
Zuckerberg blasted for censorship of Pulitzer prize-winning photo - kristofferR
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/9/12859686/facebook-censorship-napalm-girl-aftenposten
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vidarh
Norwegian Prime Minister has posted it on her official Facebook page in
response to this too, and they removed that post as well.

EDIT: As well as the Norwegian Minister for Culture.

EDIT2: Here's an article about the PM posting it (in Norwegian; Google
translate ought to do an ok job): [http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/facebook-
fjernet-ernas-bilde/...](http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/facebook-fjernet-
ernas-bilde/62449143)

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thr0waway1239
Excellent, that should teach those idiot Norwegians a thing or two about where
they stand on the totem pole of power.

Facebook > Every other country on the planet

Facebook is a country because it is acts as an independent sovereign state
which is not answerable to anyone at this point. Apparently, it already makes
up its own taxation laws[1].I expect them to release their own flag, maybe a
national anthem?

[1]
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2016/07/29/face...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2016/07/29/facebook-
ignores-another-irs-summons-reveals-it-could-owe-billions-in-
taxes/#71ea3ae30bfc)

~~~
vidarh
As an "idiot Norwegian", I think you'll find Facebook better thread carefully
here. They've now pissed off and censored multiple high level politicians, two
of the largest national newspapers, and several high profile writers, pouring
gasoline on a long simmering debate over whether they are a threat to
democracy...

If they want e.g. to have Norwegian brands willing to be associated with and
advertise on their platform, they'll need to step carefully, because they're
getting dangerously close to it being a PR coup of higher value for companies
to publicly announce they won't spend money on advertising on Facebook, than
the return of actually advertising on Facebook.

Of course, they can live without the Norwegian market. What they can't live
with would be if this debate also start taking off elsewhere. And this has
already led to articles in a number of major international newspapers, and it
will get a lot more attention before it subsides.

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thr0waway1239
Obviously it was sarcasm. If you read my comment history, you would notice
that I keep railing against FB every chance I get.

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vidarh
I didn't take any offence, but I'm pleased to hear I didn't catch the sarcasm.

~~~
thr0waway1239
I could have omitted that first sentence. What I meant was that I didn't
expect a serious response to a comment of mine which was intended to be only
sarcastic.

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okket
See also: "Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12457004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12457004)
(13 hours ago, 175 comments)

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userbinator
_" We try to find the right balance between enabling people to express
themselves while maintaining a safe and respectful experience for our global
community. Our solutions won’t always be perfect, but we will continue to try
to improve our policies and the ways in which we apply them."_

Does anyone else find these sorts of vague, bland, verbose, and somewhat
doublespeak-ish "non-answers" a bit tedious to read, and tiresome? This
"whatever" tone seems to have taken over a lot of PR these days, and I've met
people who actually speak like that. It's a lot of verbiage and feels more
like they're saying what amounts to "we'll say we're trying, but we don't
really care all that much about the edge cases".

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stephenr
Evil mega corp does evil shit. News at 11.

Seriously. Stop it with the "dear mark" letters. Stop telling yourself
Facebook can improve and it just needs to know what the community wants.

~~~
norswap
Snarky commenter comments on the vanity of it all. It's so easy once you get
started :)

~~~
stephenr
Im not being snarky. Im completely serious.

Facebook is a fucking cancer on society and technology. I imagine when
Zuckerberg watches 007 Tomorrow Never Dies, he probably sees Elliot Carver as
the ultimately unsuccessful hero.

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kartan
I don't think that Zuckerberg/Facebook is to blame. The system that allows so
much power in so few hands is to blame and should be improved.

The good thing about capitalist democracies used to be that the decision
making was distributed between a large amount of actors. When you have an
economy where most companies are monopolies/oligopolies you end with something
closer to feudalism than to an actual democracy.

~~~
stephenr
Yeah, this is very much a case of 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice,
shame on me.'

Facebook has shown its hand many times before, if you're still giving them
content to attract products (i.e. eyeballs) to their platform, you're as much
a part of the problem as Facebook itself.

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andmarios
A couple days ago there was an entry about how European startups fail to scale
because they don't take time to understand how their audience differ in the
countries they expand. :)

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vidarh
That's a baffling sentiment to me, as to me one of the key advantages I've
seen for European companies internationally is that most are forced to face
cultural and legal differences from day one, while US companies often take a
very long time to expand abroad exactly because they for a long time have the
luxury of ignoring cultural differences, and very often end up with bizarre
approaches when they're finally forced to acknowledge the rest of the world...

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mickmock
People complaining because it's a famous award winning photograph but still
gets treated like every other photograph with nude kids in it?

I can just imagine them saying "It's just art bruh"

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vidarh
What do you mean "like every other photograph with nudge kids in it"? Because
most countries do _not_ have laws against photographs with nudge kids in it.
Most countries have laws against _child porn_. Yes, there are difficulties
discerning the difference sometimes. This is not one of those cases.

In the case of Facebooks specific censorship, the issue is also not that she
was a child in the photo, but nudity in general.

~~~
mickmock
It's not against the law?????? OMG! Oh wait... did I say anything about it
being against the law? Exactly. Facebook does not allow nudity. Get over it.

~~~
vidarh
You did however make a point of it being a kid, which under Facebooks rules is
irrelevant. And no, I won't get over it - Facebook is now so ingrained in
culture and the exchange of ideas that their censorship is becoming a problem.

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SmallDeadGuy
While I disagree with the censorship and removal of the entire post, I can't
see why they couldn't reach a compromise where the photo is censored to either
blur or obscure the nudity yet still retain the message. Keeping it obvious
that Kim Phuc is nude, while actually censoring the specific nude areas that
Facebook disallows, would retain the message and historical significance.

The approach Facebook should have taken was to remove/censor the photo itself
but keep the post and all relevant discussion unmodified, until a photo/set of
photos that abide by their terms was added to replace the offending images.
The message isn't that Facebook is censoring war discussion and history, it's
that some content of the images themselves are not permitted and that content
should be what is censored.

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TheCoreh
Why should nudity be disallowed in the first place, though?

The photo is clearly not sexual or pornographic. As for censoring it
partially: Are we really totally fine with seeing someone burned by napalm,
just not with seeing their genitals?

The photo is arguably one of the most famous pieces of photojournalism, and
helped shape our civilization. I remember seeing it for the first time in my
elementary school history book, even: it can't be that inappropriate.

I understand why they wouldn't want Facebook to degenerate into a porn (or
borderline porn) filled website. I think they simply are relying too much on
automated systems to remove content, and don't have a good appeal system in
place.

