[Avodah] Halachic Analysis: The Hillary Photo Controversy

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 12:34:04PM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote:
: Niether "midvar sheker tirchak" nor any other halachic issur or hashkafic  
: problem...

Halachic. Sheqer is as assur as eating treif.

...
: Aside from such /intentional falsification/, no other type of alteration is 
:  in any way problematic from a Torah point of view, since in this day and 
: age  /everyone/ knows about photo-shopping, photo-cropping, changing the 
: background  scenery, showing just one person, enlarged, cropped from a photo 
: that originally  showed a group, etc etc etc. It is perfectly well understood 
: by all  literate people that photographs in newspapers are altered in myriad 
: ways every  day -- enlarged, lightened, darkened, faces blurred out to 
: protect witnesses,  etc etc etc etc.  

Clarified or blurred, yes. For that matter, blurring is obvious --
people know there is someone unidentifiable behind the blur. That's a
lack of information, not misleading. But removing people without telling
them? You think it's safe to assume people expect that? How are they supposed
to know which pictures represent what happened, and which not?

In any case, your analysis about "intentional falsification" misses the
fact that shinui, not just sheqer, is generally prohibited.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
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