When I did my Passover post, I started with a picture I had seen posted somewhere on the Internet of a woman wearing a piece of matzo as a face mask. I had no idea who she was, but as it was just before the start of Passover 2020 and I thought it was hilarious, I saved it. And then I used it for the top of this year’s post.
I can now happily inform you all, and give credit where it is due, that the creator of the picture and the matzo face mask model in the picture is Ms. Hannah Simpson. Ms. Simpson tried to let me and everyone else know in the comments, but our SPAM filter ate it and it was only discovered a short time ago by WaterGirl who forwarded it to me. Here’s the original image, which, of course has attribution as it was tweeted by Ms. Simpson:
This year in quarantine.
Next year in Jerusalem.#UnleavenTheCurve#Passover2020 #Pesach #virtualseder #covid19 #passover #matzah #facemask pic.twitter.com/uFaza8BCQW— Hannah Simpson חנה הייה-לב סימפסון (@hannsimp) April 8, 2020
And here’s Ms. Simpson’s explanation via her now unSPAMed comment:
@Sister Golden Bear: Ironic the post talks about this, but the woman in the cover photo of this blog post is herself transgender. It’s me, and this is my photo that I have not yet been properly attributed for. It’s proper title is #UnleavenTheCurve and it belongs to and features Hannah Simpson.
Hi Adam Silverman,This is actually me, my selfie. Here is the original link, in fact:I’m a Jewish and transgender comedian who regularly writes and speaks on the intersections of queer identity, our faith, and modern life in general. Since the pandemic, I have also been working in Covid19 ICUs, morgues, vaccine sites, and as a contact tracer because I wanted to step up and serve my community (New York City). You can find lots more of my writing including about Passover by googling my name and Passover. I also run an Etsy shop selling Jewish Pride pins and jewelry at ChangedMe.etsy.com.The hashtag and title for the photograph is #UnleavenTheCurve.I hope you will promptly please properly attribute the image to me by editing this post immediately. As your blog is monetized, that’s a separate conversation to be had. I ask that you add my full name and clickable hyperlinks to my Instagram.com/hsimpso and/or Twitter.com/hannsimp accounts to drive followers to me. I also highly recommend that you consider using readily available “reverse image searches” before posting pictures because this information would have come up, and exposure without attribution is plagiarism. Saying you are not sure where something came from, if no due diligence was taken, does not suffice.Thank you for addressing this promptly.
I will add one final point: Ms. Simpson, no offense was intended, nor attempt to steal or misappropriate your work. Had I had any idea whose it was, and that it was created for a specific purpose/campaign, I would have first tried reaching out and asking if you were okay with us using it and, if you were not, then I would not have done so.
And I’m very sorry that both I and Balloon Juice made your acquaintance in this manner. I’ve had my professional work plagiarized in the past, so I understand exactly what your concerns are and I hope that this post, and adding appropriate attribution to the original one, will make proper amends.
If you still want me to take the pic in the original post down, please let me know and I will do so. I’m going to go, as soon as I hit publish on this one, and put the actual tweet in in place of it and ensure that it is properly attributed with a note indicating what I did and when.
Open thread!
Adam L Silverman
We really need a tag for “Adam screwed up and is apologizing on the front page again!”
WaterGirl
@Adam L Silverman: You could make a snark tag for that if you wanted! :-)
But I’m not sure you need one any more than the rest of us do.
cain
Shame shame Adam! I hope she gets the coveted #100 post and we throw confetti at that point!
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the full story and for giving Hannah the floor. Here’s hoping that she accepts the explanation and posts here more often.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: That will be her call.
Adam L Silverman
And thanks to WaterGirl for fixing the coding issues in the copy and paste of the comments that had been caught in the SPAM filter. It was not only screwing up the post, but every time I thought I’d removed Ms. Simpson’s email address, in the text field, it wound up back in in the visual field in the dashboard composer tool. I hate WP!
Redshift
It really sucks to have this happen because some jerk somewhere clearly stripped the attribution on purpose. The reverse image search suggestion is well taken, and all of us should keep it in mind whenever we see a cool image we want to use.
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: I didn’t even think about it. I’m pretty sure I saw it in a comments section somewhere else last year, thought that’s hysterical, and just saved it because it was, indeed funny.
West of the Rockies
I suspect many of us have written something here we regretted, been called out on it, apologized and–hopefully–been forgiven. I suspect I am in a pie filter or two.
Failure to attribute the photo is a mistake without malice. I hope Hannah sees your empathetic mea culpa and perhaps even joins our community. Her humor would be most welcome.
You’re a good egg, Adam.
Eric S.
I’ve got my Fauci Ouchie appointment Tuesday afternoon. I had to plug several suburbs into the Walgreens website today but eventually Joliet produced an open appointment.
