populated areas) is the high street of the future," said Jonathan Holland, senior manager of Legal & General Property's industrial fund, which has 770 million pounds ($1.25 billion) under management.
"We are very much looking at owning warehouses around major conurbations."
Some 43 percent of European Union citizens shop online, the European Commission said in February, up from 26 percent six years ago. They were expected to fuel a 12-15 percent growth in online sales across the region over the next five years, Forrester Research predicted.
Meanwhile, falling sales in austerity-hit Britain have forced retail property values down 28 percent since end-2007, data from Investment Property Databank showed. Values in euro zone countries fell 5 percent over the same period, CBRE said.
The yield, or annual rent as a percentage of the property value, on an industrial warehouse in a good location in Europe was 7.8 percent at the end of September compared with 5.8 percent for offices and 5.2 percent for shops, CBRE said.
Industrial yields depend more on lease length and the financial strength of the tenant than location, compared with offices or shops, and would "edge downwards" where demand from retailers was strong, CBRE said.
Retailers currently favor large sites in locations away from big population centers but with good transport links.
Amazon's huge warehouses include sites in Dunfermline, Scotland and Rheinberg, Germany while Marks & Spencer will open a warehouse the size of 11 soccer fields in Castle Donington, Leicestershire, next year.
That is changing, said Amaury Gariel, managing director of CBRE's European industrial logistics team.
Places such as Croydon, 16 kilometers south of central London, strewn with empty office blocks and suffering high unemployment, and Créteil, a scruffy suburb 19 km southeast of Paris, are examples of areas that could be targeted as they are close to major highways and large local workforces, Gariel said.
Warehouse rents at such sites could rise 20-40 percent over the next decade, he said, citing the greatest demand in areas near the biggest European cities such as Amsterdam, London and Paris for sites that have typically been used by mail delivery firms and food distributors.
A tendency by governments to prioritize such areas for homes would squeeze supply and push prices higher, he said.
Retailers and property investors are at "a tipping point" in waking up to the changing real estate map for distribution points in Europe, Holland said.
Amazon is on the hunt for about 20 sheds close to British cities while Asda and Tesco are opening so-called 'dark stores' - distribution centers which look like supermarkets on the inside but are closed to customers - across Britain.
Industrial developer Prologis has bought a significant number of such sites near large towns and cities, such as Milton Keynes in Britain and Hannover in Germany, to meet future demand, European president Philip Dunne told Reuters.
Retailers face obsolescence unless they recognize how the type of property they rent needs to change, Gariel said.
"We are on the first page of the story regarding new ways to distribute goods. What happens if retailers do not recognize it? Just look at what happened to the fax and the telegram.

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Worker Reprimanded For Flatulence

An employee at the Social Security Administration's Baltimore office has been formally reprimanded for "conduct unbecoming of a federal employee," specifically for disrupting co-workers "by passing gas and releasing an unpleasant odor."
According to the letter, issued in December and obtained by the Smoking Gun website, the employee, who has been identified as a 38 year old male but was not identified by name, had been informed by his supervisor during a "performance discussion" in May 2012 that his co-workers had complained about the gas issue in the past. The individual was referred to an "Employee Assistance Program" to look into whether the frequent and unpleasant incidents could be symptomatic of a medical issue.
It seems the problem continued for some time after that though. The letter, which has been redacted so as not to include names, runs five pages long and details numerous similar exchanges.
"On July 17, 2012, I spoke with you in regards to your releasing of bodily gas in the module during work hours," the letter reads. "I asked if you could make it to the rest room before releasing the awful and unpleasant odor…You said that you would try not to pass gas and that you would turn your fan on when it happens."
The letter lists 60 specific incidences of gas passing from this employee over the roughly seven month period between mid-May when the issue was brought up, and early December when the reprimand was issued.
A reprimand is essentially formal slap on the wrist and doesn't carry any tangible long-term punishment. However, the federal worker is being represented by a lawyer from the American Federation of Government Employees in conjunction with the letter.
The AFGE did not respond to email inquiries from ABC News about the case.

