The Economist manipulated the photo of Viktor Orbán

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Splunge:

Look, the experts (including László Petromán) said something. It is a technical viewpoint, unlike the "who got the photo from who and how edited/not edited" type of arguings. A photo is given, and the experts said something, that is basically a technical proof. Nothing more is needed. I'm also familiar with this area of computer science to a relatively good extent, and what they say makes sense. I also told that the human eye can be cheated easily, JPEG is one of the best example as I said (without discussing other details such as JPEG discrete cosine transformation and other things). Moreover, a few readers in this thread also said that the photo definitely does not look natural to them. This is only secondary, however: the point is, experts said something. That is much more credible than discussing who gave what to who. If you decide not to accept that, it's your free choice.

As a further addition: the overall point of what I say about cheating the human brain is that you don't actually need to find/see the changes in order to be emotionally influenced by the edited photo (the changes are still there, just you can't point to them, "look here it was changed", just like you can't show in a JPEG image which colours are "cheated"!). Long story short, they were able to add minor subtle edits that you can't explicitly show. As I pointed out many times, certain forums members (and not just on these boards) seem to think that they know and understand everything; they forget that sometimes their "closed world assumption" (= ~what I do not know is assumed to be false, not unknown) does not work. For example, where much resources (money) are available -- e.g. The Economist -- there are also most advanced and powerful subtle manipulation techniques present.

And all in all, the intention of Economist to influence the article's readers against Orbán was still there. This means that their statement about "fair" and "objective" reporting is a lie. Fair and objective reporting does not allow adding "Orbán is coming for you" captions and intentionally-bad-looking (and as many think: manipulated) photos!

 

Baronious, see the last paragraph of Tal's post regarding "experts" and "manipulating", and answer that.

So now you can enter my mind and know whether or not I was "emotionally influenced"? Like I said, I don't feel any different emotional reaction when looking at one picture vs. the other.

I think I'll just quote that without further comment.

 

I removed it after 1-2 minutes of the original post (so you probably read that post of mine immediately after its first appearance), not because it was so similar to the APF one (I think it wasn't), but exactly because it was so similar to the other photos and I found it needless to present so many photos in the same post (I think even its size was small, so it wasn't helpful much in the comparison). I would try to find it again now, but it would mean too big effort -- I googled much even for those photos (there are not too many photos available about that event on the internet).

Rather don't mention "mockery" next time when you criticize the correctness or credibility of my arguments; because you don't seem to set an example in not using "mockery" and emotional outbursts.

Splunge:

I already told everything that needs to be told. People can decide who to believe. My previous answer also addressed Taluntain's issues, if someone doesn't see this, then he/she does not want to see it. Splunge, to complete your request to the maximum extent I can, however, here is a last note:

In what way JPEG images cheat your eyes?

Yeah, some changes in photo cannot be explained with primary school terms (such as "the eye of the man is evil!" or "the ring of the French minister was removed). The granularity and complexity of changes made by special methods is different. As I said, the experts said that a nonlinear transformation was applied that emphasizes certain image tones more than others (this is not simple recolouring!), plus, I can imagine that additional subtle details regarding the strong brows (to make it look evil) were also implemented. The most advanced methods, as I said, are just much more tricky than you could just point to the exact position of changed lines, pixels, etc. Again, think of JPEG.

The point was, the photo in the Economist article presents Orbán in a very negative image (due to manipulation, method-wise), and this is the emotional influence on the reader. To present Orbán as a dictator, even by adding that caption too (which was also criticized strongly by HirTV, the Economist did not even react to it in the answer where they wrote how objective and fair they're!).

No, that is not proof.
- First of all, the proof for me is the conclusion drawn by experts, combined with my implicit knowledge on the matter.
- Second, the comments of the few people would not need to convince me anyway, because I also intuitively feel some manipulation when comparing the photo (his face) with the other photos of the event; so those few others wouldn't convince me, they would rather share my observation: they find the picture very unnatural too, just like me, so they confirm my intuition. But it's not their and my intuition what matters: it is the technical, objective viewpoint what matters, provided by experts.
- Third, I indeed do not underestimate the impressions of the few people in this thread who said that something is really unnatural there. Certain people can have very good eyes for things (even for hardly noticeable, advanced manipulations). Yes, these subjective impressions confirm what the experts say objectively (i.e. nonlinear transformation). Did you expect HirTV (which is not a scientific channel) to ask the experts (e.g. Petromán) to present the method mathematically etc.? Noone would care, and those who watch the channel (yes it's not just an online TV) would go crazy.

I understand what you try to imply here, but show me one other thread where I talk self-confidently about a topic I am not familiar about at all (e.g. P&P rpg, or show an AoDA topic). Even in the "police can check your cellphone" thread, I only ASKED it if I get the point wrong or not.

So yes, it depends on the context. I know Hungary and its conditions very well (and, by the way, also the credibility of HirTV that it proved in the past). Read my post again about competence (it was about manager competence and such things); there I talked about implicit knowledge and expertise as well.

 

What "other photos"?

The AFP photo also “presents Orbán in a very negative image”. So what exactly has The Economist done wrong? And again, unless you can prove that the AFP photo was doctored to make Orban look more sinister than he really did, you've got nothing.

I don't recall ever seeing a post of yours where you don't "talk self-confidently", and the topics are widely varied. Either you're the most well-informed person on the planet, or you're, um, not.

 

I think I can settle this matter. Being a bit of a photo-manipulation expert myself...