Adam L Silverman
@West of the Rockies: I use reverse image searches all the time: when I’m trying to track a bad actor down across a variety of sites and forums. Some of that leads to rather unpleasant discoveries along the way. Because that’s how I normally use it, to track down potential malicious actors it never even occurred to me to use it for this.
Adam L Silverman
@Eric S.: Let Watergirl, who is on the mezzanine level, know and she’ll award your sticker.
something fabulous
@Eric S.: Wow! Am I remembering that you are the person in Andersonville [former North-Sider, so the Chicago chats catch my eye!]? If so, in the spirit of the post, that’s quite a schlep! But Mazel Tov!
karen marie
Ms. Simpson can’t be much of a comedian given she has no sense of humor whatsoever.
This site is monetized?
Errors were made in posting without first making an effort to identify the creator and attributing but …
dmsilev
Oops. But good on you for admitting to the mistake and also for doing so with equal prominence to the original post. I hate it when a newspaper screws something up on a page 1 story and the correction runs down in the corner of A15.
cain
@karen marie: Stealing someone’s work is no laughing matter. People work hard on that stuff. The least you can do is give attribution to the content creator.
This site is monetized because it has ads on it. So yes, the site makes money and that money is used to pay for bandwidth of course and other things.
cain
My plan on appointments is to look to hood river and surrounding red counties – their loss will soon be my gain..bwahahahaaha!!!
Poe Larity
@karen marie: You just now figured out why you’re getting emails about ouroboro tattoos?
something fabulous
@cain: What the esteemed #16 said.
Gvg
How about a tutorial on reverse image searches? I have heard of them, but have no clue how to do them and clearly it is useful knowledge. Anybody have links that explain to non tech sophisticated people?
West of the Rockies
@something fabulous:
Wwwwould we say “esteemed”?//
Adam L Silverman
@karen marie: This comment isn’t appropriate.
I unintentionally failed to ensure that Ms. Simpson’s creative content was attributed. Given that, as I indicated in the post up top, I have had my own professional work plagiarized, I understand why she’s upset. In my case it was by someone very senior who then used it to 1) con DHS into giving him millions in grant money that he wasn’t qualified for and 2) to then write me out of my own professional history. That was intentionally done. And I didn’t have the professional seniority to do anything about it. So I moved on from academia to my second career in national security. What I did was unintentional, but Ms. Simpson had no way of knowing until she let us know and I received her message. Acknowledging the mistake. apologizing for it, and attributing it to her no questions asked, without any unnecessary ad hominem attacks as snark is the appropriate response. Think about whether you’d like me to delete your comment for you as it is inappropriate.
Kattails
Adam, it’s a shame this happened but you’re one of the least likely people out there to screw up through carelessness. ( Note that I did qualify that.) ;-) And I’ve never seen you be malicious or disregarding. I hope Ms. Simpson is satisfied with the efforts made to correct the situation.
Having gone off to watch the Click and Clack MIT commencement address, I was reminded of two more sayings of theirs, which actually fit quite well here: One was “Non impediti ratione cogitatones– unencumbered by the thought process”. The second, said by his wife in the middle of an argument: “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” I am going to do these in calligraphy & post on my fridge.
CaseyL
Ms. Simpson lost me when she mentioned monetization. I understand the gig life is a hard one, but not everything is an (economic) transaction.
You’re correct to apologize for not giving the photo proper attribution, but that’s all (IMO) that is needed: a sincere apology, and the attribution. No further apology is needed, and certainly not any monetary considerations. BJ is not, in fact, a “monetized” blog: money is raised for non-profits, for political candidates, and occasionally to help out a member of the BJ family, human or furred.
After reading Adam’s latest comment: Adam, if you feel it would be appropriate and necessary to make further amends, I won’t argue.
Adam L Silverman
@Gvg: It’s after midnight here and I hadn’t planned on doing a post, just coming back from my dog walking, getting cooled off and cleaned up, and watching the second half of the Exeter versus Lyon rugby match from yesterday.
Tomorrow, provided I get what I’ve got to get done done, I’m planning on doing a post on the attempt by MBS and MBZ, working through one of Erik Prince’s catspaws, to overthrow King Abdullah II and install a puppet on the throne of Jordan. And I also need to do a post on what appears to be Russia preparing for a new engagement in eastern Ukraine based on their Psychological Operations and their movement of personnel.
Kattails
@karen marie: Adam’s a BIIIIIGGGGG boy, it’s ok, he can handle this.
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL: Balloon Juice has ads. It may not be a for-profit entity, but it is monetized.
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: Thanks for the kind words. I’ve been malicious a few times here. I can do malicious well. And when I do it in real life, I’ve been told it can be exceedingly frighting given my build.
Bill Arnold
@Gvg:
I use https://tineye.com/, which can order results by e.g. oldest first, and has pretty OK detection for altered source images.
Right click in google chrome lets you do a google image search.
There are others.
