[HN Gopher] Some onions were too sexy for Facebook
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Some onions were too sexy for Facebook
Author : tosh
Score : 49 points
Date : 2020-10-09 21:16 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| function_seven wrote:
| Anyone have a link to the actual image? The one in this article
| is a stock photo (caption even reads: "These onions were not
| flagged as risque")
|
| For news story about a photograph, I can't imagine why the
| subject isn't included?
|
| EDIT: The _Daily Mail_ has the journalistic integrity to include
| it :) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8823925/Facebook-
| bl...
| pmiller2 wrote:
| I am disappointed at the lack of pictures of these sexy onions in
| the article.
| OJFord wrote:
| > "We've sold more in the last three days than in the last five
| years," said Mr McLean, adding they are also now listed under
| "sexy onions" on the company website.
|
| Perhaps surprisingly savvy for a grocer, but good on him!
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Alternate brand name 'Not Bewbs' :-) But I agree, it is a good
| talent to be able to jump on to a moment of virality and
| capture the value.
| master_yoda_1 wrote:
| More amusing is that for this AI "yen lecun" get a Turing award.
| didibus wrote:
| I'm guessing this was flagged by their nipple detection
| algorithm. Personally, I think it's time for our society to grow
| out of that phase, the whole nipple censoring is just ridiculous
| at this point. Can we change the laws around it? Or why is that
| even still in place?
| bitL wrote:
| Because it creates an automatic subconscious response
| (excitement) in males. I guess brain is built that way for the
| sake of reproduction of human population.
| Igelau wrote:
| Seriously. Sometimes I think everything wrong with America
| would gradually settle down if we could just collectively
| disillusion ourselves from the notion that human female nipples
| are an indecent horrid thing.
| eden_hazard wrote:
| Cause everyone being naked is the pinnacle of society?
| tshaddox wrote:
| You're using a definition of "naked" that depends on your
| particular societal views, so that's a circular question.
| Most people don't where clothing over their hands in
| public, but you probably don't call that "naked." What
| reason is there to cover one's nipples unless it's for
| comfort, protection, or warmth?
| krapp wrote:
| Not caring about it is better than caring about it so much
| we wind up with robots censoring images of onions lest they
| offend our Puritan sensibilities with their lascivious
| roundness.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Neither is Times Square's Naked Cowboy, but nobody is
| trying to make what he does illegal.
| ben_w wrote:
| The more I think about it, the weirder becomes the fact
| that the one and only part of human anatomy that is
| specifically made to go into a baby's mouth is a sex
| symbol.
|
| If it had been men's nipples, which are otherwise useless,
| that had been sexualised, that would've been much less
| weird; but it's fine for me to go around topless and nobody
| cares.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| ...well, I don't. Changing obscenity standards is not going
| to help us with climate change, for instance, or do much
| against COVID-19.
| save_ferris wrote:
| Because it's illegal in many places. A female exposing her
| nipples in public is considered an act of public indecency in
| states like Illinois, which is a misdemeanor[0].
|
| Edit: not that I agree with this law. It's a very clear double-
| standard with roots in conservative Christian thinking.
|
| 0: https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a19545146/nipple-
| double...
| filoleg wrote:
| >A female exposing her nipples in public is considered an act
| of public indecency in states like Illinois, which is a
| misdemeanor
|
| This is a very bad comparison. That's like saying "drinking
| on the street in public is illegal in many states, so showing
| any visual references to people drinking on Facebook is
| potentially illegal and should be removed".
| tedunangst wrote:
| It's unclear how that Illinois law would apply to
| advertisements posted on Facebook.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| "Is it a skin-ish tone? Is it most of the image? Not very many
| sharp edges? MIGHT BE A BUTT, BAN IT!"
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Except, of course, this is almost certainly a machine learning
| algorithm. Who knows what it's actually seeing.
| loeg wrote:
| GP posted an example of a decision tree, which is -- very
| broadly speaking -- a type of ML algorithm.
| [deleted]
| penagwin wrote:
| I'm guessing a 2d matrix and then a 1d matrix before single
| boolean value. :p
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| Every index lookup corresponds to one dimension, right? So
| if you're saying that function has signature "dirty(a, b,
| c) -> bool". But if you don't know how many bits of
| information a, b or c has, how does it matter?
| hprotagonist wrote:
| They are introspectable! You could find out. Well, Facebook
| could.
|
| https://towardsdatascience.com/demystifying-convolutional-
| ne...
| AI_WAIFU wrote:
| I mean, it's all fun and games right now, but wait till this
| article gets flagged as fake news.
| throwaway287391 wrote:
| > "We use automated technology to keep nudity off our apps, but
| sometimes it doesn't know a Walla Walla onion from a, well, you
| know," Facebook Canada's head of communications, Meg Sinclair,
| told BBC. "We restored the ad and are sorry for the business's
| trouble."
|
| Pretty affable for a public corporate PR "incident" response. I
| like it. Is this a Canadian thing?
| 737maxtw wrote:
| It's the BBC, they knew to have an appropriately British
| sounding response. Queen is still on their money right?
| xvedejas wrote:
| I recall trying to set my Google+ profile picture to a 64x64
| totally transparent PNG, and getting some message that
| pornographic pictures were not allowed. I imagine that many kinds
| of out-of-distribution images will not be well-classified with
| current approaches.
| polote wrote:
| Nothing new to HN... just an error of an AI classification system
| ninth_ant wrote:
| It's not "new" but it's useful reminder to folks building
| systems that their AI classification can have real-world
| implications.
|
| Sexy onions, not a huge deal. But apply that to policing and
| there is tremendous opportunity for harm.
| WilTimSon wrote:
| Judging by the mention of pumpkins in the article, my (extremely
| non-)educated guess would be that it's a round object that has
| something small-ish sticking out of its side. Like a breast with
| a nipple. And their brown/orange hue is, perhaps, similar enough
| to skin tones that Facebook's poor algorithms get messed up.
| gibolt wrote:
| I would guess that just the shiny skin tone curves are enough.
|
| Or maybe this is just a a weird niche that Facebook is
| correctly blocking. /s
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Positioning probably matters. I bet the filters trip more
| readily for even numbers of round objects for obvious reasons.
| reaperducer wrote:
| To be fair to the AI, those are some pretty sexy looking onions.
| I'd buy a sack.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| > sack
|
| This comment has been removed for violating our Terms of
| Service for sexual content.
| Igelau wrote:
| take them home, pour some wine, and get them sizzling up with a
| nice fat sausage
| ausjke wrote:
| What's wrong with nipples then? I grew up where ladies breast
| feeding kids in public naturally. the modern world is beyond me.
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