AMA vs. Photoshop: think of the children

This pic is everywhere now

Last week the American Medical Association officially condemned the "photoshopping" of models in fashion advertisements and magazines to make those models appear unrealistically thin.  While the "models are too skinny" debate has gone on for decades, this is a rare and important step.  Their stance is obviously more of a statement on our runaway culture of beauty than our use of technology, but it also should send a clear message to those of us in the communications business (marketing, advertising, or PR) - just because you can do something, that doesn't mean you should.  Earlier this month I warned against pretending to be someone you're not. This is a similar principle - don't use deceptive images to promote your products.  This example demonstrates the consequences can extend beyond looking like a creep.

I'm not going to pretend to be the moral authority on these issues and I'm not going to say it's wrong to retouch a photo or get a nip and/or tuck if you want.  However, it seems the AMA believes things are getting worse, not better - and it's clear that technological advancements have enabled some people to take things to the extreme.

This issue reminds me of two other issues where some segments of the medical community have already weighed in but I wish the AMA would add its rather hefty and credible voice - promotion of breastfeeding and reducing the influence of pro-anorexia groups on social networks.  I've written about this before. People who freak out over nipples on breastfeeding pictures in Facebook profiles aren't simply advocating for more modesty, they're reducing our ability to promote breastfeeding - and that has negative health consequences.  Social networks like Facebook have made some progress on cleaning up pro-ana sites, but they're still around - and this is also a threat to public health.

Don't take my word for it - take my wife's.  She's the health researcher at the big-time university, and she wrote about both issues several years ago. Discouraging breastfeeding is bad.  Facilitating the harmful practices of people with anorexia is also bad. Of course, I look at the Facebook terms of service and I don't see anything in there that would address these issues. I'm not sure if other social networks have different terms.

Bottom line, there's an opportunity here for the AMA to get more involved in the online space. There's no question that our culture affects our behavior, and our behavior affects our health.  While we should be mindful of protecting free speech rights, we should be giving the medical community a larger voice here.

Beauty pageant contestants vs. science advocates: this isn't helpful

As a science fan and a PR guy, when I see something like this video - where contestants from the Miss USA 2011 pageant answer the question "should evolution be taught in schools?" - I really cringe.



If you are a science fan and you sat through this entire video then kudos to you. (Actually the answer from Miss Vermont was rather good.)

Let's get something clear from the get-go here.  Evolution is real.  It's sound science and it must be taught in public schools.  Myriad advances in health and science derive directly from evolutionary biology.  It's not a secular alternative to the Bible.  You don't "believe" in evolution any more than you "believe" in gravity.  If you're reading this and you're a person of a particular faith and you're offended by this, I'm sorry - but you're wrong. The sound science of evolution isn't encroaching on your faith, your faith is encroaching on sound, provable, evidence-based science and when you try to take evolution out of classrooms you're only making things worse.

But let me make something else clear: I think the Miss USA contestants were set up for failure. As I understand it, the goal of a contestant in a preliminary interview competition isn't to advocate for science or religion or anything else - it's to sound reasonably pleasant and articulate and avoid offending the judges.  I don't think it's fair to expect a woman in her early- to mid-20's to speak competently and at length to the pedagogic merits of evolutionary biology if that isn't something she's studied.  If you were in your early twenties, and you were put on the spot about a controversial issue you hadn't studied in depth, and you assumed you were talking to a group of people who had different opinions, chances are you'd come out where most of these women did - "present both sides fairly and let people decide."

As someone in PR, that's a very recognizable phrase.  Nearly everyone agrees with that blanket statement.  Give people the right to choose. Present both sides fairly.  If you're against those statements on just about any issue, you're typically seen as an elitist or worse. You're positioned as the person who doesn't want people to have their views heard and you're not interested in a fair debate.  PR folks like me recommend taking this tack in a messaging strategy for clients all the time.

This is where many scientists see themselves today on important issues like evolution, climate change, and vaccination.  Scientists point to the data and say the debate is over - those with interests on the other side take advantage of the fact that the issues are still not well known to everyone, and align themselves with consensus-claiming, PR-driven statements.  They're just trying to be heard and they want a fair shake.

So scientists and science communicators find themselves right on the facts but wrong in the eyes of the public.  So they sometimes resort to mocking:



Personally I think it's pretty funny. And it probably wasn't produced for the purpose of changing minds. But mocking beauty pageant contestants - as good as that may feel for some - doesn't really help.  A lot of people think pageants are silly, but a lot of other people really like them.  And we're trying to reach everyone.

Perhaps it makes sense to do some outreach to the contestants, give them some education, help them understand the issue, and then let them be great messengers and advocates for science?

I've heard cheerleaders are pretty good at that...

