No, we wouldn't. We might get a debate about whether programming such a feature is misogynist (which it pretty much is), but I can't exactly imagine the debate would be centered around an AI doing what it's programmed to do.
I'm not saying it isn't a valid debate, I'm saying in this instance the premise is already misogynistic before a single line of code is written, so the debate doesn't apply here.
I'd imagine the current one already is one. That's the whole point of this article, that it is being thrown off by this technique since there's no definition for the gender.
The double standard around nipples always baffled me, for this exact reason.
Where I live (New York), women have the right to be topless anywhere that men do. So that makes all beaches effectively "topless beaches" - the same goes for parks, or even just walking down the street.
That's a pretty recent thing. IIRC going topless is still technically illegal in NYC. A court case from the late 80s or early 90s carved out a narrow exception (nakedness is not automatically lewdness) without voiding the entire law.
A lot of this back n forth has to do with how patchworks of private or local arrangements get vaulted into the global arena by the internet. Instagram is forced to define and enforce (via programming!) a clear social norm for everyone everywhere, where previously there was not and could never be one without making someone upset.
Ditto the previous hyperventilation about what is and is not a "real" name.
> That's a pretty recent thing. IIRC going topless is still technically illegal in NYC. A court case from the late 80s or early 90s carved out a narrow exception (nakedness is not automatically lewdness) without voiding the entire law.
No, being topless in NYC is definitely legal (specifically: women can be topless anywhere men can be topless), and that's been the case for a couple of decades, if not longer. It's generally not practiced except at certain events like the Pride March. Public nudity, though, is not permitted.
For example, note that the issue in this case is not whether they have the right to be topless in Times Square, but whether they have the right to solicit money in Times Square while being topless: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/nyregion/topless-in-times...
The issue is that Times Square requires performers to be licensed, but performance art is also protected by the First Amendment, and there are laws around working while topless (e.g. strip clubs, which are very strictly regulated in New York - they can't serve alcohol, for example, though there's a loophole some use).
We're saying the same thing. 80s/90s == "couple of decades, if not longer". Granted, 20 years is "recent" to me but is most of a lifetime for others.
Here's the seminal case from '86 protesting the law against female toplessness, which in '92 secured the exception to (but not voiding of) the law in a ruling by the state court:
You can argue that it's impractical or misogynist, but does it really baffle you? The double standard exists because (in American society) female nipples are sexualized in a way that that male nipples are not.
That's circular. They're treated differently because they're treated differently. But why do we put so much effort into maintaining it when it seems pointless?
Since men and their bodies aren't treated as "objects to be consumed and nothing more", how does that explain why its illegal for men to be nude in public?
Or are we just saying that women's breast are disconnected objects from the woman, and its those that we treat as objects to be consume? And in contrast, mens breasts are not disconnected objects from the man and thus are not to be consumed.
It's not circular. Culture does not operate in a logical vacuum, you need to include the time component: culture evolves over time. When you consider this, you realize it's just a feedback loop, not a circular argument.
Is this a substantive comment? Or are you just agitating?
I don't think most of us care whether or not it is a "sexual organ;" that varies by person and their taste.
What matters is that it is easy, convenient, and accepted for women to breastfeed whenever and wherever they please. If you find the appearance of a breast in public arousing, that's fine too. Deal?
Of course it's important whether it's a sexual organ or not.
Instagram removes pictures with female nipples (and hence breasts) for the same reason they would remove a picture of a penis or a vagina: because it's a sexual organ.
Feminists from the "free the nipple" initiative want to put a stop to that, and want Instagram to consider a female breast not to be a sexual organ, so pictures with breasts in them are not removed.
My comment meant to say that this initiative is really stupid, because conventional wisdom says a female breast is a sexual organ, while a male breast is not.
Am I not allowed to criticise it?
Breasts are for feeding children and do not have inherent sexual function. Please keep your women-objectifying views out of this. This is not an argument to censor based on sexuality, but instead to highlight the misoginy laced in your original comment.
Testicles are for generating children. Should I be able to post a picture of my scrotum to Instagram?
