"A short while later, the White House posted the same photo - except that version had been digitally altered to darken Armstrong's skin and rearrange her facial features to make it appear she was sobbing or distraught. The Guardian one of many media outlets to report on this image manipulation, created a handy slider graphic to help viewers see clearly how the photo had been changed."
"Reworking an arrest photo to make the arrestee look more distraught not only is a lie, but it's also a doubling-down on a "the cruelty is the point" manifesto. Using a manipulated image further humiliates the individual and perpetuate harmful biases, and the only reason to darken an arrestee's skin would be to reinforce colorist stereotypes and stoke the flames of racial prejudice, particularly against dark-skinned people."
"History is replete with cruel and racist images as propaganda: Think of Nazi Germany's cartoons depicting Jewish people , or contemporaneously, U.S. cartoons depicting Japanese people as we placed Japanese-Americans in internment camps. Time magazine caught hell in 1994 for using an artificially darkened photo of O.J. Simpson on its cover, and several Republican politcal campaigns in recent years have been called out for similar manipulation in recent years."
The White House posted a digitally altered arrest photo that darkened Armstrong's skin and rearranged her facial features to make her appear sobbing or distraught. Altering the image doubled down on cruelty, humiliated the individual, and weaponized colorism to reinforce stereotypes and stoke racial prejudice against dark-skinned people. Historical precedent shows racist imagery has long been used as propaganda, including U.S. cartoons and Time magazine's darkened O.J. Simpson cover. Modern editing tools make such manipulation easy and convincing, increasing the danger of government misuse. The alteration signals a willingness to use manipulated imagery to mislead viewers and amplify bias.
Read at Electronic Frontier Foundation
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]