THIS is the kind of clout a British Prime Minister has: Facebook pulls ONE beheading vid Facebook has removed one video of a beheading that was posted on the free-content ad-network – and told its users to be more "responsible" about the material they dump on the site. The decision to yank the clip came after Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron attacked Facebook for allowing such material to be published and …
Their attitude here is pathetic We wont prevent people uploading snuff clips but don't dare upload a breastfeeding image as that could obviously corrupt minds and cannot be allowed.
Doesn't have to be nipples either sometimes too much cleavage in a pic and it gets flagged. To say nothing of false positives flagged by the nudie detector.
The same Facebook that lets scammer open up accounts posing as mojor brands giving things away.
(How many times have you see Apple . com giving away a stack of ipads to anyone who shares a picture?)
I think there's something seriously wrong with the "unknown number of moderators"
Not entirely - there was a good article on the people Farcebook uses as moderators. Basically, poor English speakers are what they like, so there's a lot of people in developing countries. They have fairly conservative or traditional views on nudity, sex and abortion, but aren't so bothered by violence.
http://gawker.com/5885714/inside-facebooks-outsourced-anti+porn-and-gore-brigade-where-camel-toes-are-more-offensive-than-crushed-heads
Not everything in the world is the fault of the US.
Of course they should pull the videos, children should not be able to see things like this as easily.
I just don't get Facebook, they changed their rules to allow beheading, but boobies are a big bad thing that will corrupt everyone, so no photos showing boobies, or even a fully nude person, you know because no one has EVER seen a naked body before, its not like EVERYONE has one....
I am not sure what other fathers think, but I would rather my son sees boobies than a beheading...
Insisting it's not the publisher shouldn't mean a thing, given that we've seen IsoHunt being done for not even hosting links, but links to links, of torrents. Or any of the others that have been done for similar. Granted it's a bit different. Of course LifeInvader would have more legitimate supporters.
I did like the bit in GTA V when the LifeInvader CEO gets his head blown off. We can still post that right? Maybe, but not the strip club bits I guess. Oh look, here it is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzbbFKbQOj8
Everyone knows people of all ages use Facebook - their age verification system simply protects them [Facebook] from law suits rather than the actual user.
Once you have seen material like this, you can't 'un-see' it. Imagine seeing this as a young person, it would haunt your life for many years to come. I'm not a prude and I've seen my fair share of shit in my life, but this, thankfully, is something I have not witnessed nor have a desire to.
In the absence of a guaranteed happy medium, I'd rather have Zuckerberg let me see too much than Cameron let me see too little.
There are billions of images and videos uploaded to facebook monthly. It can never be fully policed, nor will the standards they choose to police entirely align with your own. If you're worried about what your youngsters will see, don't let them on it until you think they're mature enough to take responsibility for their viewing choices.
Facebook is resorting to lower moral/ethical policies IMO. All for money.
There is too many sick and demented individuals/groups worldwide and the openness/anonymity of the internet allows them to display their perversion for public viewing. This kind of public display gets them off and feeds their perversion IMO. They get off on the number of views of their work. Just as a musician gets excited at the number of views....so does the demented pig.
I'm no psychiatrist (too many are nutjobs anyway IMO), but we need to maintain some sense of social common sense/morality/decency/standard, especially when Facebook is frequented by children/teens as well as deviant bottom dwellers IMO.
The world is a very violent place at times and putting up those acts for public viewing is in poor taste IMO.
An intelligent and decent society (one thats worth living in) must establish expectations and take action to ensure those standards/expectations are adhered too. Else the society breaks down into anarchy and decent people will leave.....allowing the animals to fight amongst themselves.
I choose not to join Facebook's marketing pool, but this lowering of moral expectations puts is just one more reason to Dislike Facebook IMO.
~Best wishes keeping what you earned.
This to an extent opens up the debate - yet again - about violent games. Kids in primary school get used to seeing bits of bodies and graphic images of very bloody decapitation in games - and before anyone shouts that they don't, yes, they actually do - I know many education professionals who can back that up! However, these videos are not games. They are real people being brutally murdered. I find it disgusting that they are available to kids and people of any age. A few years ago I inadvertently came across a similar video that was named as something else on YouTube. I'm 50, and that video still haunts me today. As someone pointed out, once you've seen it you can't un-see it and kids simply don't have the life experience to deal with it or to process what they are seeing.
It's a simple enough issue for Facebook: they want to sell adverts and the US public will scream if they show naked people. But violence is counted as grade-A entertainment in the US and perfectly acceptable in their highly militarised society, so these videos are a legitimate way for them to shift page views, and that means they make them money. They could not care less if the videos are uploaded for the purposes of condemnation or not, the issue is purely cash.
The simple solution for countries that don't share this sick and hypocritical view of what's acceptable is to block FB's servers at the ISPs. Which is fine by me.
...and not posturing...as we have stict laws under the obscene publications act, here is how it should of gone.
PM: You have nasty vids of beheadings, please remove them
Zuck: No, we belive in free speech, so fuck you bitch.
PM: We have laws against this, remove them or else.
Zuck, Fuck you we're in America. USA! USA! USA!