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Rebels surround air bases across Aleppo-commander

 Syrian rebels are surrounding bases and military airports loyal to President Bashar al-Assad across the northern province of Aleppo, a commander said, but are struggling to counter attacks from jet fighters which can fly even from besieged airfields.
Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, who heads the rebels' military council in the province, also told Reuters that his forces are fighting without any help from the Western and Arab governments which want Assad removed from power.
Oqaidi, who leads between 25,000-30,000 troops across Aleppo province, said the rebel strategy had shifted from fighting Assad's forces in the cities to surrounding his bases in the countryside - aiming to encourage defections and weaken the sites so they can be stormed.
This thrust has helped to loosen Assad's grip in the north and east of the country during a 21-month civil war which activists say has already killed more than 44,000 Syrians.
"We decided on this (strategy) lately," Oqaidi said in an interview at his command center in the Aleppo countryside. "The situation for us on the ground is really good."
Sitting behind a desk, next to the revolutionary tri-color Syrian flag, Oqaidi said his forces were now fighting less in heavily-populated urban areas.
"At the beginning ... we were forced to attack the (Assad) forces in the districts to kick them out so that they do not harm civilians," said Oqaidi, a soft-spoken man who wore two pins - one a flag, the other a crescent of the rebels' revolutionary flag - on his fatigues.
"After achieving fighting experience, we went back to the countryside to liberate the big military bases. These bases are fortified with tanks, rockets, artillery, mortars, in addition airplanes. The siege ... cuts off the supply lines to these bases and most importantly it helps elements to defect," he said, making it easier to eventually storm the bases.
The rebel Free Syrian Army is largely run by officers who had defected from Assad's forces. However, the opposition has struggled to peel off large numbers of defectors and only a handful of high-ranking officials have abandoned the government.
AIR FORCE PROBLEM
Oqaidi said his forces were currently surrounding three military airports - Kuweires, Neyrab and Menagh - and an air force intelligence building.
Assad has increasingly depended on his air force, which can still take off from bases despite being surrounded to strike at the poorly-equipped rebels.
"That's the whole problem. We have no problem except for the air force. We're used to the tanks fighting and their shelling, we have no problem except for the air force," said Oqaidi who estimated Assad had less than 100 functional planes left. The capture of one of the airports would be a strategic blow.
"We're used to taking over military bases that have tanks and APCs (armored personnel carriers) but we haven't been used to take over control yet of airplanes and God willing we'll have control of them soon," he said.
Oqaidi said Assad's forces were using helicopters plus Russian-designed MiGs and Sukhoi jets to strike at the rebels who still had no sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles.
In the central province of Hama, rebels shot down a government military jet on Monday, activists said.
However, Oqaidi said his forces were not getting any help from abroad, despite reports that Qatar and Saudi Arabia were arming rebel groups.
"We have not received aid from any Arab or foreign country, neither money or weapons. Just empty promises. It looks like no one wants Bashar al-Assad to fall in the near future until the country is completely destroyed and its infrastructure is completely destroyed. They don't care about Syrian blood."
SUNNI DEFECTORS
Oqaidi, who defected at the beginning of 2012, said more than 90 percent of Aleppo's countryside and about 80 percent of the once rich merchant city was under rebel control.
He played up the level of defections, particularly from the majority Sunni Muslim community, from Damascus forces which are largely commanded by members of Assad's Alawite sect.
"There are a lot of pilot defections, in general most of the Sunni pilots have defected," he said.
Referring to the Alawite pilots who remain, he said: "What are they defending? They know they're defending Bashar al-Assad who they know will leave them and escape. So they no longer have the will to fight. There is no principle, no aim to fight for."
Many soldiers had also defected after a recent siege of an army infantry college near Aleppo while the head of the college had escaped by plane, he said. "So their morale was devastated, because if the leader escapes, the rest of the elements had no will to fight."
Other troops gave themselves up while those who resisted were killed and a big portion were also captured, Oqaidi said, adding they were treated as prisoners according to Islam and the Geneva Conventions. The rebels also seized about 70 tanks, RPG rounds and Kalashnikov rifles.
At the sprawling complex, slogans and pictures praising Assad and his father as well as the army were riddled with bullets. Rooms, garages, and classes showed evidence of squalor and abandonment. Tanks and armored personnel carriers lay abandoned in fields as well as overturned army camouflage mattresses and spilled lentils.
"We thought we'd see heavy resistance. But they were defeated like rabbits," said Abu al-Nasr, a soldier from the Tawheed brigade who participated in the operation.