Do most men get aroused at the sight of female breasts? Do most women get aroused when they have their breasts fondled/licked/etc? If the answer is yes, then female breasts are a sexual organ. This isn't even a matter of opinion.
> Should I be able to post a picture of my scrotum to Instagram?
I'm radical enough to say, "sure." Doesn't hurt me any.
Sadly, we live in a society where genitals (and acts of sex) are not typically tolerated in public. That sucks. And if you want to undo that, I'm with you. Sex in public!
But there's also a different standard here. Restraining your ability to display your testicles in public (for example, on Instagram) doesn't, to my knowledge, affect your capacity to get by in life.
You might not realize this (or maybe you do), but for poor or homeless women, the difference between being able to breastfeed in public (and in some cases, at work) is the difference between being able to breastfeed and not, which in turn is the difference between statistical likelihood for a number of favorable health outcomes and not.
There's no reason not to tolerate - in fact embrace - the display of breasts and breastfeeding in socially normal places. It is a huge help to many women.
This isn't about that. It's about how many women in public are put in danger when breastfeeding because people like you are unable to separate breasts from sexuality and people who believe that such a display should be censored or punished? You might not belong to that second group but the first group's opinion enables that line of thinking
The evolved role of female breasts in sexual attraction and arousal is as "inherent" and biologically-based as the evolved role of the male penis in sexual intercourse.
The idea that a body part having a sexual function is a good justification for banning it from being uncovered in public is dubious, and trying to spread a false narrative about breasts having no such function just so you can defend reasonable treatment of breasts without challenging this dubious social standard is fairly self-defeating.
conventional wisdom isn't the law of the land, the constitution is. It seems pretty hard to justify having different legal standards for nudity based on gender without running afoul of the 14th amendment.
I don't think its "stupid" for any group to fight for their constitutional rights.
The problem here is that "conventional wisdom" is fluid. The concept that the female breast is a sexual-oriented organ, where modesty dictates that it should be covered or else be declared "obscene"... well that is something that has widely varied between various cultures and various time periods.
Instagram applies what I would call a current United States angle in its obscenity guidelines. Yet even in the United States in the present time, the current "standard" moral code is difficult to apply in a way that can be codified by computer algorithms. One example: while exposing the female breast in the United States is "normally" seen as sexual, most people "normally" would not see it this way in the case of breastfeeding.
Even within the United States, you are going to find groups that have different opinions on whether these moral codes make sense (hence, the feminists counter-argument). And then there's the rest of the world. Instagram's policy really wouldn't align well with, say, a lot of continental Europe (even Britain, which tends to lean more modest than the continent), which tends to view the breast less sexually than the US. There are also cultures that are more strict than US norms, too. To give one example, Vimeo's blocked in Indonesia (allegedly) because of more permissive nudity policies.
Unfortunately, I personally don't feel there's a great solution to this that can be internationalized, unless we get to the point where algorithms can match individual moral codes and block the correct "inappropriate" photos for each users. As it stands, no matter what Instagram or others block or permit, they are bound to tick someone off...
Please don't make such unsubstantive inflammatory comments (aka trolling) here. We're all trying to have a civil and thoughtful discussion in which we can learn something, and this is a sure-fire way to prevent that.
When we're discussing controversial issues, the bar for civility and substantiveness goes up because the kindling is particularly dry and we don't want a flamewar. So we need commenters to bring their opinions clearly and carefully—we need more than "Yeah, good luck with that." If you believe something to be well-founded, please share its well-foundedness with us! That's what we're here for.
Both men and women can breast-feed. Normally, after childbirth, hormones start production of milk in women. However, unless men are given a shot to simulate this, that doesn't happen.... Unless a baby breastfeeds on a man's nipples. After about 2 weeks, the man's body will start to produce milk as well.
Aside size, there's functionally no difference between the two.
> The phenomenon of successful human male breastfeeding has been credibly observed in several cases.[6] However, the cases are not sufficiently documented to allow distinguishing of possible pathologic galactorrhea.