PM: Hello IWF? Can you add Facebook to the list and push out. Cheers.
Zuck: USA! USA! Ring...Ring....what do you mean we've just gone dark in the UK and we're loosing millions in page hits? What was that about advertisers going mad? Ring,..Ring...hold on another call! Yes Zuck here, what do you mean millions have been wiped off our share values?
PM <Looking more smug than normal> About those videos....
FB said the videos need to be available so people can condemn them.
By that logic, FB needs to allow Gary Glitter's browsing material of choice too. Stupid argument.
FB is just trying to be provocative, like a rebellious teenager as a result (ironic, given that FB's main user base is now middle-aged, teens having decided that sexting each other on Snapchat is the latest thing).
Of course, there was a U-turn of the U-turn as soon as the advertisers pointed out that they didn't want their product promoted next to some poor woman being killed in a medieval fashion.
"By that logic, FB needs to allow Gary Glitter's browsing material of choice too. Stupid argument."
Watching child porn is illegal. Watching a beheading is not. For good or ill, so long as that's the case, facebook can address this however they wish. They could even put a beheading on their homepage if they chose.
And suppose I got a kick out of watching beheadings. I'm not actually harming anyone, nor are they being harmed to order. Is there an argument for denying me my harmless (albeit distasteful) hobby - even if I pursued it, let's say, not on facebook but on a properly age-limited dedicated beheadings site?
Well, child sex abuse is illegal regardless of whether it's filmed; and child porn is illegal even on an age-limited site. But to further distinguish the case, let's say the dedicated site contains only LEGAL beheadings - such as those routinely carried out in Saudi Arabia. Now there's no law being broken all the way along the line. Is this still something that should be opposed? And if so, by law?
"Now there's no law being broken all the way along the line. Is this still something that should be opposed?"
You're the one saying that the issue is whether it's legal or not. The law is hardly the final arbiter on what is acceptable.
However, if you wanted to pull the law in on it, this is obviously porn and posted as porn and it is of a type that actually is covered by UK law.
I'm not saying that what matters is whether it's legal: I'm trying to FIND OUT if that's the concern*. If it IS legal, then in what sense is it not "acceptable"?
(*Of course, folks here, and Cameron too, might not all be concerned in exactly the same way.)
On your other point, slippery as it is to define "porn", sexuality is usually involved. A hypothetical Saudi execution video seems an unlikely candidate for that categorisation. If, as you say, beheading videos are illegal under UK law (which?), then presumably that law will be invoked and enforced against facebook?
"On your other point, slippery as it is to define "porn", sexuality is usually involved."
Intent is part of the equation - the videos are being uploaded, in part, for the titillation of a certain type of pervert.
"A hypothetical Saudi execution video seems an unlikely candidate for that categorisation."
Not so sure I would agree - bearing in mind I'm not saying that this is the reason the videos are made.
"If, as you say, beheading videos are illegal under UK law (which?), then presumably that law will be invoked and enforced against facebook?"
Obscene publications Act ("such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons"; established case law covers "dismemberment or graphic mutilation") - Human Rights Act ("for the protection of health or morals, protection of the reputation or rights of others") and probably the Video Recordings Acts as well as various minor labelling acts.
Certainly the law should be invoked, but then copyright law should have been invoked against Google (not to mention several tax laws), so who knows?
The British are really anal about everything.
I'm surprised they're not afraid to go outside their front door into the big, scary world!
Granted, beheading videos aren't exactly something I'd ever watch, but if you don't watch them, where's the problem?
I've seen the video of Budd Dwyer's suicide, and it did make me physically sick; but I was the one who *chose* to watch it ('cause, you know, history).
Nobody put a gun to my head and said "Hey, watch this!"
It's not fucking rocket surgery.
It's the fact that this sort of crap is freely available to any kid that can sign up, whether they've reached the grand old age of thirteen or not, while other human activities are proscribed. YMMV, especially if you're a Yank, but that isn't exactly a balanced view of the world. And the organisation hosting it just shrugs and says 'so what'. As long as the advertising revenue keeps rolling in, they don't give a toss.
By taking a laissez-faire attitude towards brutality and murder, while clamping down hard on nudity and sex, they're projecting a seriously fucked-up set of values - making sex and the human body seem repugnant while desensitising people to violence and cruelty. Puritans with guns are the scum of the earth, irrespective of whether they live in Somalia or Washington DC.
Isn't the UK more puritan than the U.S. or elsewhere? (Especially historically, what with the outdated Victorian morals it tries so desparately to cling on too.)
"No sex please, we're British."
That said, it does seem somewhat weird to have no nudity (artistically, etc.) or the equivilent (breastfeeding, etc.) while allowing gore.
Nope, but the UK is more puritan than France and many other parts of mainland Europe.
The USA was originally formed by groups of people who wanted to be more puritan than they could manage in the UK. That's why they went over there - to escape the depravity being permitted in the UK.
Recently our Governments have started to move towards the US views rather than the continental ones, which is likely to be the normal pendulum swings of opinion, but it's possible that it's caused by the exportation of US values via Hollywood et al.
Which is a shame, because BOOBIES!