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Kuwait to host Syria crisis meeting, envoy meets Assad

Kuwait will host an international conference next month to tackle Syria's humanitarian crisis, the ruling emir said on Monday, as foes of President Bashar al-Assad voiced frustration with international efforts to end the civil war.
In Damascus, special international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met Assad but the Syrian opposition vented its anger at what it called a "silence" over the unabated killing of civilians by government forces, most recently in the central town of Halfaya.
Assad is under growing pressure from rebel forces in the 21-month-old war that activists say has killed more than 44,000 people. However, diesel from his main international ally, Russia, has arrived in Syria, providing the first significant amounts of the fuel in months to power industry and the military, generate electricity and heat homes during the winter.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said he did not believe Assad's government would use chemical weapons, in remarks broadcast shortly after activists released reports of what they said was a poison gas attack in the city of Homs.
Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al Sabah, said the conference for Syrian donors would be held in late January in response to an invitation by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"The Syrian wound is still bleeding, and the killing machine still continues, killing dozens of our brothers in Syria each day," the emir told a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain.
Last week, the United Nations appealed for $1.5 billion to help save the lives of millions of Syrians suffering a "dramatically deteriorating" humanitarian situation. The appeals are to help 4 million people within Syria and up to 1 million Syrian refugees in five other countries until next July.
Underlining how rebels are taking the battle close to Assad's doorstep, U.N. and Arab League envoy Brahimi had to drive overland to Damascus from Lebanon on the eve of his meeting with the president because fighting around the international airport has made it impossible to fly in.
Brahimi said his talks with Assad had dealt with possible solutions to a crisis. "I told him what I was seeing abroad and about the meetings I had with different officials in the region and abroad," he told reporters. "The situation in Syria still is a reason for worry. We hope that all the sides work toward the solution, as the Syrian people want."
OPPOSITION ANGER
Syria's opposition fumed at what it called silence over the unrelated killing of civilians by Assad's forces. On Sunday, dozens were killed in Halfaya and many more wounded. Activists blamed an air strike on a bakery where a crowd was queuing in the town, which was seized by insurgents last week.
"Silence over the massacres committed against the Syrian people is blackmail and a means to pressure the people, their revolution, and their leaders," said Moaz Alkhatib, who heads the opposition National Coalition.
However, Alkhatib did not accuse anybody directly for remaining mum over what would be one of the deadliest air strikes of the civil war.
Activists also said rebels in central Hama province shot down a government fighter jet on Monday during clashes outside a village loyal to Assad. Rebels have captured a string of military compounds around the country. Damascus is now being dragged into the conflict, with fighting in its southern districts and the suburbs on its eastern outskirts.
Brahimi's plan for an end to the Syrian crisis centers on a transitional government, but has left vague Assad's role. The opposition rejects anything but Assad's overthrow and says the government crackdown has been too fierce to accept dialogue.
POISON GAS REPORTS
With rebel gains growing, the army has been increasingly relying on its superior weaponry. It has used air strikes and even long range, Scud-type missiles, according to U.S. and NATO reports.
Western powers have warned Assad that using chemical weapons would be a "red line", which they implied would draw international involvement in the conflict. Syria repeated on Sunday that it would never use chemical weapons against its people.
In Moscow, Foreign Minister Lavrov told the Russia Today (RT) television channel that recent signs that parts of Syria's chemical arsenal were being moved - a development that alarmed Western governments - was an effort by the government to make the weapons more secure.
"Our information is ... that the latest reports about some movement of the chemical weapons was related to steps undertaken by the government to concentrate the chemical stuff ... at two sites, to make sure it is absolutely protected," he said.
This correlated with information the Americans had, he said.
The activists' reports of what they said was a poison gas attack in Homs could not be confirmed, as the government restricts media access in Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gathered activist accounts of the incident, which said that six rebel fighters were killed after inhaling smoke on the front line of Homs's urban battleground.
The Observatory, a British-based group with a network of activists across the country, called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to send a medical team to the area to determine what had happened.
DIESEL LIFELINE
An Italian shipowner said two cargoes of Russian diesel had reached the Syrian port of Banias this month. It was unclear who was behind the shipments and there was no evidence they violated international sanctions against Syria.
"(Our vessels) loaded two cargoes of gasoil in Russia at the beginning of December for delivery to the East Mediterranean. The charterer then asked us to deliver the volumes to Banias," said Paolo Cagnoni, who heads Mediterranea di Navigazione S.p.A., the family-run Italian tanker firm.
He declined to disclose the names of the vessel charterers and the recipient of the deliveries, which amount to around 42,000 metric tonnes of gasoil worth close to $40 million at current market prices.