That article is press release churnalism. There is no evidence of any small nipple craze. Here is the source press release: http://pressreleases.responsesource.com/news/92308/from-bust... The plastic surgery industry tries to drum up business this way on a regular basis.
Women's breasts are considered to be nudity in our culture by majority of people.
Men's "breasts" are not considered to be nudity in our culture by majority of people.
There are biological and cultural reasons for those things.
If women would complain they are seeing nude males in Instagram then it's completely OK to ban male nipples too. But we haven't seen those complaints.
Not sure what's your point. Or why you used quotes around the word breasts.
Since you assert that complaining is a valid way to get companies to change their practices, then certainly you're in support of an account which is designed to complain about Instagram's practices, right?
However protesting against Instagram's policy is really dumb. This is simply just a 'gotcha' loophole. The struggle for equality is a lot bigger than this.
You can protest more than one thing at the same time. One person can work on protesting something less important, while 50 other people protest more important things. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
If one were to follow the logic you're suggesting, absolutely nothing can be protested at any given time, except for the single most important thing (and how is that going to be decided exactly). Otherwise, it would always come back to: hey wait, this isn't our best use of time, because there is something more important to focus on.
This isn't really a protest, you're missing the point.
If Instagram actually changed their policy to allow female nipples there would be thousands of novelty pop up accounts that just post women's breasts. Instagram already has a problem with borderline softcore porn. Why in the world would they walk down this slippery slope?
This 'protest' isn't really proving anything. It's just a funny mockery of the rules.
This is clever, but it's kind of a case study in pedantry - ignore the surrounding context in favor of hyperfocus on one element, the focus level being largely irrelevant to the surrounding context.
In my point, I'm saying the owners of the account. I'm personally appreciative of the point that our cultural standards are hypocritical along these lines and need to evolve. But I also recognize that from Instagram's perspective, it's not really the nipple all by itself that needs to be flagged. I think that's easy for others to recognize too, which is why I think this is pretty much pedantic and pointless.
From Instagram's perspective, the display of the female nipple is a rather accurate signal (aside from this account) that the female breast is also being displayed, most likely in a manner that the US culture would interpret as sexualized - and that, even if the poster posts it in some sort of empowerment kind of way, it can also simultaneously play into objectification and sexual violence, as a depersonalized thing for others to sexually enjoy, etc. I'm also aware that it's quite possible to do that with breasts without showing the nipple, and that those photos are allowed, and that's silly overall - but Instagram's silly distinction there reflects the same silly distinction that American society has overall.
Instagram's exceptions are consistent with those views, as well - breastfeeding pics are allowed, as it is clearly a depiction of breasts being functionally represented as something other than sexual. Same with most pictures of art, sculptures, etc.
A closeup picture of a genderless nipple is actually more valuable in helping culture desexualize the nipple than it is in pointing out any kind of hypocrisy on Instagram's part. Instagram probably just rolls their eyes at this since they don't see these photos as contributing to sexualized objectification or violence. So I wouldn't see it as pedantic if this weren't chiefly about attacking Instagram. If their chief goal were to contribute towards desexualizing US culture's interpretations of women, then there's probably all kinds of things they could do.
Isn't there in the US a formal obligation of gender equality? In other words is it legal to state that a man can do X but a woman cannot? Or state that, say, a site will only accept pictures of men and women are not allowed?
I was under the impression that at least the formal part of non-discrimination was strongly in place.
The 14th Amendment provides for equal protection of everyone. It was the basis of abolishing slavery and of the recent Supreme Court decision requiring gay marriage to be recognized. New York state is the only place in the US that I'm aware of that's applied this principle to nipples.
But then again, the law they would probably be violating is indecent exposure or other such laws - and since different bits are seen as indecent/lewd, you can apply the law fairly while still treating the sexes differently unless you adjust the wording of the law.
If the nipple is unrecognisable then why ban it? If you strive to ban it you should also strive to ban all close ups of unrecognisable patches of skin that come from butt or genitals while letting through similar patches that came from somewhere else.
81 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 125 ms ] threadhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/opinion/sunday/artificial...
https://www.propublica.org/article/breaking-the-black-box-ho...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/09/19/amazon-echo...
