Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#91

Post by throwanem » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 12:53 AM UTC

kinkdr wrote: post #88

throwanem wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It may be easy to leave Facebook and stay in contact with your closest friends Often it is not, because Facebook has so successfully inveigled itself into and through people's social interactions that a lot of folks just don't think about keeping in touch any other way.

Should we be trying to educate them on merits and benefits on an open source alternative?

If that were going to work, it would have done by now. Diaspora was the closest, and Diaspora is the kind of joke you tell as a joke because it's better than crying.

We should be trying to make it possible for people to have the very real benefits Facebook offers, without having to suffer the miseries both subtle and gross which Facebook has no reason not to inflict. I don't have a good answer yet as to how we go about doing that. But as it becomes more clear that Facebook is a problem, it becomes also more likely that someone will invent the thing which will not only kill it, but make it impossible for anything of its like to come along again.

So even if I don't have a solution, talking about the problem is still worthwhile.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#92

Post by tbirdz » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:01 AM UTC

NotOscarWilde wrote: post #65

tbirdz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the positive side, if you don't know anyone on the network, then it's a great opportunity to make some new friends!

Making new acquaintances is useless if nobody from your 30km radius is on the network or if it is hard to meet people inside this radius. Friendships decay really fast with distance, especially when there is no real strong bond. As much as I am disgusted by Facebook right now, they do one thing right -- they make it fairly easy to connect to friends of friends and people that are in your social circles but you don't…

>Making new acquaintances is useless if nobody from your 30km radius is on the network or if it is hard to meet people inside this radius. Friendships decay really fast with distance, especially when there is no real strong bond.

I disagree, local proximity is not critical to maintaining a friendship. I have friends I talk with daily who live much further than 30km away, even some in other countries. A great thing about the internet is it allows people to connect over other similarities than physical location. I have some friends who I've never even met in person before, for example.

On the other hand, I've never really found facebook style physical "friend-of-a-friend" type connections to be that useful to me. Most all of my friends in meatspace are part of the same group, ie all our "friend-of-friends" are each other. The rest are people who aren't interested in introducing me to the rest of their social circle.

Now I don't think this proves anything, or even if there is any way of measuring the ease/quality of friends made on vs off line, but it's just an example from my own life. How well making friends with strangers online, strangers offline, or friends-of-friends depends heavily on your personality and current social group. The situation is a lot more variable than how you present it.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#93

Post by hkmurakami » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:06 AM UTC

manachar wrote: post #51

An interesting twist on free speech on the internet is that almost all speech on the internet is being done on private companies' websites. No private company is considered required to promote or protect free speech. Each forum is able to say "don't like our policies, then go somewhere else". This even seems quite reasonable. Why should any particular forum be forced to allow any particular kind of speech? Should Fac…

As Washington DC moves its publishing to Medium, I wonder what ramifications we will face in the future.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#94

Post by serge2k » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:07 AM UTC

idrios wrote: post #84

manachar wrote: post #51

An interesting twist on free speech on the internet is that almost all speech on the internet is being done on private companies' websites. No private company is considered required to promote or protect free speech. Each forum is able to say "don't like our policies, then go somewhere else". This even seems quite reasonable. Why should any particular forum be forced to allow any particular kind of speech? Should Fac…

I agree with you. To continue your internet-as-a-physical-place analogue, Facebook is basically a mall where you are encouraged to hang out and intermittently enticed to buy things. -No porn on Facebook is the equivalent to no nudity allowed at the mall. -Banning users is the equivalent of kicking a person out of the mall. -Censoring messages is the equivalent of... uh.. gagging a person just before they can say some…

> Hacker News for news with uncensored commentary

Except not really. Rules and moderation are censorship.

Why would you not recommend whatsapp or another encrypted system?

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#95

Post by randyrand » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:14 AM UTC

panic wrote: post #85

nerfhammer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Algorithms can't tell the difference between porn/gore and historically significant graphic images

Yes, which is why algorithms aren't an adequate solution to the problem of screening Facebook posts.

Yes, which is why we blanket ban nudity as a precaution.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#96

Post by ciupicri » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:18 AM UTC

idrios wrote: post #84

manachar wrote: post #51

An interesting twist on free speech on the internet is that almost all speech on the internet is being done on private companies' websites. No private company is considered required to promote or protect free speech. Each forum is able to say "don't like our policies, then go somewhere else". This even seems quite reasonable. Why should any particular forum be forced to allow any particular kind of speech? Should Fac…

I agree with you. To continue your internet-as-a-physical-place analogue, Facebook is basically a mall where you are encouraged to hang out and intermittently enticed to buy things. -No porn on Facebook is the equivalent to no nudity allowed at the mall. -Banning users is the equivalent of kicking a person out of the mall. -Censoring messages is the equivalent of... uh.. gagging a person just before they can say some…

Both Snapchat and Whatsapp are a joke when it comes to privacy because the client software is closed source.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#97

Post by cloudjacker » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:26 AM UTC

Joeboy wrote: post #78

larsiusprime wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

relevant: http://www.jonas-kyratzes.net/2014/04/26/free-speech-and-the...

The idea that Freedom of Speech is just a thing from the US constitution is particularly odd if you're not from the US. Freedom of Speech is, surely, a measure of how free you are to communicate your message to other people.

It is particularly odd if you're in the US too though, but yes that is accurate.

Freedom of speech is not a measure of those things, it is a concept we, in the US, exported to conform other democracies to our will, with mixed success.

It became a meme amongst private persons. And it is still a meme, virally spreading words that have no congruence with the reality the words are used in.

Freedom of speech is a limitation of the government retaliating on a person solely on the basis of their speech. It is not a limitation of private persons using the government's courts to create a consequence for someone else's speech, it is not a limitation on private persons for restricting or censoring other people's speech.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#98

Post by jMyles » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:28 AM UTC

nerfhammer wrote: post #66

Alex3917 wrote: post #52

> In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time. Translation: if you document any of the numerous real human rights atrocities that are happening today then expect to get banned. If anything, the fact that this photo is already 'historic' and 'iconic' means that it's less important than what's being captured today.

Algorithms can't tell the difference between porn/gore and historically significant graphic images

If an algorithm mistakes this image for porn, it's pretty damn broken anyway.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#99

Post by jMyles » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:35 AM UTC

xapata wrote: post #37

pessimizer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could start by rejecting the default assumption that nudity should be considered sexual by default. And maybe the default assumption that sexuality is bad - I don't want them to shift to trying to detect if an image is arousing or not; but I do want whatever censorship system they feel they need to have in place to be able to distinguish between child pornography and a photograph of a child being burned by napal…

> being burned by napalm I didn't see any napalm in the image. The girl had removed her burning clothes before the photograph was taken. The reason this particular image is considered acceptable is the historical context. If I were to recreate the image by hiring actors, that would probably be considered child pornography.

> that would probably be considered child pornography.

What on earth are you talking about? Is there anything even vaguely sexual about this photograph? Did I miss something?

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#100

Post by jMyles » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 1:37 AM UTC

I'm not a facebook user, so I've never run head-long into this policy, but why doesn't facebook allow photos of nude children?

It seems awkward and creepy to consider all photos of nude children to be pornographic.

The vast, overwhelming majority (surely more than 99.9%, maybe more than two nines) of photos of nude children have no plausible sexual tone whatsoever.

And, similarly, I presume that many images that are indeed pornographic depict children who are clothed.

What does one have to do with the other?

For adults, I kinda understand: sex is one of the main reasons adults take their clothes off. But kids, especially young kids, run around naked all the time!

Does facebook not permit pictures of birth?