<snipped>
Yeah, I know about the French government and Yahoo! . . . I will
refrain from impersonal attacks on the French and their government in
this space. =/
There's a
difference between an image of a thing someone finds
offensive and an image which someone finds offensive.
And the difference is?
Consider it this way. (The following is a guideline, and does not
apply in all circumstances): If you were to show an image of, say, a
person, to someone who knows nothing about the subject, would they be
offended? Or to some random kid: to them, Hitler is just a guy with a
moustache (who is yelling something and sticking out his arm with our
picture...) The image of the guy is not offensive. It's the guy
himself who offends.
Consider an image of a flag being burned. It's just a piece of fabric
on fire (though there's probably some sort of lovely right-wing local
yokel gun nut holding it as well :). The image itself is not
offensive, it is what the image displays which may be offensive. (It
would be suitable for an article on flag burning, if not an article on
flags or the particular country whose flag is being burned).
Consider this guy who has been beheaded. There's easily something
disturbing about seeing the guy's head off, no? The guy himself is
pretty inoffensive, I think most would say. There is additionally
offense at the sociopolitical+etc aspects as well, however.
It's more a matter of when the *display* of the image is offensive
rather than what the image itself shows. This would include grossing
people out with images of severed heads, the effects of nasty
diseases, et cetera, as well as (possibly) the display of images such
as that of the penis and clitoris, for possible reasons related to
modesty. However, with an article such as Hitler/Kim Jong Il/the KKK,
it's reasonable to have pictures of the actual people there. And since
I'm dragging in the KKK, I'd say that it would be reasonable to have
inline pictures of them in hoods, burning crosses... but we shouldn't
have *inline* pictures of any victims all bloody or mangled or
anything like that.
General tip: if it involves lots of blood and/or gore, people are
liable to be disturbed by the picture itself, not the person who it is
of.