
Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo - ljk
http://www.wsj.com/articles/norway-accuses-facebook-of-censorship-over-deleted-photo-of-napalm-girl-1473428032
======
manachar
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 Facebook be forced to allow porn
as something that is protected by freedom of expression?

On the flip side, as more and more of meaningful speech occurs on these not-
really-public forums of Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, there exists quite a
bit of unease on my part for these global companies to insist on narrowing
expression on these platforms to that which they deem acceptable by whatever
internal process they desire.

Facebook's study that showed they could manipulate people's feelings by
altering the feed algorithm indicates this is an awful lot of power handed to
a company focused on making profits and staying on the good side of
governmental organizations.

YouTube recently started changing their policies that has started to create
problems for people using their platforms.

This would likely be okay if there were real public space on the web, but it
currently operates more as a series of visits to other people's private
property. The release valve is a persons ability to create their own corner of
the internet, but even this must leap through various ISP and web host
providers terms of service. Additionally, is it really speech if you're just
doing the internet equivalent of talking to yourself on an island in the
middle of nowhere?

Cases like this photo will only become more apparent as time goes on. I'm not
sure how society will negotiate these ideas, but at present, the commercial
interests are leading the conversation in their favor.

~~~
idrios
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 something you didn't want them to say.

-Direct messaging people or groups is the equivalent of talking to your friends, while an anonymous person videotapes and listens without really letting you know they're doing that.

-Posting a status is the equivalent of shouting what you're feeling or thinking to nobody in particular

-Facebook curating newsfeeds is the equivalent of putting you in a room and showing videos of the things your friends are shouting, intermittently throwing in advertisements, and just kind of letting you believe that what you're seeing is real and unadulterated.

Point is, if you look at Facebook like a physical establishment, it's a pretty
weird place.

But as long as people continue to recognize that censorship and surveillance
are not cool, they will continue to complain to the groups who engage in it,
and constantly be on the lookout for better alternatives.

I personally recommend Snapchat for un-surveilled interaction with friends,
Hacker News for news with uncensored commentary, and LinkedIn to stay
connected with people. And I'm glad that there are reasonable alternatives to
all of these

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

~~~
idrios
I know that to some extent, Facebook saves data on me using private messages
I've sent to friends. I know that Google Hangouts does too. Snapchat tells me
that nobody has access to messages I've sent to friends except for me and my
friend, and that the message is deleted after the message is viewed. I have no
evidence to show that they don't, and thus far no precedence not to trust
them.

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

~~~
sgc
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.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> 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.

------
Alex3917
> 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.

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

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

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Now see how many people can write a description of a way to discern the
difference between the two using just the image. I hesitate to say it but
experience suggests this probably is 'porn' for some sick person.

It's made to be porn by the context it's viewed in and by the reaction of the
viewers - some people, I gather, are turned on by car crashes.

It's a harder problem than your comment seems to be suggesting.

Personally I think a blanket ban on images of full-frontal nudity of a person
would be reasonable for both a public forum like Facebook and a newspaper.

------
byron_fast
At least now we know the minimum bar to get Facebook to temporarily pretend to
change a policy: be the leader of a first-world nation.

------
nyreed
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?

~~~
forgottenpass
_Too little too late?_

You and I _wish_ that was the case. This is a minor concession made by
Facebook that they and their apologists be able to use for years to trumpet
about how their content polices are oh-so reasonable, and that they're super
duper flexible and thoughtful. That those very few rare cases where they
overstep are reconsidered and rolled back.

If they fix all the high-publicity cases, then it's easy to sell the idea that
they're always doing the right thing. Otherwise why aren't more people
complaining?

~~~
throwanem
You're not wrong. But your analysis excludes one salient point: This only
works if we permit it. We need not do so.

~~~
forgottenpass
I'm in agreement, but generally pessimistic that there will ever be a
sufficient number of "we."

