stompy said:
And, don't take the wrong way (and I don't mean to derail the thread), but I'm somewhat disappointed that Henson wasn't sued. I mean, I know that the artist shouldn't be censored, but I really don't think that he should've taken the pictures in the first place. There are plenty of overage women to take nude pictures, and I'm sure some of them are flat-chested.
That was the whole point of the exhibition, though. Even though Henson took photos of this girl while she was naked, he didn't sexualise her. The photos are not erotic. I did see a few of them (albeit censored), and they weren't pornographic. They were explicit, but not obscene. Which was exactly his goal, I think.
In any case, whether or not you agree with the expression being made isn't relevant; people should be allowed to say whatever they want, as long as they're not out to hurt people, or exploit people. That's true for anything. There was a famous quotation... and unfortunately, I've forgotten who said it, so I can't reproduce it exactly, but it was something along the lines of "I may disagree with your opinion, but I'll die before someone says you can't have it." If anyone knows the actual quote or who said it, help me out, would you?
GothmogII said:
I don't really think the internet should be monitored in such a way that one isn't free to type what and howsoever they wish, or rather, that this should only be controlled by the owners of a respective website. i.e. in this case this was something those running Bebo should be taking care of themselves, if someone is posting obscene messages, then it's up to them (the owners/admins) to either ban or censor it.
Or, at least, provide the tools for the user to prevent that. (I've never used Bebo, so I don't know if they have content controls for users)
This is pretty much what I think. Either Bebo.com let the girl down, and she was unable to protect herself from these comment, or she chose not to use such mechanisms and went straight to be police. I'd like to hope that everyone on the 'net is mature enough to realise that some people are out to get them and everyone else, and that that's what the block/ban buttons are for, but evidently, some people just can't take that.
So I think the girl overreacted by summoning legal aid and forcing the guy to pay her or face jail time. She was definitely wronged, but I just think she probably went too far in trying to bring the guy to justice. A ban would have been what I would have deemed appropriate, given the information I have access to. Of course, if personal threats were made, not just vulgar comments, well, that's a little different.
Alas, we don't have enough information and I don't know if there's anything else that can be constructively said by us on the topic.