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-intuition-of-p...
Where I live (New York), women have the right to be topless anywhere that men do. So that makes all beaches effectively "topless beaches" - the same goes for parks, or even just walking down the street.
Edit: Autocorrect!
Whether autocorrect or a Freudian slip, I think we're on to something here.
A lot of this back n forth has to do with how patchworks of private or local arrangements get vaulted into the global arena by the internet. Instagram is forced to define and enforce (via programming!) a clear social norm for everyone everywhere, where previously there was not and could never be one without making someone upset.
Ditto the previous hyperventilation about what is and is not a "real" name.
No, being topless in NYC is definitely legal (specifically: women can be topless anywhere men can be topless), and that's been the case for a couple of decades, if not longer. It's generally not practiced except at certain events like the Pride March. Public nudity, though, is not permitted.
For example, note that the issue in this case is not whether they have the right to be topless in Times Square, but whether they have the right to solicit money in Times Square while being topless: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/nyregion/topless-in-times...
The issue is that Times Square requires performers to be licensed, but performance art is also protected by the First Amendment, and there are laws around working while topless (e.g. strip clubs, which are very strictly regulated in New York - they can't serve alcohol, for example, though there's a loophole some use).
Here's the seminal case from '86 protesting the law against female toplessness, which in '92 secured the exception to (but not voiding of) the law in a ruling by the state court:
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/16/nyregion/judge-dismisses-c...
Arguably, almost all cultures and religions have rules related to nudity, sex and in particular, females bodies and their sexual behavior.
Or are we just saying that women's breast are disconnected objects from the woman, and its those that we treat as objects to be consume? And in contrast, mens breasts are not disconnected objects from the man and thus are not to be consumed.
I don't think most of us care whether or not it is a "sexual organ;" that varies by person and their taste.
What matters is that it is easy, convenient, and accepted for women to breastfeed whenever and wherever they please. If you find the appearance of a breast in public arousing, that's fine too. Deal?
Instagram removes pictures with female nipples (and hence breasts) for the same reason they would remove a picture of a penis or a vagina: because it's a sexual organ.
Feminists from the "free the nipple" initiative want to put a stop to that, and want Instagram to consider a female breast not to be a sexual organ, so pictures with breasts in them are not removed.
My comment meant to say that this initiative is really stupid, because conventional wisdom says a female breast is a sexual organ, while a male breast is not. Am I not allowed to criticise it?
Do most men get aroused at the sight of female breasts? Do most women get aroused when they have their breasts fondled/licked/etc? If the answer is yes, then female breasts are a sexual organ. This isn't even a matter of opinion.
I'm radical enough to say, "sure." Doesn't hurt me any.
Sadly, we live in a society where genitals (and acts of sex) are not typically tolerated in public. That sucks. And if you want to undo that, I'm with you. Sex in public!
But there's also a different standard here. Restraining your ability to display your testicles in public (for example, on Instagram) doesn't, to my knowledge, affect your capacity to get by in life.
You might not realize this (or maybe you do), but for poor or homeless women, the difference between being able to breastfeed in public (and in some cases, at work) is the difference between being able to breastfeed and not, which in turn is the difference between statistical likelihood for a number of favorable health outcomes and not.
There's no reason not to tolerate - in fact embrace - the display of breasts and breastfeeding in socially normal places. It is a huge help to many women.
How has that affected the lives of those homeless women who, by definition, do not even own a mobile phone?
I don't even understand why has all of this turned into a breastfeeding discussion, when neither the article nor I mentioned that.
The idea that a body part having a sexual function is a good justification for banning it from being uncovered in public is dubious, and trying to spread a false narrative about breasts having no such function just so you can defend reasonable treatment of breasts without challenging this dubious social standard is fairly self-defeating.
I don't think its "stupid" for any group to fight for their constitutional rights.
Instagram applies what I would call a current United States angle in its obscenity guidelines. Yet even in the United States in the present time, the current "standard" moral code is difficult to apply in a way that can be codified by computer algorithms. One example: while exposing the female breast in the United States is "normally" seen as sexual, most people "normally" would not see it this way in the case of breastfeeding.
