Facebook Lets Beheading Clips Return To Its Site 277
another random user sends this quote from the BBC:
"Facebook is allowing videos showing people being decapitated to be posted and shared on its site once again. The social network had placed a temporary ban on the material in May following complaints that the clips could cause long-term psychological damage. The U.S. firm now believes its users should be free to watch and condemn, but not celebrate, such videos. One suicide prevention charity criticized the move. 'It only takes seconds of exposure to such graphic material to leave a permanent trace — particularly in a young person's mind,' said Dr. Arthur Cassidy, a former psychologist who runs a branch of the Yellow Ribbon Program in Northern Ireland. 'The more graphic and colorful the material is, the more psychologically destructive it becomes.' Decapitation videos are available elsewhere on the net — including on Google's YouTube — but critics have raised concern that Facebook's news feeds and other sharing functions mean it is particularly adept at spreading such material."
All for Cash (Score:4, Interesting)
From the company that removes photos of breastfeeding mothers...
To be 'fair' I've noticed that, since they went public, they've been a lot more permissive with the soft porn pages. You probably still can't show nipples, but labia outlines through a bikini are apparently fine. It's all a short-term grab for eyeballs and advertising dollars.
As far as I know Facebook doesn't have an 18+ category like YouTube so this move does a bit blunt.
Re:No boobies though. (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't wait for easy, lifelike CGI so we can post Wholesome Biblical Anecdotes to Facebook.
Let's see how parents try to censor these:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/atrocity.html [infidels.org]
Re:Facebook should stop banning anything. (Score:4, Interesting)
Facebook should get out of the censorship/banning business. You should only be able to report things that are against the law, e.g., child pornography.
Devil's advocate:
I'd rather not have Facebook telling people "We only remove illegal content; if you don't wanna see beheading videos, take it up with your Congressman.", because it's all too believable that some congressclown would take up the challenge, and push through legislation making such content illegal.
The rest of the internet is clearly better off if prominent sites such as Facebook engage in censorship, because this reduces the number of idiots getting riled about it and therefore the odds that the government applies censorship to the whole internet. Now whether this benefit to the rest of the internet is worth the harm of having Facebook censored is ... debatable, at best, but there is a not-absurd argument there.
Apocalypse Now: (Score:5, Interesting)
Colonel Kurtz: "We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene."
Human psychology is all kinds of weird.
Re:Facebook should stop banning anything. (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Facebook has to obey local laws in jurisdictions where it operates, thus, no kiddy porn or [em]animal[/em] cruelty in the USA.
2. Facebook is an advertising company. If their sponsors don't like it, it's verboten.
3. Facebook sponsors apparently like snuff films, but not sex.
Re:No boobies though. (Score:4, Interesting)
So far, this post is the only source for this quote. here [snopes.com] is a great place to start for when you want to use it again, correctly.
Your version loses the essential Jack, but of course the original is not available.
"If you suck on a tit, the movie gets an X rating," he once told an interviewer.
"If you hack the tit off with an axe it will be PG."
I prefer :
"Shoot, shoot, bang, bang, kill, kill, is fine. But show seven sets of genitals, everyone go crazy!" -Francesca Fiore
Re: No boobies though. (Score:5, Interesting)
And the bible doesn't contain similar statements?
When the IRA commits some acts of terror, I don't see people blame the Catholic Church as a whole.
So yeah, Islam is treated differently. And that's wrong.
Disclaimer: I'm Catholic.
I agree that Islam shouldn't automatically be blamed whenever a Muslim commits a crime. However, when an Islamist group cites Islamic texts as justification then I don't see how one could not make the connection. It's not wrong to draw valid connections between world-views and actions.
It's worth considering differences in how scripture is read. Most Christian sects have spent thousands of years arguing over canon and apocrypha. Today there are major sects using different canons - this is not a fringe exercise. Even within a given canon it's rare to have the literalism and inerrancy common to Islam. Based on discussions with Muslims, the general idea is that there is one Koran, and it is free from error and practically untouched by human hand. This leads to a pretty hardline and self-claimed definitive interpretation, which I reflects in the practices of the religion. There are some exceptions, such as the Sufis, who are are more likely to read allegories where others would see literality.