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Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

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

#181

Post by wyager »

pjscott wrote: post #130
jMyles wrote: post #100

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…

It's all about what someone could plausibly imagine someone else finding arousing. Never mind intent, and never mind content; is there someone, hypothetical or real, who could get off on it? Can pedophiles enjoy it? This policy is not about protecting anyone. It's about keeping up appearances. The same can be said about most policies.

Well they'd better start banning pictures of tile patterns! http://imgur.com/gallery/DowgNSg

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

#182

Post by PhasmaFelis »

ucaetano wrote: post #60
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…

"An interesting twist on free speech on the internet is that almost all speech on the internet is being done on private companies' websites." This photo was taken by a photographer employed by a private company, then published by a private company, awarded a prize by a private organization. Not much has changed.

There was a while when news services at least paid lip service to the idea that they told people what they needed to know, not just what they wanted to hear. Obviously it wasn't perfect, but a lot of journalists took it very seriously.

Facebook just fired the last of its on-staff journalists.

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

#183

Post by mmmBacon »

jMyles wrote: post #98
nerfhammer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's extremely difficult for a human to discern the difference let alone computers which for all the ML are still profoundly stupid.

To quote Justice Stewart in Jacobellis vs. Ohio:

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

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

#184

Post by jimmywanger »

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…

Well, you can't really have it both ways.

Both Twitter and Facebook were trumpeting their dedication to freedom of speech and liberty during Arab Spring.

If they had just said, "Look we have all these shareholders we have to appease with money, and right now this is the best way to make more money" I would have no problem with that.

Don't pretend to be anti-censorship and then turn around and censor things.

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

#185

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

skissane wrote: post #112
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons and tons of newspapers? Not really. Here in Australia there are precisely two. All major newspapers are owned either by News Limited, a subsidiary of News Corporation, or Fairfax Media. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Australia#Newspapers_...

Three if you count Perth's local daily, The West Australian, which is owned by Seven West Media. That doesn't really change your point though. But, Australia is a small country (in population terms), and it only has six or so major cities, so I don't think we could expect vastly wider media ownership than we've currently got.

One could argue that we could add should, but we don't. We just think 23 million people can only support two news papers. That way we can claim there isn't a monopoly.

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

#186

Post by xapata »

jMyles wrote: post #162
xapata wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not talking about the photograph in the article, but a hypothetical recreation. Even if a photographer were to explain such a recreation were a satire or had some artistic value, I think many people would feel uncomfortable with it. Certainly most would not want their children to pose for such a photograph. From that thought experiment, I'm deducing that it's the historical context which makes the original phot…

I think this is actually an interesting art experiment. I wonder if anyone will try.

Yeah, the art is the question of whether or not such a thing would be illegal. Performance art, of a sort.

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

#187

Post by kijin »

gwright wrote: post #178
kijin wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal obligation, of course not. I don't think anyone involved in the current incident was arguing for a legal obligation for Facebook to do anything in particular. Moral obligation, now that's a different beast. Assuming that free speech is valuable to society as a whole, one might argue that everyone (including Facebook employees) has a moral obligation to promote it, or at least not inhibit it too much.

Your response is somewhat an example of what I was talking about. By not clearly distinguishing between the different concepts you end up with muddled arguments. You've clarified here and said that in the private case there is a 'moral obligation'. Really? What exactly is the obligation? Falling back on the generic notion of 'free speech' doesn't actually clarify the argument. For example, if I managed a public forum…

I agree with you for the most part, but I also think that we can expect organizations above a certain size or influence to have a bigger moral obligation than the little players. Unlike law, morality is a gradient.

It doesn't sound unreasonable to say that the more power you have to shape the world around you, the more obligation you have to use that power for the greater good. This kind of noblesse oblige is not a foreign concept to most people.

It might also make a difference if a company is actively trying to become the platform for everyone to express their thoughts. Whether or not your actions actually impede free speech or not depends a lot on whether or not there are alternatives of a comparable size and influence. For example, I have no obligation to let random people put up "TRUMP 2016" signs on my lawn, because they are free to put up signs on their own lawns, windows, cars, etc. But if all the HOAs in the city banned election signs, that could be a problem even though HOAs are not run by the city.

The closer you are to having a monopoly on deciding what people can or can't say in their daily life, the more your moral obligations will resemble that of a government. This becomes so extreme in the case of the government itself, that smart people in the past have decided to codify some of the government's moral obligations into a legally binding document.

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

#188

Post by JoshTriplett »

sgc wrote: post #170
dublinben wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no evidence that they do either, so you can't trust them.

Trust by definition is not evidence-based. Even if it were "open source", you would have no proof that the actual production code was the open source version. I understand and even subscribe to the default attitude of lack of trust, but it is not an actionable attitude when it comes to the web and saas.

> Even if it were "open source", you would have no proof that the actual production code was the open source version.

There are ways to prove that. You can provide reproducible builds, where someone who builds the software will end up with bit-for-bit identical binaries to the production version. Then, anyone can verify that the available binary matches the available source.

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

#189

Post by daveloyall »

mthoms wrote: post #32
daveloyall wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any flames in that picture. I've never seen any flames in that picture, but I've been told (since junior high school) that it is a picture of a burning child. What's up with that? Common sense tells me that the child's clothing was on fire, and she took those clothes off and ran away, and that's what we see a photo of. Fine. But then... why is this photo described as a picture that contains flames? Not ju…

What an odd thing to be pedantic about. I mean, that's what bothers you about this photograph? Besides, burning does not require fire to be present. It only requires heat (or chemical reaction).

I didn't mean to be pedantic. I merely was asking a question. Bear in mind that it's a question that I first wondered about when I was myself a child.

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

#190

Post by ucaetano »

Intermernet wrote: post #152
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is something like socialism or communism. No thanks.

I was thinking about this the other day. I'm of the opinion that the main problem with Socialism or Communism is exactly the same problem as with Capitalism or "Free Market" economics. Human greed. They're all viable theories of how to structure a society, but they all fail when the people in power decide to put their own interests in front of the needs of the general populous.

Capitalism ends up being better because it usually tries to have a separation of powers between those who control production resources and those who control policy and politics. In real-world Socialism and Communism, they are the same, allowing for greed to have a much harder impact.

Sadly, that separation falls apart far too often.

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