https://www.timesofisrael.com/female-jewish-leaders-sue-haredi-news-site-for-blurring-their-faces/
A branch of the Reform Movement in Israel is suing a popular ultra-Orthodox news website in Jerusalem over its policy of blurring the faces of women.
The Israel Religious Action Center said Wednesday it was seeking NIS 345,000 ($100,000) in damages from the Behadrei Haredim website for a picture it ran last year of female leaders of Jewish movements meeting with President Isaac Herzog, in which the faces of the women were digitally smudged.
The photo in question was published on Behadrei Haredim in December 2021. Initially, IRAC demanded that Behadrei Haredim publish the original photo and pay NIS 50,000 in compensation for each woman appearing in the photo. When the website refused, the group began preparing the lawsuit.
And they'll lose because the "religious rules" card will be played. Nothing personal, we do it to all women. Heck, if we could've erased you completely from the picture we would have. The Torah demands it! how dare you tell us to change our mesorah?!
ReplyDeleteAnd so on.
they could argue that :
ReplyDeletea) they don't haveexplicit rights to publicise the identities of the individuals
b) just like it is commonplace to blur pictures of children , for fears of abuse, so they are applying this principle to the women.
Why would these women be entitled to "damages"?
ReplyDeleteHow were they "damaged" because their images were digitally blurred? When images of minors are digitally blurred, are we also damaging these children?
I don't think that people, who attend a public meeting, have any expectation of privacy regarding the said meeting, and the identities of those present can therefore be freely publicized.
ReplyDeleteUnless contractually bound, no one also has any legal obligation to publish an unaltered photo of the said meeting, unless the plaintiff can prove that this altered photo somehow will be "damaging" to them.
I see here a double standard. When publishing pictures of children, we must give them privacy, and not show the actual picture, even if we very much want to show the unaltered version. However if we want to give privacy to other people, we can be sued in court for NOT giving them privacy.
This is a publicity stunt to get attention to themselves. They've tried everything else to break the Chareidi monopoly and failed.
ReplyDeleteI think, that it’s more than just a publicity stunt to get attention for themselves. It’s a way of extorting money from other people; that you’re not entitled to.
ReplyDeleteThey also have an agenda of forcing the religious to dance to the tune of their own secular agenda.
IIn this case, the crux of the issue is not that the religious are seeking a monopoly on printed media. They merely want to maintain their right to publish in a manner that is consistent with their religious values. The secular might disagree with the values of the religious, but the religious are not beholden to conforming to those secular values.
As I see it, forcing the religious to publish things, in a manner inconsistent with their religious beliefs, is the equivalent of forcing a bakery to bake a wedding cake for a homosexual “wedding”.
HEAR, HEAR!! 👏👏👏
ReplyDelete