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2012 a year of unparalleled justice for child sex abuse victims

 Experts say 2012 was a year of unparalleled justice for child sex abuse victims, but whether the string of high-profile convictions will translate into a turning point for juvenile safety remains to be seen.
The year's headlines heralded the criminal convictions of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, Monsignor William Lynn of the Catholic Church's Philadelphia Archdiocese and ultra-Orthodox Jewish therapist Nechemya Weberman, a prominent figure in New York's Satmar Hasidic sect.
Sandusky, 68, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars for raping and molesting 10 boys, some in the campus football showers. Lynn, 61, was ordered to prison for up to six years for covering up for pedophile priests. Weberman, 54, faces up to 25 years' imprisonment when he is sentenced on January 9 for sexually abusing a girl during counseling sessions.
Each conviction hinged on the testimony of victims brave enough to shatter years of silence surrounding the abuse. Each verdict was reached by a jury determined to decide fairly in the shadow of a revered institution that, at best, ignored the crimes, sometimes for years.
"2012 is a landmark in the drive to reduce and deter community-based abuse," said Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University and an advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes.
"The key here is modern-day courage," Hamilton said. "It took extraordinary courage for survivors to break ranks from their communities and accuse those inside the community."
Decades of secretiveness have shrouded child sex abuse within institutions that turned a blind eye, said David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
One development encouraging victims to come forward today is more women in law enforcement and criminal justice who may seem more approachable, experts say. Another is a growing acceptance of homosexuality, which could help ease the victims' humiliation, and the idea that survivors with calamitous lives may nevertheless be telling the truth, experts say.
"We're learning that victims inevitably seem troubled and flawed. It's very rare that someone can be sexually violated as a child and live a charmed, perfect life," Clohessy said.
Heightened publicity has also drawn out victims who now know they are not alone, said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.
"The climate is so much better for survivors than it was a decade ago when they felt isolated and like a freak," Finkelhor said.
"Almost everyone knows this happens to other people now. It's not nearly as stigmatizing," he said.
The momentum in prosecuting child sex abuse cases depends upon many factors, including whether state legislatures broaden the time frame for victims seeking justice, a move under discussion in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
By the time a child victim is able to confront an assailant, a state's statute of limitations may prevent prosecution. If victims are still eligible to file civil lawsuits, however, the surrounding publicity may draw out other victims and could lead to subsequent criminal prosecutions, advocates say.
"When a predator is exposed in any way, in any form, it encourages victims, witnesses, whistle-blowers to step forward and perhaps file criminal charges," Clohessy said.
"Obviously, kids are safest when predators are jailed," he said. "Sometimes civil suits lead to criminal prosecution. Even when they don't, they warn people about a potentially dangerous child molester.

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Two drone strikes kill five in Yemen: officials

At least five people were killed in two drone strikes in south Yemen on Monday in what security and local officials said were attacks on suspected al Qaeda-linked insurgents.
Improving stability and security in Yemen is a priority for the United States and its Gulf Arab allies because of its strategic position next to the world's top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, and shipping lanes, and because it is home to one of the most active wings of al Qaeda.
Monday's strikes were the first in almost two months by pilotless aircraft against suspected al Qaeda men in Yemen, an impoverished country of mountains and desert on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.
The United States has escalated its use of drones against al Qaeda in Yemen, where the group exploited mass anti-government unrest last year to seize swathes of territory in the south before being driven out by a military offensive in June.
The officials said the first drone strike hit a vehicle in a town in al-Bayda province, killing at least two suspected al Qaeda militants. One of those killed in the attack was a Jordanian citizen, a local official and a resident said.
Family members of the other man, a Yemeni called Abdul Raouf Naseeb, confirmed he was one of those killed.
A Yemeni al Qaeda militant of that name narrowly escaped a U.S. drone strike in November 2002 that killed several al Qaeda operatives including Qaed Salim Sinan al Harithi, an alleged plotter behind the bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen in October 2000 in which 17 U.S. sailors were killed.
In the second drone strike on Monday, at least three people riding two motorcycles and carrying pistols were killed by a missile in Hadramout province, a security official said, adding that they were suspected members of al Qaeda.
Residents said the Hadramout attack happened on the outskirts of the coastal town of al-Sheher. The residents said a fourth person was wounded in the strike.
The U.S.-backed military offensive drove the militants out of areas they seized in the south but has not prevented them from launching attacks that have dealt damaging blows to the army and security apparatus.
Naseeb had fled to al-Bayda from Lawdar province during a U.S.-backed military offensive in Lawdar earlier in 2012.

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