"Closed" networks and cultural arbitration

Last week we saw the latest pothole in the road to Utopia for iTunes:

Apple Inc. says it has removed an application called "ThirdIntifada" from its App Store following complaints that it glorified violence against Israel.

Of course, when they say "removed" they could just as easily have said "approved and then had to be told this was one of the stupidest things imaginable."

I've already written how the "big four" tech companies - Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook - have made our lives amazingly easier and they have connected people in ways we could barely imagine just a few years ago.  But because those companies have understandably placed limits on those markets and marketplaces, and have tried to create some rules for entry, they've had to make a host of judgment calls about what gets in and what doesn't.   By fate or by design, we're now at a rather alarming point.  Middle-managers at tech companies are regularly policing free speech and global commerce, and occasionally wielding more power in a single mouse click than some foreign ministers could hope to wield in a term of office.

It's hard to define social networks and commerce platforms with hundreds of millions of users as "closed" - especially when the administrators of them want as many users as possible. But they do want to be the gatekeepers of speech and commerce, insisting on approving the software that appears on their platforms.  They are now they are forced to make judgment calls I'm certain they never anticipated.  The folks at Facebook did not intend to be the folks who determine "obscene" content, yet here they are, establishing the "visible aerola" standard for breastfeeding pictures.  Apple never intended to mediate the Arab-Israeli conflict or promote the idea of "praying away the gay" or help drivers avoid sobriety checkpoints.

There's no doubt in my mind that the more apps they approve, the more mistakes they'll make, and the more likely regulation with plenty of unintended consequences will appear.

Vancouver riots: the Internet is forever, idiots

Mom must be so proud

Full disclosure: I grew up in Winthrop, Massachusetts - home to Mike Eruzione (captain of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team) and a boatload of Boston Bruins fans.  I'm not a huge hockey fan - I'm more of a baseball guy - but I've been to my share of games and I'm happy the home team won.

However, this isn't a post about hockey.  This is about those absolute morons in Vancouver the other night.

No, not the real Canucks fans.  They showed some class when the Bruins held the Stanley Cup on Vancouver's home ice.  And not the vast majority of Vancouver residents.   And not even the anarchists who clearly came to Vancouver prepared to torch the place, win or lose.

This is about the idiots who took pictures of themselves standing in front of wrecked or burning cars. This is about the ridiculous posers who wanted to immortalize their "I was there" moment - maybe they thought it was funny, maybe they thought it was cool, but all of them wanted to be seen.  Flashing gang signs.  (And probably not even knowing what those gang signs mean.)

Make sure you get the flames in the background...

Real anarchists generally don't pose for pictures.  They hide their faces and wear disguises. They infiltrate drunken crowds, stir up trouble, then retreat to the back to watch it grow out of control.  If they get caught, they resist arrest, and view it as a badge of honor or a reasonable price to pay for what they've "accomplished."

But these morons - the ones who probably don't have the guts to commit these crimes but want to look like they do - would probably cry hysterically at the first sign of accountability.  Frankly, I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of anything more pathetic than a faux anarchist.

And of course, here's what makes them such chuckleheads - their pictures are now all over the Internet and will never, ever be removed.   People are already using social media to help police track down the real culprits, but it's just a matter of time before someone starts collecting these pictures and videos too.  Now since Facebook has launched that creepy facial recognition "feature" and made it opt-out, all it takes is for someone to post a picture they took from the riot and you're identified automatically.  Google has similar technology, too.  And they own YouTube.  

Attach this pic to their resumes

So when these kids apply for jobs - many no doubt in the Vancouver area, and maybe even for companies on Georgia Avenue - they'll probably be subject to Google searches and watch potential employers ask to "friend" them on Facebook.   And employers will learn these kids were posing in front of their office's shattered windows.  And they'll know that these kids bragged about it not simply to a small group of friends, but to everyone they could think of and more.  And they'll know these kids aren't simply classless - they're amazingly, staggeringly, profoundly, outrageously stupid.

I grabbed these screen shots of YouTube videos.  But of course, these kids have already posted pics of themselves to their Facebook accounts, or left status messages bragging about it. There's already a website called Identify the Vancouver Rioters that helps us all say "hey - I know that guy."

Can't wait to see their resumes.

Note to self: don't pretend to be a lesbian blogger in Syria.

One of the more prominent and unfortunate global news stories circulating today is the hoax perpetrated by Tom MacMaster, an American student currently living in Scotland.  For months he's published a blog called "A Gay Girl in Damascus" and assumed a fictional identity named Amina Abdallah Araf al Omani.

The blog included fascinating stories of politics, culture and intrigue.  There were breathless accounts of going into hiding, standing up to police, demonstrating in the streets, and assuming the voice of the opposition in one of the world's most closed off countries in the midst of this historic "Arab Spring."  There were detailed personal accounts of coming out as a lesbian in a highly conservative, highly religious country.  Then there was the gripping note that Amina had been captured.  The stories rallied thousands and Amina became a heroine.