Clearly, Tal is a villain from old silent movies.

There, debate settled. You're all welcome.

(I'd have done Splunge's too, but he already has a moustache. Sorry.)

 

DR, that's stupid. Obviously Tal's moustache would be incinerated every time he breathed fire.

Tal: good point. Your first photo presents Orban in a much different light, but the brows are still there. This whole debate might have been avoided if Baronious, instead of claiming photo-manipulation, instead claimed deliberately choosing photos that portrayed Orban in a negative light. And that sort of thing happens all the time.

 

Not if he used a straw.

Durr.

 

This hearkens back to some of what I said in the recent Improved Anvil thread. Credibility is not established or maintained through unreasonable insistance that the point you are making is correct. When an opinion is shown to be wrong, it is far more credible to simply admit that a previous assertion was wrong. At the beginning of this thread we did not have the original picture to compare against. Now we do, and it's reasonably clear that no manipulation beyond coloring was done, so it is reasonable to adjust our thinking accordingly. We're human, and ALL of us are wrong sometimes.

An excerpt from the post I reference:

Spoiler

The issue is, when you share an opinion like it’s a fact, especially a controversial one that is undoubtedly wrong in many cases, you actually lose credibility. Perhaps the most gullible of people will be persuaded by your enthusiasm, but in a public web forum opinions are subject to scrutiny, and will be picked apart.

The most memorable example I can give you to demonstrate that this approach does not establish credibility would be something that occured after the initial US attack on Iraq after 9-11. The Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf appeared before the world stage regularly telling people that Iraq had the situation well in hand. He spoke fervently and I’m sure many believed him, but the man was anything but credible. The world stood back in disbelief as this man made a mockery of himself and his country. Credible? I think not. While I don’t mean to directly compare you to him, you are espousing an approach to sharing your opinion that looks very similar to what we saw al-Sahaf doing. It doesn’t work on a public web forum setting, or in many other settings. It just doesn't.

 

Indeed, one would assume he hired someone competent.

 

Is there a clear video of the entire speech? I gather it was on September 10, 2010 at the invitation of the Batthyany Society of Professors in the Szent Imre Secondary School in Budapest.

(When I search Google videos for related terms, all I get is wrestling and porn, lol.)

 

Surely it simply comes down to:

(1) Baronius claims that the Economist manipulated the photos.
(2) The original from AFP looks the same.

Therefore either
(3) The AFP manipulated the photos, and not the Economist;
Or
(4) The photo is not manipulated.

Either way, the Economist is not at fault and the world is clearly not conspiring against poor ol' Viktor.

 

Well, the Economist clearly has it out for Viktor, but there is now no good basis to believe that they manipulated his photo. I guess, if you take enough pictures of a guy, one of them is eventually bound to look sinister.

I still find it odd that Orbán's nose appears to be bent way to the left of his face in that picture, and not in any other that I've seen, but again, it's in the original also.

 

In case anyone doubted whether The Economist was being truthful about the original source of the photo, I did some snooping and tracked down the actual image as sold by AFP. It appears to be the same as what The Economist claims.

To check for yourself, go to: http://www.imageforum2.afp.com/ImageForum/AuthFiles/login.aspx

Click the Visitors button, then search for Viktor Orbán on the top left, then go to page 16, then see the first image on the left in the third row. The image contains a watermark because you're supposed to buy it to use it.

 

So you are reiterating stuff you got from TV?

Now there is something interesting. HírTV is friendly to Orbán's party, Fidecz (the impression I get is along the lines of FOX' Griff Jenkins on steroids, and speed). They played a big role in going after socialist politicians and their various political affairs, and they were the only ones covering the right wing 2006 protests live, that culminated in the seizing of the Hungarian public broadcasting service MTV by demonstrators. The reporter in place there kept talking about another "56" (against the democratically elected (left wing) government) and of revolution, and was thus sanctioned by ORTT (the predecessors to the media council NMHH newly instated by Orban), apparently for him effectively inciting riots.

I can't help but note a parallel to the revolution babble we got from Baronius, and that is included in Fidecz manifesto. So there is some history to Hungary's new media law, and it smells awfully like tit for tat retaliation.

PS: Here is the full, unedited response from the Economist's Editor - Viktor Orbán and Hír TV.

PPS: The Hungarian government has submitted their media law to the EU Commission for review about whether it meets EU law. The text of the law was incomplete and didn't include sections 207-229 because "they have no impact on the understanding of the law" (well, that, and because of that freak accident*). Apparently the commission wants to judge that for themselves, and demanded they be provided with a full text asap. That incomplete delivery is not much more than a telling lack of courtesy, since the EU has a formidable translation service, and had access to the law as published on the site of the Hungarian parliament ever since it was put there.

Spoiler

* Actually, that was so: The translator of the Justice Ministry who was on duty crossed the street on his way to finish the last articles, but it was icy so he slipped, fell on the street, got shat on by a pigeon, to then, adding injury to insult, be hit by a truck, bounce off only to be run over again, this time by a bus. Poor fellow suffered serious injuries for which he has been hospitalised. Other translators were not available, since they were all sacked for suspicion of political unreliability, and for not being Fidecz party members. It can't be helped.

But then, apparently the pressure is showing some effect. Orbán has shown some signs that can be interpreted as flexibility. We will see.

PPPS: Courtesy of Austria's Der Standard, Hungary's new media law in English [PDF], lacking the aforementioned paragraphs. Beware: If the content of that document make Hungary appear in a bad light, the translation is obviously biased.