Except one of the goals of iNat is documenting people’s encounters with nature. And posting a photo of that time a butterfly/bird landed on you or the person you were hiking with, or the fish you caught, or a photo of you with that really huge tree are all very much a part of that.
I guess the counterargument to that is that you could crop it very heavily so that it just shows the non-human organism and record the context in the notes, but that’s probably going to be much less appealing.
The difference being that posting the photo of the poached animal is not itself the illegal activity. Nor is a dead animal at threat of being stalked, cyber-bullied, or whatever…
I feel like this topic is straying off of the original intent of my post.
Would it be possible to automatically hide every observation of a human face with non-obscured coordinates over a middle or high school(or country-level equivalent)? Most of these observations are coming from middle and high school biology/ecology/environmental science classes.
How would iNat programmers know where every school is world-wide?
So I may not flag this photo, because photos of human are allowed on iNat.
[link removed by moderator]
But this boy is trying to hide his face from an intrusive camera.
Why is that an acceptable obs for ‘encouraging people to engage with nature’. The photographer certainly isn’t, and a boy is not Wild nature by iNat’s guidelines. Fails at both ends.
No photos of humans on iNat. Hide all the existing obs of humans.
Diana, please do not use the forum to link to specific examples of user-related issues. I removed the link in your post.
Regarding European laws, it is important to keep in mind that GDPR is only a generic framework from which most EU member states develop additional privacy laws, specially in the context of children. Naturally, iNaturalist cannot consider all legislations in mind but this is a case where most countries will have some legislation in force. Which country will not have some laws in this area? The tendency of European legislators is actually to legislate more in this matter in the incoming years.
As iNaturalist user base grows, its legal exposure also follows. But from a legal point of view, it would only be the inaction after being appropriately flagged that could be used against iNaturalist. Not the fact that the picture was uploaded.
But leaving aside legal aspects, why would iNaturalist be ok with a misuse of their platform?
My guess is because it cannot be easily enforced, but there are easier ways to leave the growing community in iNaturalist to report and flag misuses. I think we can compare the iNaturalist community to the Wikipedia one instead of the X or Facebook community and we should take advantage of it.
P.S: I’m not a scientist, as you can tell from my reply, but I really doubt there’s a value of documenting in iNaturalist human pictures were there’s already so many studies using much larger databases for such needs.
I would be interested in looking at some of these studies if you have an example.
I also think that there are probably a lot of other sources that would be better.
and you prove my point.
The picture is offensive to the victim. He looks about 8 or 10.
The picture stays.
The obs stays.
But my link to it is not allowed. Something is broken on iNat.
Where is the published research which uses iNat’s photos of humans?
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/published-papers-that-use-inaturalist-data-wiki-4-2024/47837/12
No, I intended “issue” as neutral e.g. matter, case, situation.
I looked at that photo before the link was suppressed and I agree, the photo should be removed for the reasons you stated. But removing all photos of humans is way too restrictive. There are thousands of observations that show consenting human beings or some part of a human being (usually hands or feet) in which the principal subject of the photo is a plant or animal. Some of your own photos include human hands, and so do some of mine.
The only human photos that should be banned outright are those without any plant or animal subject. In other cases, obscuring or pixelating the face might be called for.
I like this. Mask everyone’s face. The hands that are needed and the feet that show up incidentally aren’t an issue.
I agree that iNat “could and or should” do more in this regard to protect everyone, especially minors.
@dianastuder you’ve active been on the Forum longer than most anyone here. By now you should know that linking to specific observations or calling out specific users in a way that can be construed as negative is not allowed. @bouteloua did the proper thing by removing the link because of the context you added to it.
If you think the photo violates a rule, please flag the photo. That’s how specific issues on iNaturalist are handled.
While we were busy arguing about whether Diana should have posted the link, nobody bothered to answer her question: Why is that an acceptable obs for ‘encouraging people to engage with nature’?
Fingers for scale. But not - this - is an obs - of a human hand.
I skimmed a few pages of human - didn’t see any valid obs there. Did see a few obviously unhappy people!
I knew the link would be hidden. Given your guidelines - photos of humans are allowed - I am, apparently, NOT calling out bad behaviour.
But - I still feel that iNat needs to rethink human obs. You have a new Help post for no rocks or litter. No humans unless - fingers for scale, or a random foot - unless the obs follows guidelines and engages with nature ? On the other thread we (almost all) agreed that humans do not count as iNat’s Wild animals.
This was the opening post here. And needs a better response going forward. Not the only affected person I know of.
I feel like the policy change could be really simple.
“All human faces are blurred, observations must be focused around the organism to be identified. Any observations with a greater amount of humans than the organsim to be identified will be deleted”.
It’s fair, unconditional, and will discourage using this site and app as an extension of social media, but will still allow photos like the examples of a guy holding a fish or child with bird on head. Just as long as an actual attempt at identifying the non-human organism is made.
As for how difficult it would be to actually implement, I have no idea.
Hiding Photos
Photos should be hidden if they violate any of the suspendable offenses listed in the Community Guidelines, such as hate speech, insults, threats, and sexually explicit content involving humans.
The lists of examples below are not exhaustive.
Examples of photos that should be hidden:
- Human nudity (including semi-nude children) and/or sexual activity
- Images or words meeting the iNaturalist definition of hate speech
- Threats or depictions of violence against humans
- Images being used to bully or harass someone, such as a photo in combination with an insulting comment or ID
- Sensitive information accidentally posted by the observer, such as personal information or the location of threatened species (eg if a map or sign is included)
- Human remains
Examples of photos that are OK:
- Humans holding animals or plants, such as a fish, where the non-human is the subject
- ID cards or badges intentionally placed in the frame
- Images of dead or dismembered animals
- Images of someone holding a non-human organism
August 29, 2023: Because observations of humans are tolerated on iNaturalist but are not important to the site, flagged photos depicting humans should be hidden. We will re-evaluate this policy moving forward, if it results in abuse of the flagging/hiding system or becomes overwhelming for curators.
If the photo appears to depict violence, pornography, nude or semi-nude children, or child abuse, hide it and email help@inaturalist.org right away.
If the photo infringes on someone’s copyright, just flag it as copyright infringement. Don’t use the “hide” option.
I think this Curator Guide section pretty clearly answers what to do in the example in the original post. Note, that addition at the end was not widely announced to curators, so not everyone is aware that this is in there.
It does not address the problem in the original post: [quote=“yayemaster, post:1, topic:65078”]
unaware minors with geolocation accuracy down to classroom level
[/quote]
I don’t see where it prevents publication without model consent. No consent = No publication.
iNat has evolved into a world-wide public platform that allows minors to join on their own.
I believe the guidelines need to change to reflect the world we live in.