So Which is More Offensive A Painting From The Art Institute of Chicago or Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz Telling Mike Arrington to Fuck Off At a Public Tech Conference in New York City
See that photo above?
It’s by a famous artist Jules-Joseph Lefebvre and hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. It was painted in 1874. I took it last year when I visited the museum. It’s also a photo of mine that is presently being censored by Flickr. Apparently showing full frontal cock on Michelangelo’s David on Flickr’s ok, but showing the backside of a woman from a 1874 painting is not. After they censored it I sent them an email saying, “c’mon guys, really?” trying to have the censorship decision appealed. But after getting my email they told me that it needed to remain censored.
So let me ask you this. Which is more offensive, a photograph from a painting in a public all ages gallery in one of the finest cultural institutions in the world, or Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz very publicly telling Mike Arrington to “Fuck Off” at a crowded technology conference?
Another friend of mine had over 25,000 photographs of mannequins online. Flickr didn’t like that some of his mannequins apparently showed a little nipple so they just censored all 25,000 photos in his stream. Wouldn’t want anyone being offended now by seeing a little nipple on a mannequin that sits on a public street seen by thousands of people a day.
So I guess it’s ok for a CEO to say “Fuck Off,” a phrase that surely is offensive to some. But it’s not ok for users of her site to do things like say publish photographs of paintings or plastic mannequins. Personally I don’t give a fcuk if Carol says fkuc as much as she f*cking wants. But I think it’s a bit hypocritical for her to allow the censors at her Flickr site to censor things that are far less offensive. And it might be kinda nice to have the fukcin picture above uncensored, thanks.
You can watch Carol tell Mike to “fuck off” below yourself if you’d like:
this is too much. don't they know the difference between art and pornography? I've seen some pretty offensive photos on Flickr that manage to even slip through the filters and show up as safe. very disappointing Carol. I may be just motivated enough to send her an email.
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Leanne, it is pretty crazy. It's too bad that Yahoo would find a beautiful painting of the human figure offensive enough to censor, but their foul mouthed CEO gets to swagger around saying whatever she feels like and dropping F bombs whenever she wants.
I had a friend who swore at a Yahoo employee once in a private email and they nuked his entire account without warning as well. Carol can use the word with impunity anywhere she wants in public but if you dare send an email to a Yahoo employee with that word in it. KABLOOM goes your Flickr account.
I wish the higher ups at flickr could see that these sorts of things are not right.
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Meh, I think it’s pretty shitty to clip off the question that clearly pissed her off. It takes the whole thing out of context.
Yah, the flicker folks have very shitty management and way over insane levels of rife sysadmin power mongering… but come on. Mike Arrinton for better or for worse has no shortage of skill at pissing people off. And the two really don’t have a parallel imo.
This makes me regret my recent flickr pro purchase.
I wish picasa was a little more robust.
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in talking with @Brian Rose and a few others from the google photo squad, they are hearing these flickr misgivings and are trying to work out apicasa that takes into better account other user suggestions. cant wait. i am only waiting on buying extra picasa storage until after their next release.
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Agreed with Griffon.
Interesting — surprising that they censored a shot of a woman – usually I thought they seemed more concerned about scantily clad men…
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Brilliant, a lot of people are tweeting about it..
http://www.ucubd.com/mashups/Yahoo!%27s_CEO_Carol_Bartz_tells_Michael_Arrington_t_2249.html