(Updated 08/07/10: I’ve updated this post to omit my shamelessly derivative pithy one-liner, and to include the cartoon it was inspired by, which is far more apt, and was eventually located on the very excellent xkcd.com.)

This worked on the basis that we would show more of an extended torture sequence from the movie as the page attracted more fans.

We updated it late last night and sent a mailshot to the 300-odd existing fans to tell them that the clip had been extended.

When we got in this morning there was nothing left except a message explaining that ‘pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed’.

As a response to this we today issued this press release. The torture sequence can now be viewed here, and will be extended as this site receives more hits. If and when we reach 10,000 we get to show the first 10 minutes of the film.

The movie’s out on friday. It’s going to be fascinating to see what (if anything) happens between now and then. I’ll keep you posted.

It’s probably worth explaining at this point that this activity had been undertaken to promote a movie called UNTRACEABLE on behalf of Universal Pictures, a movie in which a serial killer creates an “untraceable” website where he conducts violent and painful murders LIVE on the net.

It transpired that one of the Seesmic moderators had taken rather fervent exception to the nature of the content we were posting, and was threatening to delete both the videos and the account. Whether this was because she thought she was witnessing a genuine electrocution – or because she considered our script and special effects to be criminally awful – is not yet clear. Whatever the case, the situation had quickly escalated to the point whereby they felt compelled to act.

We’ve since had a good natter, and have some plans for next week, the nature of which will become clear as they unfold. At their heart: a shared interest in trying to understand what you have to depict in order to cross the line. Perhaps the Seesmic community holds the answer.

In the mean time, here is the last of the (not so) live webisodes, posted here for posterity, on the back of an agreement not to pollute Seesmic with any more of our horrorshow filth:

Loic’s just published a tidy summary of the story of Seesmic so far, including details of how they’ve managed to raise $6 million in initial funding. All this with a user-base of little more than a 1,000 viewers, and approximately 200 regular contributors, of which I am one. [UPDATE 15/03/08: Turns out these stats are way out of date - Vinvin has been kind enough to post the latest figures in a comment on this post. 8,000 viewers, 800 very active!]

I first spoke to Vinvin a couple of weeks back, after emailing Loic to find out about opportunities for PPC to promote films within Seesmic. I had one particular campaign in mind, and even went so far as to outline a couple of ideas we were playing around with. I wasn’t looking for any explicit endorsement; equally I didn’t want to act without giving them the heads-up. Vinvin promptly gave me his blessing, and he was kind enough to throw in a few invitation codes for good measure.

A few days later a new member joined the Seesmic community, going under the name of Sharpeshooter. This was one of his first posts:

In the days that followed Sharpeshooter posted a few dozen times, initiating some discussions and contributing to others, touching on everything from politics to prostitution.

Just before last weekend, Sharpeshooter went quiet.

On tuesday the following clip appeared, posted using his account:

This was just two days ago. The following morning, the hooded figure was back:

Then, last night, Sharpeshooter suddenly reappeared, albeit under duress:

All through last night and this morning clips like this appeared within the public timeline. Then, at around 6pm this evening, the situation started to change rapidly. The clips were posted, about 30 minutes apart:

It was at this point that I received a very polite email from Vinvin, asking if I could jump into Skype for five minutes…

TO BE CONTINUED