Even within the United States, you are going to find groups that have different opinions on whether these moral codes make sense (hence, the feminists counter-argument). And then there's the rest of the world. Instagram's policy really wouldn't align well with, say, a lot of continental Europe (even Britain, which tends to lean more modest than the continent), which tends to view the breast less sexually than the US. There are also cultures that are more strict than US norms, too. To give one example, Vimeo's blocked in Indonesia (allegedly) because of more permissive nudity policies.
Unfortunately, I personally don't feel there's a great solution to this that can be internationalized, unless we get to the point where algorithms can match individual moral codes and block the correct "inappropriate" photos for each users. As it stands, no matter what Instagram or others block or permit, they are bound to tick someone off...
Both men and women can breast-feed. Normally, after childbirth, hormones start production of milk in women. However, unless men are given a shot to simulate this, that doesn't happen.... Unless a baby breastfeeds on a man's nipples. After about 2 weeks, the man's body will start to produce milk as well.
Aside size, there's functionally no difference between the two.
> The phenomenon of successful human male breastfeeding has been credibly observed in several cases.[6] However, the cases are not sufficiently documented to allow distinguishing of possible pathologic galactorrhea.
Where can I read more about this claim?
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_lactation
If women would complain they are seeing nude males in Instagram then it's completely OK to ban male nipples too. But we haven't seen those complaints.
Since you assert that complaining is a valid way to get companies to change their practices, then certainly you're in support of an account which is designed to complain about Instagram's practices, right?
Maybe this discussion should have been about cool image recognition algorithms anyway but It didn't seem to be when I looked at the comments. :)
However protesting against Instagram's policy is really dumb. This is simply just a 'gotcha' loophole. The struggle for equality is a lot bigger than this.
You can protest more than one thing at the same time. One person can work on protesting something less important, while 50 other people protest more important things. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
If one were to follow the logic you're suggesting, absolutely nothing can be protested at any given time, except for the single most important thing (and how is that going to be decided exactly). Otherwise, it would always come back to: hey wait, this isn't our best use of time, because there is something more important to focus on.
If Instagram actually changed their policy to allow female nipples there would be thousands of novelty pop up accounts that just post women's breasts. Instagram already has a problem with borderline softcore porn. Why in the world would they walk down this slippery slope?
This 'protest' isn't really proving anything. It's just a funny mockery of the rules.
From Instagram's perspective, the display of the female nipple is a rather accurate signal (aside from this account) that the female breast is also being displayed, most likely in a manner that the US culture would interpret as sexualized - and that, even if the poster posts it in some sort of empowerment kind of way, it can also simultaneously play into objectification and sexual violence, as a depersonalized thing for others to sexually enjoy, etc. I'm also aware that it's quite possible to do that with breasts without showing the nipple, and that those photos are allowed, and that's silly overall - but Instagram's silly distinction there reflects the same silly distinction that American society has overall.
Instagram's exceptions are consistent with those views, as well - breastfeeding pics are allowed, as it is clearly a depiction of breasts being functionally represented as something other than sexual. Same with most pictures of art, sculptures, etc.
A closeup picture of a genderless nipple is actually more valuable in helping culture desexualize the nipple than it is in pointing out any kind of hypocrisy on Instagram's part. Instagram probably just rolls their eyes at this since they don't see these photos as contributing to sexualized objectification or violence. So I wouldn't see it as pedantic if this weren't chiefly about attacking Instagram. If their chief goal were to contribute towards desexualizing US culture's interpretations of women, then there's probably all kinds of things they could do.
> The amendment has been reintroduced in every session of Congress since 1982.
But then again, the law they would probably be violating is indecent exposure or other such laws - and since different bits are seen as indecent/lewd, you can apply the law fairly while still treating the sexes differently unless you adjust the wording of the law.
Say I have a website. I collect male nipple pictures. I reject female ones.
Am I required to provide equal opportunity?
I'd say it's my decision, because it's my website. Would the site being a business (even making just ad money) make a difference?
(I'm from Europe, so I have some blanks in understanding the US system)