" Isn't the UK more puritan than the U.S. or elsewhere? (Especially historically, what with the outdated Victorian morals it tries so desparately to cling on too.)
"No sex please, we're British.""
BINGO!
You got it!
We also all wear bowler hats, talk with a plum in our mouths, and have really bad teeth.
I'd write more, but I'm late for afternoon tea with the queen.
Toodle pip, old chap!
The British are really anal about everything.
I'm surprised they're not afraid to go outside their front door into the big, scary world!
You might like to contrast the reactions to 9/11 (New York) and 7/7 (London) and reconsider that stupid remark.
Still, I suppose admitting that` there is a world outside the US is a step up for most Americans!
What would happen is that Ms Jackson would have been subject to some ribald piss-taking from the tabloids, might even be invited to appear on Have I Got News For You and that would have been the end of it. The idea of slapping a punitive fine on the broadcaster wouldn't even arise.
And if it was discussed on TV, the presenters would be finding it funny, as compared to the reaction on American TV, where everyone looked as if they'd just necked a pint of vinegar when the subject was mentioned.
You see the problem with your Budd Dwyer comment is that he invited people to witness his suicide (hence why you've seen the video).
Do you honestly believe that the victims of these horrendous murders want their deaths splashed over the internet for public consumption (even for people to "condemn" it).
"Nobody put a gun to my head and said "Hey, watch this!"". Nope, but unfortunately somebody did put a gun / knife to the heads / throats of these victims and said, "I'm going to murder you now. And just to make it significantly worse (just when you thought it couldn't get any worse), we're going to video it so your friends, family and billions of complete strangers can view it".
We're talking about brutal murder here and very few people's arguments are about the postmortal rights of the victims.
Or how do you show the world what the world is truly like?
That is not to say that this should come without caveats; it should involve click-through warnings, child protection measures (as best they can be implemented), providing default opt-out to prevent unexpected viewing by those who choose not to have such things thrust in their faces unexpectedly, and I don't approve of glorifying or promoting such violence.
I agree with FB's argument regarding "context" but their hypocrisy on breast feeding and nudity is entirely hypocritical so I do not believe FB have any firm ethical foundation behind their policies. It is also not a simple 'show it or ban it' issue though FB seems to be incapable of comprehending anything in between.
Cameron's populist outrage is equally no better than demanding cinemas never show 18-rated films because cinemas also cater for children. It's about appropriateness and control of access which does not require an outright ban.
"Or how do you show the world what the world is truly like?"
This is a reasonable point, or would be in the absence of FB's blatant hypocrisy. The problem here is that the videos are not reportage uncovering some sordid hidden world, but are part of the criminals' own efforts to glorify themselves and send out warnings to those who oppose them. As such, broadcasting them is close to being an accessory. On top of that, there is the desensitizing/normalizing effect of having such material openly branded as being more acceptable than seeing a nipple. These are the "contexts" that are important beyond the simple surface meaning - when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares into you (although I'm not sure how that works out in Soviet Russia).
Just as it is not needed to go to the north pole to know that it's cold, neither do we need "beheading of the day" updated every day to let us know that there are parts of the world which are far from civilized.
Sorry did you just say Facebook and Ethical in the same sentence?? They don't care about anything apart from public perception and how that correllates with making money. That's it. Believing anything else is pure fantasy. They do what they think makes them more popular and or rich. End of.
As the article alludes, this is all part of Facebook divesting itself of as much responsibility for basically anything as it possibly can. Remember when you used to actually be able to report posts and people without jumping through half a dozen patronising hoops on a road to nowhere? Now you're bloody lucky if one of the boilerplate reasons is remotely relevant. I usually choose pornography if nothing else suitable is available (please don't take this out of context), since a square inch of BOOBS (even with baby attached) obviously riles them soooo much. Piss easy to include an "Other" and text box option - except it means someone actually has to the read it and do something about it.
not much to add except there is a great deal of sadness here.
It would be nice if we could trust the govt but we can't as they would use the excuse to hide their own illegal action.
It would be nice if we could trust the corporation but we can't as they are only in it for the money.
That just leaves each other, and if we only treated each other as we wanted to be treated how much nicer would the world be?
I don't know about the children, but as an adult I don't want to see this. But, I can make this choice...
There was a discussion about how to moderate negative comments on science sites, and the idea of "negative comments" burying trolls.
Ultmately, the internet has shown us all there is just so much more inequality than it is possible to see from a static point.
"Facebook has removed one video of a beheading that was posted on the free-content ad-network – and told its users to be more "responsible" about the material they dump on the site."
Facebook has removed one video of a beheading that was posted on the CONTENT-FREE ad-network – and told its users to be more "responsible" about the material they dump on the site.
There, I fixed it for ya.
As the audience of this comment most likely understand that characteristic differences in true and false, how is it of any benefit to allow people to condemn something after they have sampled it? Are us programmers supposed to randomly go through the possible false outcomes just to condemn them? I'll give it a go: 5 + 4 = 12 "Man that is totally wrong". 9 - 1 = 2.3 "That is absolutely wrong." Outstanding logic. Whoever puts out that sort of reason is really unreasonable.
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