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Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

wsj.com

21–30 of 192 posts

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

#21
post #6

Too little too late? They've set the tone when they deleted a post made by the democratically elected leader of a country. That must surely be a tipping point?

> They've set the tone when they deleted a post made by the democratically elected leader of a country. I'm not sure it should matter whether it's a Prime Minister or a 22 year old college dropout.

Regardless of whether or not it should, it seems pretty clear that it does.

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

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with porn accounts on Twitter?

They are spam accounts, not porn accounts. Please don't tell me you can't tell the difference.

There are probably both. You lumped them as if all porn accounts are spam accounts when that's very likely not true, and that is what SysArchitect was commenting on.

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

#24
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meaning, difficult to create a filter that "knows it when it sees it." http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/09/27/the-origins-of-justice-s...

Meaning FB is too fucking stupid to hire a person who knows the difference between child porn and iconic war images. It's not that rare to find people with common sense who can discern the two, even in the US. From what I understand, all these decisions get made by actual humans at FB and therefore have nothing to do with algorithms. The algorithm may flag the initial image, but it's the stupid human that approves th…

Please stop. Insults are not OK on Hacker News, and the need for civility when discussing controversial topics is greater, not lesser.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#25
post #2

“While we recognize that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others." You'd have to be really fucking stupid for this to be difficult for you. I guess FB finally realized even their users are not all stupid enough to believe such a ridiculous statement.

I can't believe you're catching flak for this.

It is absolutely not difficult to distinguish between a photo of burning children and a photo of a sex act. In fact, it's pretty ridiculous to characterize this photo as that "of a nude child."

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

#26
post #6

Too little too late? They've set the tone when they deleted a post made by the democratically elected leader of a country. That must surely be a tipping point?

This article doesn't mention the Prime Minister of Norway's contribution to this story, but HN readers are probably aware of it from another post today.

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

#27
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I can see their point. It's not like they can review every picture individually, so they're going to need a general policy. They messed up, received backlash, and changed their policy based on it.

> It's not like they can review every picture individually It's exactly like that. They could not allow pictures at all, not censor at all, or close down the business, too. Every option is open to them.

Uhhh, right, but those options aren't really options since it would damage them far more than a policy that needs to be tweaked occasionally.

"Shut facebook down" is a bit ridiculous. Congrats, you're technically correct that it's an option open to them.

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

#28

Can Facebook be held accountable under monopoly laws? They are too big and too influential for our own good.

Antitrust laws. (I believe that is what monopoly laws are called.)

I don't think that will work. We're gonna have to make new laws, the social media laws.

...Never thought I'd type that! :)

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

#29
post #25
post #2

“While we recognize that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others." You'd have to be really fucking stupid for this to be difficult for you. I guess FB finally realized even their users are not all stupid enough to believe such a ridiculous statement.

I can't believe you're catching flak for this. It is absolutely not difficult to distinguish between a photo of burning children and a photo of a sex act. In fact, it's pretty ridiculous to characterize this photo as that "of a nude child."

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 just here. That's always how it is described.

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

#30
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meaning, difficult to create a filter that "knows it when it sees it." http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/09/27/the-origins-of-justice-s...

Meaning FB is too fucking stupid to hire a person who knows the difference between child porn and iconic war images. It's not that rare to find people with common sense who can discern the two, even in the US. From what I understand, all these decisions get made by actual humans at FB and therefore have nothing to do with algorithms. The algorithm may flag the initial image, but it's the stupid human that approves th…

Given the sheer volume, I honestly wonder if a human does ever see it unless it's called out on Twitter (or whatever).

Even if it's flagged as an Iconic Image, you have to look at the context and see if it isn't posted by Jared from Subway.

Easier to auto flag than make a "waiting for glacially slow human" queue. (Esp. when one-million-moms has a protest van idling on the launch deck 24/7.)

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