And it was all fake.

Of course, while he seems to think he hasn't really done much wrong, smarter people like Ethan Zuckerman beg to differ with him. Zuckerman is the founder of Global Voices Online, one of my favorite sites on the 'net and a global aggregator of citizen-journalist-generated content.   Zuckerman's take is a thorough smackdown and well worth reading, and here's just one of his points:

MacMaster’s project is going to complicate the work of anyone who tries to bring marginal voices into the dialog through citizen media. The question I’ve been most often asked since founding Global Voices is a question about authenticity: “How can we know that any of these people blogging and tweeting are real people?”

As a PR guy, my inclination is often to spin the upside - MacMaster has managed to do one thing no one else has.  The downside, of course, is that "one thing" is "add credibility to the government of Syria," as they denied ever holding Amina.

Perhaps it shouldn't amaze me that people still ignore or forget a very basic rule of public relations - don't pretend to be someone you're not.   Doing so essentially guarantees that whatever message you're trying to send gets lost.  This example is perhaps a bit more colorful, and a bit more tragic, but it's not even the only incident in recent memory. In my business we see companies all the time who want certain messages or facts to "get out there" but don't feel confident speaking in their own voice, often with good reason. All I can say is it's not often you can be successful making a point without telling people who you are.

What upsets me most right now is MacMaster's protestations that coverage of his hoax is drawing attention from real people facing real crises in Syria.  That he fails to understand he was the one drawing attention from the real conflict by hijacking Syrians' voices is beyond ironic.

When tech companies become cultural arbiters

Confronting the threat of "visible areolas" on Facebook

Facebook imposed another creepy "feature" - facial recognition technology - on its users without saying much about it.  It was another relatively quiet encroachment on personal privacy in the name of providing more value to marketers.  An (ironically) anonymous Facebook spokesperson apologized for "the way it was rolled out," but three days later everyone was pretty much back to business.

To me it was the latest warning signal that we're ceding too much of our lives to people whose values work exceptionally well for a successful company but create significant problems in other facets of our lives.

There's no question that companies such as Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft have changed the way millions (if not billions) of people live their lives.  Many of the innovative products and services they've created (or acquired) have made profound improvements to our quality of life.  We've gotten to the point where fast and easy access to the services provided by these and similar companies is a social justice issue.

These companies create a relatively minuscule amount of original content - instead they make it easier for others to create, find, consume, organize, enhance, and share that content.  As millions upon millions of people use their networks and their services, these companies aren't simply helping us create an "online version" of our culture, they're an integral and increasingly significant portion of our actual culture.  And in doing so, these four companies have become our cultural arbiters by default.

They decide who can find your content and how. They decide if you can earn a living in an online business and how. They decide if you can share certain information and how. And arguably they sometimes even decide if you can OWN your own content and how.

I think it's fair to say for the most part they've done an amazing job.  Every day millions of people create and share trillions of pieces of information across the platforms these four companies have created, and it's a fast and easy process.  Every day millions of people move billions if not trillions of dollars across the commerce platforms they've created, creating economic opportunities for people who had no chance of profiting from their ideas just a few years ago.  I wouldn't be able to write this blog post and you wouldn't be able to read it, comment, or share it without these companies.

Further, I look at the values these companies promote and it looks like a recipe for success.  Things like:

• Pursuing relentless, even dogmatic, measures to protect intellectual property rights. 
• Demonstrating passionate loyalty to customers, and always striving to do more for them.
• Creating products and platforms that are so good they become the standard everyone uses.
• Innovating at breakneck speed - get the it to market first, and fix it later.
• Embracing the "social" - err on the side of sharing and let users tell you if they don't want something.
• Automating solutions to complicated problems - save time and money. 

But while Facebook embraces the social they reject the personal.  It's clear that the privacy of Facebook users takes a distant back seat to the revenue potential of their marketing data. Facebook is constantly thinking of ways to serve its customers - the companies who want to know what you do so they can sell more effectively.   So Facebook develops ideas that provide marketers with knowledge about you without your knowledge or specific consent.  They'll apologize afterward, but they'll never stop imposing "features" that sometimes blow up in their faces (remember Beacon?) and forcing users to opt-out rather than opt-in because that would limit their value to customers. Resultingly, we've seen the emergence of a new form of moral hazard. Since users aren't the actual customers of Facebook and they have incomplete knowledge of the consequences of their actions, they make decisions they may not otherwise make.

And ask Ars Technica what it thinks about Facebook's approach to intellectual property - all you have to do is claim a site has taken your content and that site is suspended.  You apparently don't even have to reveal your own identity.  The burden of proof is on the accused, not the accuser.  That's not how it works in our courtrooms, but that's apparently how it works on Facebook, and possibly on Google's YouTube.  It appears the suspension is automatic - kill the site and then review the situation when the company's amazingly small and no doubt overburdened staff has a chance to get to it.