Voicing my dissatisfaction outside of a news cycle where they're in the mud
gets me labeled a hater, neckbeard, out of touch, a hardliner, or any of the
dozens of bog standard reasons to dismiss criticism.

~~~
throwanem
Is it possible the problem lies at least somewhat in your approach? I
appreciate that's not a pleasant possibility to consider, but my experience
has been unlike yours, and I've been speaking against Facebook for a while
now, both here on HN and with random people over drinks in bars.

I would like this to be the kind of thing I would discuss with friends, but
that would require having friends. I did, once. Then Facebook happened. My
comment history here, mostly just a few pages in from the top, details the
whole story, if you're interested. (Sidebar: I've been thinking I should
probably put together a list of links to some especially salient posts from
there, in order to make it easy for people who aren't already interested to
understand where I'm coming from and the nature of the problem I see. If you
decide to go poking through my back numbers, perhaps you'd be so kind as also
to mention whichever, if any, of those comments spoke strongly to you, so that
I can be sure to include them in that list.)

In any case, what I do seems, if not necessarily to work, then generally not
to fail. Here on HN, I almost always find a sympathetic ear, which I gather is
pretty unusual for anyone talking about anything even remotely controversial.
In real life, not everyone is interested, and that's okay. But I have noticed
that, on lately less rare occasion, that people seem to take a mention of
Facebook in a negative light as an opportunity to unburden themselves of their
own complaints. These mostly seem to revolve around privacy concerns and
platform lock-in, which is totally reasonable. That seems to be happening a
bit more often lately. It's not something I really mention a lot here, on the
one hand because those aren't really my stories to tell, and on the other
because I also go to bars to drink, to enjoy myself and the company of others,
and to remind myself that it is in fact possible to have an enjoyable social
life that totally excludes Facebook. Quote-mining that wouldn't be much fun.
So I don't do it.

You're right that it can be trickier to make these kinds of points outside a
news cycle that includes Facebook having fucked up somebody's life again. It
is far from impossible, but it does take a bit more effort and delicacy. And
is it just me, or do such news cycles seem to be happening more and more often
lately?

I understand your pessimism. Sometimes I feel the same. But it's important not
to surrender, because to do so makes us useless, and since we refuse to help
make money for it, useless is exactly what Facebook needs us to be. That by
itself seems sufficient reason to me for us to be otherwise.

(Oh, and - if you actually do have a beard that extends down onto your neck,
consider trimming and shaving to maintain a neat border along the underside of
your jaw. Perceptions matter. If you look like Richard Stallman, people are
less likely to take seriously anything you have to say. Perhaps that shouldn't
be true, but it is, and we ignore the truth of the world at our peril.)

------
jMyles
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?

~~~
pjscott
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.

~~~
wyager
Well they'd better start banning pictures of tile patterns!
[http://imgur.com/gallery/DowgNSg](http://imgur.com/gallery/DowgNSg)

------
inputcoffee
Would we say:

1\. The process worked. Facebook looked it over, reasoned about it, and
changed their minds. Kudos to them for admitting a mistake.

2\. It took a media uproar to make a change like this. The process is broken.
There has to be a better way to make these changes.

3\. There was no right objective answer in the first place, so the process is
inherently political.

I am leaning towards #3. Want to know what the HN community thinks.

~~~
aetherson
When "the process" that "worked" involved a head of state of a top 30 GDP
country getting their post in support deleted before ending up coming up in
your favor, then you _definitely_ do not have any evidence that there is a
real process that can work.

~~~
abraae
Yeah, And in this case, it took a head of state to get one of the most
instantly recognisable war photos of all time past the Facebook censors.

That photo was said by some to have been instrumental in bringing home to
Americans the brutal effect of the war. It may have actually contributed to
shortening the war.

Now imagine if the Vietnam war was underway right now, and that photo was
taken 24 hours ago.

Would it be seen on Facebook? No way.

Their system is utterly broken.

~~~
vidarh
This is an important point, particularly considering official Norwegian policy
for most of the Vietnam war was to not question the US warfare.

There'd have been no way a Norwegian government at that time would have
objected to censorship of an image like this, not least because everyone knew
that the US would have reacted strongly, given that the most senior Nordic
politician who dared speak up caused quite a stir:

When the then Minister of Education in Sweden, Olof Palme (later PM), took
part in an anti-Vietnam war demonstration in 1968, the US withdrew their
ambassador from Sweden. In 1972, he as a PM compared the US bombing of Hanoi
to the bombing of Guernica, and the US froze diplomatic relations with Sweden
for a year as punishment.

Norway itself saw a spate of people imprisoned for refusing conscription
citing Norwegian NATO membership and the US war in Vietnam (I have an uncle
that was in prison for that; my dad was also imprisoned for refusing
conscription in part because of the past Norwegian attitudes to the Vietnam
war, though his case happened after the war had ended - it took years before
the Vietnam wars effect refusing conscription subsided)

It's easy to stand up for free speech when it involves something this old.
It's far harder to stand up for it when it is happening.

------
legitster
Devil's advocate: I don't see why Facebook isn't allowed to choose what is or
isn't displayed on their site. The only reason Facebook is a platform people
choose to use is because of the editorial decisions they have been making. And
the problem was that the policy was too consistent? That they were not making
enough exceptions to the rule for important people?

~~~
mikeash
Of course they're allowed to choose. And we're allowed to choose to criticize
them in public for those choices. And they're allowed to choose to change
their actions based on that criticism. Everybody is acting on the basis of
their freedoms.

