I'm not sure if this really fits in the nextian news thread and so i've started a new threead, this website really is a must see [story.news.yahoo.com] it is the top X number of e-mailed pictures each day. So the MOST e-mailed picture gets number one and so on. It is disturbing at times, interesting, funny, bizarre - all very nextian. I think you guys will like it.



Post Edited (07-14-03 11:08)

TMH

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One golfer a year is hit by lightning. This may be the only evidence we have of god’s existence.

I thought I’d have a look at this site while I was catching up and having a coffee but I wish I hadn’t as I’m now feeling so angry. Not, I hasten to add, with TMH as obviously he has no say over what the site shows and most of this type of stuff has been seen many times before but I cannot fathom the mind of someone who includes the pictures of the new baby with physical abnormalities on such a web site. So many lines of thought are running through my head, I have a personal case history which obviously makes me feel very emotional about this but trying to leave that to one side, this site may claim to be thought provoking but I feel this is just not appropriate, being amused by a dog on a motor bike or puzzled by someone who has had their tongue split for art is one thing but using this baby like this looks no better to me than entering him/her in some old style freak show, which is the fate of the Indian co-joined twins who are also pictured. And I have to say, and please don’t take this as meant to be offensive, would this picture be used if the child was a white British or American baby and not a child born to a ‘rural Zambian woman. I cannot believe it would. I feel I could rant at some length about this but this is probably the core of it so, ..erm what do others think?

well, that Yahoo site is merely a mirror, if you will, of what is being downloaded most frequently. And I think it may actually be important that scenes like the one Holly mentioned are on there, as it reflects what is actually being viewed by the common population who infest the internet. Something about the American way of free speech. (it is a US site)

Not trying to stir up anything, but just because something may be offensive, it doesn't mean that it isn't a valid form of communication. Take that photo of the baby...it may turn the stomach of some viewers or dredge up painful memories for others. But what about the expectant mother who sees something like that who decides to take a more active role in her pre-natal care and thereby hopefully prevents her baby from having similar problems? Perhaps it provokes charitable organizations to take part in improving the healthcare in rural Zambia.

Of course there will be people who pass it around for the shock value or to try to stir up controversy. But things are only as controversial or shocking as you allow them to be. It's all in the beholder's perspective.

In America, we have the First Ammendment right of freedom of speech and thought. And if we find something objectionable we have the right to debate about it and it should be debated. But we do not have the right to ban or block it. And I am glad of it. I prefer not to see that kind of thing, but if I do it reminds me of just how good I have it.

*note: I am NOT trying to stir up a big war or be salacious, just trying to explain my point of view.

There's no way I'd be looking at those sort of pictures for amusement value, however I'm a proto-medi-geek, so do sometimes look disturbing images up when I'm trying to gain more knowledge in a certain area. (I blame my husband who will shortly be gaining a PhD in Genetics.)

Currently studying purely out of interest: DNA and the Human Genome project

I am all for free speech but I'm not for exploitation. I agree it would be nice if the photo launched everyone into promoting pre-conceptual care or fund raising for Zambian health care, but I can't see that happening. I feel that this photo is on this site for titillation. I don't find the picture stomach turning or shocking, after all this is a child, but what is shocking is that this is entertainment and it makes a rather unsavoury statement if this picture is being frequently downloaded. Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing for those who have it but it shouldn't give blanket authority for a no holds barred society. What about this child's rights. What about the feelings of his/her mother? What would the situation be if a hospital worker in the US took photos of babies born with physical deformities and posted them on a website?
I'm also not launching a war but still have lots of stuff going through my mind.

I do agree with your general sentiment on this one Holly, and you're right that it probably wouldn't be posted in the same place if it were a Western child. That said, with the recent newsworthiness of conjoined twins and the subsequent death of the Iranian women after their groundbreaking surgery, it makes that photo of the baby newsworthy. I think that curiosity factor has made that particular photo a popular download, not the exploitation or titillation. Just curiosity. Unfortunate, but it is human nature. But curiosity, even if it is slightly morbid, is what makes us able to learn and advance.

And as for other photos of Western babies, there are plenty of them out there, generally detailed on medical sites. Do a simple Google search of the phrase "conjoined twins" and you'd be amazed.

It is interesting to read your reactions to that site. Firstly reaction to specific images is interesting because they can be reacted to in two distinct ways. Either reacting to them as their very nature i.e. being somewhat upset by the abnormal child, or they can be reacted to, as i had hoped and as some of you had, by being interested, provoked to thought etc. The state of 3rd world medicine is something we should be thinking about, and it is issues like this that are brought to light by these extremem images. A Dog on a motorcycle i admit, i found amusing and the polar bear was wonderful, being quite a polar bear fan (if fan is appropriate). For me, as someone interested in the media, psychology and a student of philosophy, i found it interesting by the natu7re of the site. The most e-mailed and most viewed images on the internet. why are THESE images the most viewed and e-mailed it says something about subjects of interest to the general internet population as well as the uses and gratifications of the internet (see Bloomler and Katz's writings on these ideas). Hence, i posted them. This forum is a wonderful forum of debate, and free thinking and i felt that the nature of these images and the site as a whole was worth while placing before you. I didn't say i felt the images were there for amusement, or for any other pupose - neither does the site itself. i just brought it to you to open up debate and free speech. I hope that this is the way in which it will be viewed by others and i hope it can stimulate some interesting posts.



TMH

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One golfer a year is hit by lightning. This may be the only evidence we have of god’s existence.

