| 2) Essentially means that distribution of 'objectionable material' should be proportionate to the public's interest in such material. Eg. spreading state secrets would be illegal, but if such secrets would show things like war crimes, publication may be okay (whistleblowing) given the public's interest in knowing those crimes. Imagery of gore / killings etc follows those same lines. Traditional media tend to be conservative there, and self-censor on the side of caution. Social media... not so much. Likes! On a side note, I suspect many a politician would like to blur the line between graphic imagery & misinformation. That's intellectually dishonest imho: Imagery can be extremely graphic, yet simply show what happened. And sometimes, it may be appropriate for the public to view such content. I rarely have any objection there as long as viewers are warned what they're about to see. Whether you'd want to distribute such material, is a matter of (bad) taste. And otoh, one could have harmless-looking content that is 100% bs / misinformation. Possibly dangerous too. Removal of such material brings a host of issues concerning grey areas, who's to decide what's true, whether material is fake or not (and how to determine), what sources are 'trustworthy', etc etc. Flagging (but leaving available) seems a better approach there. Leaving the remove option for things like copyright violations, calls to violence, etc. 2 Orthogonal subjects. Treat separately. |