I'm kind of perplexed to find this at the top of the front page of Hacker News. It seems, if not entirely devoid of actual information, then pretty close. Is there some context I'm not aware of, that would explain its popularity?
I think the purpose is to bring attention to the kind of digital world we live in where we have so many digital images with others intentionally or unintentionally taken by us or others that may end up going viral someday causing harm to an individual’s reputation.
Yes you can't judge for acquaintance with someone who turns out to be an evil person. You can't know. My best friend I've lost contact with for a few years, went down the wrong path and ended up in jail ... what does it say about me?
Sadly, it will always be an effective technique to take down your political opponents because of how our brain processes that information. It's also guaranteed to generate clicks for any journalist who takes the effort to find some dirt on a famous person.
A downside of selfie and photo obsession culture we're living in now.
For someone inadvertently in a photo, even if they were in a bad association or activity: while I think that trust should be based only on behavior over time, I know that forgiveness is required of all of us, and what we are is more important than what we used to be.
(To avoid overly long opinions, I wrote more about trust and forgiveness here, in hopefully a skimmable (a very simple site), for what it may be worth. It represents my collected notes and thinking from over a long time: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854602995.html )