For those of you wondering what photo we're talking about, it has moved out of the most downloaded list (I *just* went and looked for it to make sure it was the same one I thought it was.)

And I love this Fforum because the people here can use the art of debate and not get so emotionally caught up in "being right" and consequently starting a flame war. It's so interesting to see what other people think. And people here are intelligent and articulate enough to carry it off gracefully.

I agree with you competely - it's so nice to find a place where reasoned argument exists and people are clear-minded.

Re the pictures though - I do wonder whether sometimes photos like that don't make people think and do something to change things, when they wouldn't have done otherwise. Whether that's worth it upsetting others, I'm not sure...



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

There's a very similar debate going on in the British media over pictures that have touched nerves.

The Sun was condemming the BBC for showing a brief glimpse (with faces obscured) of the Al-Jezeera footage of dead British servicemen, but then a couple of weeks later had a front-page photograph of Marc-Vivien Foe as he died. Last week the Independent showed a photo of one of the victims of the bomb-blast in Russia.

It's a fine line as to what is acceptable, and a lot of it (in my opinion) comes down to the reason you're showing it, rather than what you actually show. A photo of a dead soldier is probably more acceptable in an article that is pure, neutral reportage than if shown with 'look at what we did to this b***** from the enemy' strapped underneath.

Similarly, pictures of medical diseases are acceptable in terms of 'this is what we have to deal with' but not so if published as a freakshow.

Unfortunately splitting the two legally is nigh on impossible, which is why public outcries over the Sun's front-page are so useful in our society for regulating the press. Overwise we have to put up with the definition of pornography - 'I know it when I see it'.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

The power of the image is certain. it can do so much and it really is the way in which these things are used that matters. Whilst the site i posted tells us these dozen or so images are the most posted/e-mailed what we have to wonder is who was e-mailing and for what reason. If we look at humanity in the way in which we hope it is then i hope a lot of those were for intellectual reasons and not for freak show or shock. They are incredibly important to the documenting of man and our history. and it is only in an age such as ours where such immense documentation can take place.



TMH

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One golfer a year is hit by lightning. This may be the only evidence we have of god’s existence.

Yes the photographic image is powerful and so surely it is important to take care what message, even unconciously, we send out. So posting this picture to a site that contains the weird and wacky says what? I also just want to make it clear that I am certainly not of the belief that children who are born with a struggle ahead of them should be hidden away so not to disturb society, just as I am aware that it is human nature to have your eyes drawn to the less ordinary no matter how hard you don't want to stare. I just wish it was possible to say that everyone who views this photo will do so with humanity and compassion. The Iranian twins were women who wonderfully managed to project their own self identities way beyond what the eye first noticed it would have taken a very base personality to have viewed them in anyway as freaks. The co-joined baby twins from? (was it the island next to Malta?) were never shown in photographic form in any of the papers that I read, not until only the one baby survived although there have been I know other photos of twins, joined at the abdomen etc. but in a newspaper with sensitive and accurate reporting is to put the picture in more appropriate context. The weather is cooling down now and so am I, thanks for all the other points of view.

I hope that some of the images on the site will make us all think, will provoke us to action, relflection and debate. Be they disturbing, rare or simply amusing (i quote the giant table and chairs in a pasture of horses - very gulliver's travels). But we should also ask ourselves what does it say of humanity and the internet if image x or y is the most viewed image? that for me is the real issue of interest.



TMH

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One golfer a year is hit by lightning. This may be the only evidence we have of god’s existence.

Frankly though, it's a freakshow, isn't it?

going back to an earlier point, one of the sadnesses of the electronic age is that most of the information spread around the globe won't be preserved for a future age. A website like this will eventually disappear unless somebody prints it out - and that's unlikely. Loads of things like this that could provide a record of the world we live in are never going to survive.

Strange to think that, even as you realise that people are unlilely to rejoice if they found these words in 500 years' time...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

I'm trying to think of ways to justify it, other than just "free speech".

They're people like anyone else - no reason why their photo *shouldn't* be online. Seeing different things in pictures makes us more likely to react in a favourable way if we encounter them in real life. I don't know - I like looking at "weird" pictures. I read Bizarre magazine every month, and it's full of that sort of thing. (Consider that a warning, before clicking on the link.)

PSD - I was just reading about the paucity of electronic archiving earlier. I do think it should be done, but then again, we can't store everything - and who would want to store some of the alarming personal homepages and things - so then you have the deciding what to store problem... tricky!



Post Edited (07-15-03 01:00)

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Do something pretty while you can...

I know, but the things that show us most about the past are rarely those that people chose to store - just those that survived by accident.

There are justifications that don't rely on free speech - but they all depend on why those photos are put on the web. Largely it's for entertainment, but if someone is providing photos of themselves for cash (or some other kind of benefit), good luck to them.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

talking of keeping records from the net, i am certain i read somewhere, i think it was wired magazine, that there are attempts to take regular 'snapshots' of the net and its content but i really can't remember the process or methods behind it. Historyu is an elusive thing, just ask the chronoguard, but what we should do, even if we can't ensure certain things survive in themselves, is have knowledge of them ourselves so that they might in turn shape us and the future. turning a blind eye to many things is too often the tact taken by people today. embracing, discussing, thinking, thats what we should be doing - and this forum is a brilliant example of that.



TMH

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One golfer a year is hit by lightning. This may be the only evidence we have of god’s existence.

I think this Fforum ought to be preserved for history. Just think of all the fun future scholars would have trying to work out all the obscure references!



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Thinking? Oh. Nobody told me I had to think ....



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty