You Can't Say That On the Internet

hessian writes in with a story about the arbitrary and often outdated online decency standards being imposed by companies."A bastion of openness and counterculture, Silicon Valley imagines itself as the un-Chick-fil-A. But its hyper-tolerant facade often masks deeply conservative, outdated norms that digital culture discreetly imposes on billions of technology users worldwide. What is the vehicle for this new prudishness? Dour, one-dimensional algorithms, the mathematical constructs that automatically determine the limits of what is culturally acceptable. Consider just a few recent kerfuffles. In early September, The New Yorker found its Facebook page blocked for violating the site’s nudity and sex standards. Its offense: a cartoon of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Eve’s bared nipples failed Facebook’s decency test."

Comments

Re:filters

[Quakeulf]

Yes, they might just have really bad taste in nipples too!

Eve's bared nipples

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's all I wanted to see: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/cartoonists/stevens-cartoon%201.jpg

Re:Interesting

[Aqualung812]

That's because digital wang comes along free with most searches. It is like the parsley of Internet search results.

Who orders parsley?

Re:Sounds like a campus speech code

[trum4n]

Screw you, and the donkey your Savior rode in on!

The "un-Chick-fil-A"

[Revotron]

Sorry, I just can't approve of a company that doesn't support delicious chicken sandwiches.

But no, really - I see what's going on here. "We're tolerant of everything - unless it's something we don't find culturally acceptable." Yep, that passes liberal scrutiny.

Re:Interesting

[Chrisq]

That's because digital wang comes along free with most searches. It is like the parsley of Internet search results.

Who orders parsley?

For more conjectures on the Parsley/Wang metaphor please ask Parsley Wang.

don't really or she'll be justifiably pissed at Slashdot

"Water" and "I don't know"

[cerebralpayne]

Those are the things you can't say. Not without getting soaked, anyway.

Re:Sounds like a campus speech code

[C0R1D4N]

Hot

Thank you

Re:Sounds like a campus speech code

[mwvdlee]

Just wait a few hours, then read the comments to see just how easy it is to offend a christian.

Re:Sounds like a campus speech code

[mypalmike]

git commit -am 'New feature: love thy neighbor. This should permanently fix WorldView.pl bug where eye_for_an_eye function was causing deadlock.'