Of course there are the many times Facebook has automatically suspended accounts for posting "obscene" pictures of breastfeeding moms.  Years ago I noted the irony of scrapping those accounts while protecting the "free speech" rights of pro-anorexia Facebook groups that claimed the disease was a lifestyle choice and offered tips on which drugs to take to stave off hunger.   My wife told me that just last week Facebook did it again - closing down an account simply over an incorrect claim of obscenity.  I loved this line from a spokesperson (again apparently anonymous) the reporter quoted from 2008 - "we've made a visible areola the determining factor."  Actually, they've made the claim of a visible areola the determining factor.  Perhaps those who wanted to shut down pro-ana groups should have told Facebook they saw a nipple there.

I think Apple has handled this a bit better but has had its own challenges here as well - like when they allowed a religious organization access to their iTunes platform to distribute an app that promoted "ex-gay" conversion therapy.  Medical organizations have suggested conversion therapy is ineffective at best and harmful at worst.  Gay advocates noted the irony of placing age restrictions on some apps geared toward gay people but this was widely available to anyone.  It took a petition with 150,000 signatures to get Apple to reverse course.

Apple's issue really has been access to its commerce platform and the types of technology it will allow on its devices. Developers crow about how long it takes to get their applications accepted on iTunes.  Personally I don't have a huge problem with this - it means someone is actually looking at what's being presented on their platform.  Their house, their rules.  The problem comes when they want to be the "standard" - standards should offer the most choice possible, and iTunes doesn't.  Resultingly there are other, more open platforms that developers are increasingly choosing.  What I don't understand is Apple's take on "flash" animation technology.  Apparently using this technology in websites and the like places a greater burden on processors and drains the battery more quickly. So Apple won't support technology that reduces the performance level of iPhones and iPads. They're essentially trying to dictate what developers and website designers do on sites that have nothing to do with Apple. As a consumer, I think I'm more than capable of monitoring battery life, and I'm not sure how limiting the number of websites I can fully utilize helps Apple.  It's also arguably a restraint of trade issue - leveraging their dominance in one market (devices) to dictate the terms or channels of distribution of other markets.  Microsoft had those criticisms years ago.

The real risk is that one of these companies will (unintentionally) do something so stupid, so brazen, so outrageous that it will result in an enormous backlash and we'll see social networks and platforms regulated in ways that begin to resemble regulation of utilities.  Regulation can create as many unintended consequences as arbitrary and automated terms of service.

There's no silver bullet but there's one option I can think of that would be a good start - require anyone bringing a complaint such as copyright infringement or obscenity or anything else to confirm their identity and contact information. That shouldn't be too hard to implement, and it has worked in our justice system.  It would also likely reduce the number of embarrassing news stories we've seen over the years.

If you've read all the way to the end of this, I'd love to know what you think...

Mornings

Rinse. Repeat.

Buy PunditMom's book or I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN

Joanne "PunditMom" Bamberger has a book coming out called Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media are Revolutionizing Politics in America.  You should buy it. And then you should read it.  And then you should do whatever Joanne tells you to do, because she's going to rule the world someday and you probably want to be on her good side now. (OK, kidding.)  (But not really.)

This book is important - and not simply because Joanne is more than qualified to write this book as an online mom with an impressive background in government and politics. (She was deputy director of communications at the Securities Exchange Commission, you know.)  It's important because she uses the book to amplify the voices of people the beltway chattering class too often ignore - "everyday" women from different walks of life in America. Seriously - read the essays Joanne compiled in the book and then think about what you see on cable "news" shows or hear on talk radio.

I've spent some time in DC myself, so I'm a bit cynical.  I hope the beltway crowd won't view this book and the perspectives of the women in it as an "I care about politics too" human interest story.  I hope they will take this book as a wake-up call.  I think Joanne and her contributors are telling the politicians (and their sycophants) that while the jobs they have are important, they're wasting everyone's time on irrelevant and potentially harmful flights of fancy.   Moms are life's true decision makers, and they don't have time to waste on distractions.  If moms have more input in political decisions, our politics will be more substantive and our policies will be more effective.

I hope you read this book - not simply because Joanne is someone I've known for years, or because she's helped me out with work from time to time.  I hope you read this book because we all need to do better at understanding what women want and what they care about - and not just for the purposes of selling moms stuff.  Finally, I hope you read this book because for me it's personal.  I was raised by a "pundit mom."  I'm married to another "pundit mom."  For years they've spoken up to help their families, and for as long as I can remember, strong political forces have been aligned against them.  Their actions have helped shape who I am.  In a very real sense, Joanne is speaking up for them and for all the pundit moms out there.

Oh, and the writers she features in the book are pretty amazing too.