Destroying culture one terms of service at a time
So I was browsing the web and decided to google 'most important photos in history' just to see what would come up. A lot of the results were expected. Naked Vietnamese kid running from napalm attack, Kent State, burning monk, vietnamese general blowing someones brains out on the street. Astounding how many pictures that 'changed the world' are A) US centric and B) from the 60's. Perhaps someone should try asking a person who wasn't a worthless spawn of the hippie movement for a definition of 'changed the world' sometime.
Anyway, among chinese tank guy, hiroshima, afghanistan girl, etc I repeatedly ran into a problem of photos that weren't there. Instead was an image saying 'This image violated our terms of use - photobucket'. For example, want to see 10,000 white people lynch two black men? Tough, you can't. Images of Buchenwald? Not on photobucket. 9/11 falling man? Against terms of service.
On one hand, it's not a big deal because I easily found each of those images on other sites (which didn't rely on photobucket hosting). On the other hand, this is important stuff. Sure, lynching, buchenwald, and falling man aren't nice images. That's the entire point of them. That's why they're important. And it's rather disturbing that there are companies out there which will allow the internet to spew more lolcat pictures than any sane person should ever want to see, but will censor and hide our history because it's not pretty sometimes. Now I've heard all the lectures about corporate dominance and all the rest, but this is one of the few times I've run into such a stark and obvious real life example of it.
Anyway, many people have mused on this before me, and frequently much more insightful and literate than I have. So I'll shut up now. Still, fucking internet.
Anyway, among chinese tank guy, hiroshima, afghanistan girl, etc I repeatedly ran into a problem of photos that weren't there. Instead was an image saying 'This image violated our terms of use - photobucket'. For example, want to see 10,000 white people lynch two black men? Tough, you can't. Images of Buchenwald? Not on photobucket. 9/11 falling man? Against terms of service.
On one hand, it's not a big deal because I easily found each of those images on other sites (which didn't rely on photobucket hosting). On the other hand, this is important stuff. Sure, lynching, buchenwald, and falling man aren't nice images. That's the entire point of them. That's why they're important. And it's rather disturbing that there are companies out there which will allow the internet to spew more lolcat pictures than any sane person should ever want to see, but will censor and hide our history because it's not pretty sometimes. Now I've heard all the lectures about corporate dominance and all the rest, but this is one of the few times I've run into such a stark and obvious real life example of it.
Anyway, many people have mused on this before me, and frequently much more insightful and literate than I have. So I'll shut up now. Still, fucking internet.