The story was about a disturbing image someone had posted on the internet, which had made it's way to google images as the number 1 photo. The picture is a really horrible and racist photo that has super-imposed a monkey and Michelle Obama's face. The issue of free speech came up with what people are allowed to post on the internet. One woman said that anyone should be allowed to post wahtever they want but if the person it is about does not like it they should be able to do something about this. Many people argued that this is infact Google's fault for letting this image be posted. But how can google monitor all of this?
With such a horrific picture free speech is once again brought up into our country, with a new media and all. It goes to show that even as times change, the rights we have will still come into play.
What do you think about the photo? Should it be allowed to stay there because of the public's right to free speech or should google or someone else have taken it down because it is so offensive? How can issues like this go about being solved?
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ReplyDeleteI think that the least complicated way for this picture to be taken down would be for google users to refuse to use the search engine until they removed the picture. This would make a difficult situation much easier for both google and the government. The protest would not be an assault on google, but rather a means of providing them with an excuse to take down the picture without causing free speech violations.
ReplyDeleteI just hope that whoever created this picture has come to understand that it is unacceptable. Having this much press on the topic almost seems like a reward to the creator. If we could ignore things like this, I believe that they would happen less often.
I am completely for free-speech (and Google), but I find this disturbing. How does one solve this problem? It puts everyone in a very awkward situation, especially the person who created it. I think the first thing that needs to be mentioned is why this woman would create this. Was she being racist, or merely doing this because she could? She has every right to put this picture up, but why would she intentionally make it the number 1 image on google images? I agree with Lizzy when she says that "Having this much press on the topic almost seems like a reward to the creator," but I think the creator first needs to know that this is absolutely not okay.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be difficult to have everyone boycott the search engine seeing as so many people use it or do not even know/care about this event. But it does make sense for trying to not violate free speech, bringing up the very difficulty in this matter. Pretty much everyone believes in their own right to free speech and it's hard to draw the line of where this should be tolerated. How much freedom is too much freedom?
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you, Lizzy and Anna that "Having this much press on the topic almost seems like a reward to the creator". It's very true and unfortunately it's how our world deals with these types of problems now-a-days. Problem? Swing to the media!