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Comment by aikah | Hacker News Reader

> The photo is held to be historical documentary of war, like tank man & saigon execution. Those kinds of photos are valued & defended, and it's probably totally unthinkable to a great many people that they should be censored.

No, it's more like the person who has been censored has an ego so big he thinks it shouldn't happen to him. This outrage was ridiculous.

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It's the specific context around this photo. Vietnam was defined by media presence which was what drove public outrage against the war.

Essentially the thesis is this: if Facebook were the dominant media platform during Vietnam, we never would've seen these images; we probably would have continued committing atrocities against civilians and our own soldiers.

Seeing as we are now involved in several wars around the world, if our media cannot publicize the realities of war because a child's clothes got blown off with her legs, then someone (i.e. Facebook) has a stranglehold on public opinion.

Sure but Facebook isn't preventing the media from showing this, sure if Facebook was our only forum for journalism censorship of things like this would be atrocious. But I don't think facebooks argument is this shouldn't exist but that Facebook isn't a news station and isn't the right forum to share those kind of things. One easy reason is news stations warn about graphic content and are usually watched by adults whereas any 10 year old with an internet access can find it on this guy's Facebook page. I think this article, and the outrage in general, treats Facebook as too powerful of a social institution. It undeniably is but I feel it's influence is overstated, and that Facebook trying to maintain itself as a forum for socializing is fine, it owns the website it can decide what to put on it. If the thing you need to say is so important there are many other forums to express that idea, even within the internet. That said I think if this truly is Facebook is trying to make a policy that truly promotes what their trying to do it should be stricter. Videos of beheadings belong on deeper webs imho.

Your not allowed to have Facebook if your under 18 iirc, even if that's not enforced heavily.

I believe it's 14 now iirc(i don't use so I might not) . Started out as needed a .edu email but Im pretty sure it's advertised to high school kids now too

I find simply having a big ego doesn't drive other people to be outraged on your behalf.

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