~~~
legitster
I'm reading this as a non-statement. Like I'm saying that no one should be
outraged about this, and you are saying there is no such thing as outrage,
just people acting in their own interests. Fine, that's very true, but then
that takes the steam out of all arguments everywhere.

~~~
mikeash
My point is that you equate outrage to "they're not allowed to," when that's
not the case at all. They are absolutely allowed to. If you want to talk about
the merits of outrage, you can't start with a false description of what it
implies.

------
mark_l_watson
I agree with the comments that having public forums controlled by single
companies like Facebook and Reddit can be problematic if they start censoring
what people are allowed to post.

What I do, and what I encourage family and friends to do, is to have your own
blog and post substantial writings on your blog and use social media posts to
reference your blog. I still use social media for posting vacation pictures,
commenting on other people's posts, and links to interesting stuff to read on
the web.

I think this is a good compromise.

------
untog
I wonder, do these restrictions also apply to Instant Articles? Because as
much as Facebook wants to deny being a media company, if it is providing (and
censoring) a platform news organizations publish through it most definitely is
one. And it's worth stopping to think about what that means when compared to
the open web.

------
mtgx
Oh...so Facebook "backs down" after another one of their censorship cases
blows up on the Internet.

But how many thousands of similar cases don't find the same outrage online,
but are still just as dangerous? We don't hear about those. That's the problem
with censorship - most of the time you don't even know what you were supposed
to be able to see, by the time it's censored.

------
mc32
Why can't FB do like Flickr and deploy a system where people self classify
their content and then subscribers can set whether they want all content or
safe content as well as provide the "take me back to the kittens" if an image
offends...

------
beyti
Am I the only one concerned here about the posts with links requiring to sign
up just to read?

for people like me, here a link not requiring a signup to read:
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/09/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/09/facebook-
reinstates-napalm-girl-photo)

------
tn13
It would have made much more sense to say "no nude children" no matter what
and consistently apply it. Naplam girl's photo could have been blurred a
little and still be shown to convey the exact same message.

This sort of exception based polciies would lead facebook into same trouble as
the way they were censoring conservative news.

~~~
e12e
What age are children, and is other nudity allowed? Pictures of states like
David? It's not dimple to find a moral common ground for the entire world (or
even some arbitrary selection of countries that are deemed to have "valid"
morals).

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

~~~
whamlastxmas
This generally applies when they do something that prevents competition. If
Facebook made it difficult or impossible for you to use other social media
websites, then maybe.

------
kinkdr
One thing that I don't understand is why all these people that complain about
Facebook don't just switch to an open source, distributed Social Network
platform.

It's not like anybody is forcing them to use FB or that there are no
alternatives.

~~~
untog
Quite literally, network effects. There is no point using an open source,
distributed social network if you have no friends on it.

In many ways you don't _really_ have a choice about what social network you
use, just whether you use one at all.

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

~~~
NotOscarWilde
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 know them yet. (A large part is the
amount of data they have, along with a good friend suggestion system.)

I'm pretty much invisible on Diaspora -- there is no way I can meet new
friends from my area unless I start posting a lot with tags like #cityname and
#countryname, and even then it all hinges on at least somebody being on the
same server -- if they are on a different one, the tagged posts will not get
there.

~~~
tbirdz
>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.

------
awqrre
They backed down because they figured out who they were censoring?

------
intrasight
Inquiring minds want to know - was it a stupid algorithm or a stupid person at
Facebook that deleted those posts.

~~~
rpeden
It wouldn't even need to be a stupid person. Just a person who probably won't
get in trouble for erring on the side of caution, but could face serious
consequences for failing to enforce Facebook's policies.

That's usually a decent approach, and in most cases it doesn't cause an
uproar. In the few cases where it does, the hot potato gets tossed up the
chain of command until someone reverses the decision.

Or, as others have mentioned, the deletion was triggered automatically when
the image was flagged by too many people. I sympathize with the deletion
algorithm here. If I slave over a hot CPU all day just trying to do my job,
the last thing I want to do is get sent to /dev/null because I failed to
delete an image that really was inappropriate.

------
AzzieElbab
Can't we all agree that tech notwithstanding Facebook is just dumb in every
way possible.

------
posterboy
previous discussion of the aftenposten editor's response, poster of the photo:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12457004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12457004)

------
erickhill
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12464883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12464883)
Facebook to reinstate censored image of ‘napalm girl’

~~~
sctb
Thanks, we merged the previous discussion with this one.

------
npiazza83
why?

~~~
swampthinker
Says it right in the article. They made the wrong decision to censor a
historically relevant photograph. So they backed down.

~~~
npiazza83
Who made the decision within the company? That's way more important than the
fact the decision was made. Do they have a new position we were previously
unaware of that handles requests for heads of state? What if the request is
for the opposite? Who censors things explicitly? Who handles media relations?
When? Why? Over what threshold do they consider it to be an issue?

Why?

~~~
vkou
I have no inside knowledge of Facebook's workings, but I speculate that the
sequence of events was:

Employees saw this thread on Hacker News, posted on Facebook's meme network,
the meme got a thousand upvotes, and someone did a one-off to reverse this
decision.

Because it was obvious to everyone that it was the wrong decision. It was also
probably obvious to everyone that the mistake that lead to this decision will
keep happening.

------
aikah
Good, are we done with fake outrage ?

