Microsoft black-white debacle
p2pnet news view Advertising | P2P:- Back in June, “The smiling, ethnically diverse family featured on the cover of Toronto’s latest edition of its summer Fun Guide was digitally altered to make the photo more ‘inclusive,’ which city officials say is in keeping with a policy to reflect diversity,” said the National Post, going on:
“A spokesman for the department that publishes the guide listing recreation activities confirmed the publication was doctored to insert the face of a different father. ‘He superimposed the African-Canadian person onto the family cluster in the original photo. It was two photographs and one head was superimposed over the original family photo,’ said John Gosgnach.”
Now Microsoft has done it.
In reverse.
“If you look at Microsoft’s Poland business solutions Web site, you will probably not notice anything odd about the main picture. However, when you compare it with the original English version, you can see that someone decided that showing black people in Poland is probably not going to be convincing to business,” says a Slashdot post, adding:
“They just Photoshopped the head of a white guy in for the black one, in an amateurish way, leaving his hand unchanged. (Here’s a mirror in case something should happen to the original.)”
“Microsoft’s Marketing Snafu Is a Black and White Issue,” says a Microsoft Watch headline.
‘SNAFU’ is World War II military slang for Situation Normal All Fucked Up.
And on Microsoft’s official Twitter site, “Marketing site photo mistake – sincere apologies – we’re in the process of taking down the image … “
National Post – City digitally adds black guy to Fun Guide cover to make it more `inclusive`, June 10, 2009
Slashdot post – Microsoft Poland Photoshops Black Guy To White One, August 25, 2009
Microsoft Watch – Microsoft’s Marketing Snafu Is a Black and White Issue, August 26, 2009
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August 28th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I love how it’s considered a good thing to include a diverse selection of people, as long as they’re all “socially acceptable”. Of course you’ll never see a goth, or someone with green hair or facial piercings in such photos. I guess that’s a little too much “diversity” for them…
August 29th, 2009 at 3:29 am
OMFG – there are just SOOOO many things wrong with this (as in “what’s wrong with this picture?”) I don’t even know where to begin! I simply cannot fathom the thought process… Is there a meeting where some idiot says, “Hey, I’ve got a great idea…” Or does some other idiot doctor this stuff up before it even hits the drawing board?
And the “apology”? : “Marketing site photo mistake – sincere apologies. . .”
What was the “mistake”? The decision to do something as assinine as the doctoring of the photo or the fact that the doctoring was done so poorly?
Wow. Really? Just…
Wow.