capturemag.com.au
[capture] sep_oct.19MAIN: An elderly
lady walks
through a
flooded part of
Bentiu IDP
camp, South
Sudan.
ABOVE LEFT:
Image of
7-year-old Amal
Hussain – a
victim of the
ongoing war in
Yemen.At a time when much of the globe is being increasingly affected by
dramatic and violent acts such as those witnessed in Christchurch,
New Zealand, in March of this year, an appropriately larger discourse
is being waged around the possible need for censorship en masse in an
attempt at mitigating harm. Following the tragedies that unfolded in
her country, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, is now
spearheading the Christchurch Call – a joint effort by nations and
corporations to examine the possibility of a “safer Internet”. Surely, no
such bigger example exists at this time in illustrating the precarious
nature of censorship. Especially for photographers.
While we often associate the term ‘censorship’ with barred out
breasts and blurred nether regions, the practice is much more pervasive
and often exists in much more tacit or invisible forms. Can we, for
example, consider the algorithms that curate our morning news feed a
form of censorship? What’s really at stake when considering such drastic
forms of censorship as the Christchurch Call? And what forms of
censorship slip under the radar as seemingly inherent in the practice of
photojournalism anyway? Most ways you look at it, censorship is usually
perceived as a dirty word by all photographers, no matter their discipline.
But the issue may not be so black and white.
The Fourth Estate
Late last year, The New York Times published an article featuring an
image of an emaciated Yemeni girl photographed by staffer Tyler
Hicks. Within minutes of the article going live, the confronting
nature of the image had divided the Times’ readership between those
averting their gaze, closing their web browser in shock, and those
convinced of the image’s power and relevance. However, what proved
to be most interesting was not the initial reaction by those readers,
but the reaction by social media giant, Facebook. As tens of
thousands of Americans and others around the globe took to the
platform to share the article and amend the piece with their own
two-cents on the issue, a blanket ban on sharing the image was put
in place and Facebook’s censorship of the photograph was almost
universal. While Facebook leans on a trinity of algorithms,
employees, and flags from users of the platform to identify
potentially harmful content, it is still unclear which of those was the
initial cause for the ban of Hicks’ photograph. Either way, what
unfolded was a quick and dirty, but equally rare, examination of the
world’s most ubiquitous news dissemination platform turning its
back on responsible and legitimate journalism.