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How childish. I have to laugh when I see video or pictures from the US where the "finger" is censored. For anyone who takes offence from that: grow up. It's a
by redcap 15y ago
How childish.
I have to laugh when I see video or pictures from the US where the "finger" is censored.
For anyone who takes offence from that: grow up. It's a finger, it's not hurting anyone. If you're offended by that it's because you choose to be offended by it. Grow up and get past that.
- sliverstorm 15y agoWe could apply the same logic to racial slurs and abrasive language.
- 4ad 15y agoWe should.
- drewblaisdell 15y agoWould you be in favor of outlawing racial slurs and "abrasive language"?
- spindritf 15y agoNo, would I however remove it from my website? Quite possibly yes. Google cannot and is not outlawing anything. They're just building a certain kind of website.
- drewblaisdell 15y agoGoogle+ just passed 62 million users. It is roughly the size of the United Kingdom. Because of its size, the idea of any sort of limitations on free speech just seems wrong to me. MG Siegler's middle finger isn't hurting anyone, and censoring it seems like starting on the slippery slope of censorship half way down the slope.
- keithpeter 15y agoWhich means that Google will employ people from a range of cultural groups and check all profile photos for all possible hand gestures gestures? Anyone from Southern Europe here? North Africa?
- andrewcooke 15y agoyou could? the finger waving people enslaved and oppressed those without fingers and continue to live in a society in which the presence of fingers is a major determining factor in almost everything? news to me.
- redcap 15y agoI wont comment about racial slurs, but I agree wholeheartedly with regard to abrasive language when it's not directed at anyone. If your computer crashes and you mutter "for fucks sake" to yourself, you're not hurting anyone. Anyone who gets upset over your language in this situation is just being 19th century. The degree to which saying something such as "fuck you" is abrasive depends entirely on the situation - sometimes they probably deserve it, sometimes you would be being a dick.
- ghshephard 15y agoWhat if it was someone doing something more offensive, like placing their hand on their chin? Where do we draw the line?
- btb 15y agoChildish indeed, for a grown man to A)have a flipping bird picture as his profile picture and B)writing a whining blog post when it gets removed..
- nodemaker 15y agowhat about the other group of grown men who are offended by it?
- xyzzyz 15y agoWhether it's childish or not is completely irrelevant.
- mike-cardwell 15y agoYes. He is ignoring the real issue on purpose so he can pretend he's more mature. How childish.
- btb 15y agoPlease.. save the outrage for something that matters, like SOPA or protect IP. There is IMO no "issue" here. I dont see any problem with googles approach. I agree that you can probably find alot more offensive profile pictures and its borderline, but presumably they were reacting to a complaint and made a judgement call.
- mike-cardwell 15y agoThe issue that you're pretending not to recognise is quite clear. Google+ doesn't just censor things that they're forced to. They even censor pictures of mild, unthreatening, commonly used, gestures. That is a problem worth talking about. They are free to do this, and rightly so. But people should be aware that this happens, and is a bad thing, so when a viable alternative is created, that doesn't suffer the same problem, they already know why they should move. There is no "outrage". Nobody is being unreasonable by discussing this issue. Discussing this issue takes nothing away from the SOPA issue.
- mrleinad 15y agoSteve Hughes said that better than anyone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycXuYzmzNg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycXuYzmzNg
- deathwarmedover 15y agoI also like Stephen Fry's take on offense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnSByCb8lqY#t=1m10s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnSByCb8lqY#t=1m10s
- rimantas 15y agoExactly. I have a feeling that this tendency to be offended by anything is bringing us closer to idiocracy at a faster rate than many other things.
- FuzzyDunlop 15y agoThe concept of and the reaction to 'offense' is ridiculous. When someone is offended, the immediate reaction is that everyone must be offended. Those who are not offended have absolutely no bearing on this. Thus, one person complains about, say, someone flipping Vs in a picture, and the picture is removed. How many other people saw it and weren't offended? We don't know. But they're probably a majority. Further to that, the singular offended person has an extraordinary power to censor that which offends no one else. And the press can take advantage of that to manufacture outrage to fit their agenda. As happened with 'Sachsgate'[1] in 2008. In all the treatment of the act of being offended, it comes across sometimes as a base human right. One that, as evidenced with the referenced link, is easy to abuse. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Brand_Show_prank_telephone_calls_row http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Brand_Show_prank_teleph...
- a_a_r_o_n 15y ago"I have to laugh when I see video or pictures from the US where the "finger" is censored." In the larger context of your comment, I have to cry when I see people moving their services outside the US, or moving to vendors outside the US, to ensure what used to be guaranteed by the US Bill of Rights.
- khuey 15y agoWhat does any of this have to do with the Bill of Rights? Google is not the federal government.
- tomp 15y agoI get the same feeling when I hear a beep in a song censoring a swearword - I mean, we all know that there was a swear word, some people are just too "pure" to actually hear it? Get over it!