Adam L Silverman
@CaseyL: I don’t think any monetary compensation was requested, nor do I think that’s appropriate. I think by monetized she’s referring to the fact that the site does have some advertising. Which, I’m pretty sure, Cole uses to pay for the site’s maintenance and upkeep. I’m pretty sure it isn’t going into his 401K.
Mary G
If Ms. Simpson feels entitled to compensation, she should bill John her rate and we can all chip in. I always worry about retweeting cute animal videos that come from accumulators w/o attribution, but /I do it anyway because they are cute animals!
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: You have an email.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: I’ve been wondering about the Jordan thing and hope you will break it down for us if you have time.
Kattails
@Kattails: cogitatonis because some pedant will catch it.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: I’m going to try to do a post up tomorrow evening on it, but that is provided I get done what I need to get done tomorrow by mid afternoon. I don’t think that’ll be an issue, but…
mrmoshpotato
@Eric S.: Woo hoo!
NotMax
Now that’s comedy.
;)
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Actually it isn’t my blog. It is Cole’s and he runs ads to cover the costs for keeping the blog up and running.
I, like the other front pagers, get paid absolutely zero for posting and moderating.
Kattails
@Adam L Silverman: Oh, I’ve seen you bloody well P.O’d, and I’ve seen you backtrack on a comment. But you are not randomly hurtful for sport or out of entitlement.
People are being defensive for you and for our blog but the person felt a grievance and piling on is not helpful. Let’s all breathe.
I saw a butterfly today and had nothing in the garden for it, the last snow left about 3 days ago. So I ran out and bought some pansies.
West of the Rockies
@Adam L Silverman:
Has JC ever mentioned his career? I assume it ain’t this place. I ask casually, conversationally.
Adam L Silverman
@West of the Rockies: He’s a professional overall model. You can see his work in the annual Montgomery Wards’ catalog.
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: We have a lot of butterflies this year. My neighbor has been breeding them, sort of. She’s planted several butterfly garden areas to encourage them to breed over the past several years since she bought the house next door.
We’ve also got a bee’s nest somewhere in the scrub. We’ve got the biggest, fattest, roundest bumble bees buzzing around like plus size stumble drunks with wings. They’re so neat to watch.
Poe Larity
@West of the Rockies: Cole is a professional race driver in the Subaru class.
Jerzy Russian
@Adam L Silverman:
Look on the bright side. At least Mr. Cole does not have page charges like most of the journals in my field do.
I also had a professional paper of mine partially plagiarized. I was quite annoyed, and my coauthor was very pissed.
West of the Rockies
@Adam L Silverman:
I heard a rumor that he was the stunt butt for a host of unnamed Hollywood stars. We’re talking the biggest butts in Hollywood!
Kattails
@Adam L Silverman: what a great neighbor to buy the house next door! If they migrate up here I’ll do my best to take care of them. Being as it’s NH and…. 38 degrees right now, this was a very optimistic one. I don’t even have a single daffodil opened yet. Love bumblebees, see them taking a nap on the flowers. White faced hornets on the other hand…
Off to bed, car needs to go in for body work in the AM.
West of the Rockies
@Poe Larity:
Johnny was a race car driver… he drove so God damned fast…
PJ
@Adam L Silverman: But think of the prestige!
karen marie
@cain: I understand issues of content being hijacked without attribution. My impression was she’s of the belief that posters here get paid.
karen marie
@Poe Larity: We’re getting tattoos? No, I hadn’t heard!
Anne Laurie
Great! I was hoping you’d do one, so I wouldn’t have to cobble together something informed only by social media…
Dan B
@West of the Rockies: Professor of Communications if I’m remembering correctly.
The Monkey Ward’s modeling is news…….
karen marie
@Adam L Silverman: I certainly understand the issues. If you want to remove my comment, feel free, but I don’t think it inappropriate.
Joey Maloney
@West of the Rockies: Watch for John’s OnlyFans account, coming soon, to monetize his naked mopping.
DCA
As an academic who deals with this stuff: plagiarism is when you claim someone else’s work is something you produced, which is dishonest. Failure to attribute is undesirable, but not the same: if you say “I’ve heard it said” you are not plagiarizing but also not attributing. Whether or not it is harmful not to attribute depends on the intentions of the creator: I’d guess that many of the posters here would be perfectly fine if someone posted one of their pet photos, which are kind of meant to be shared–a lot of jokes on the internet (or for that matter off it) are like that. In this case the creator (in this world of influencers and followers) posted with the intention of getting credit, but this got lost when someone else shared it. No bad intentions on Adam’s part, just an error now set right. Too bad about the spam filter, though.
HumboldtBlue
If we’re talking matzo, where Shtisel was good
Unorthodoxwas even better.weasel
@Adam L Silverman: ok, lesson for the day; beer out of nose hurts more than coffee out of nose. Off to flip through the latest Monkey Ward catalogue now…
James E Powell
@Adam L Silverman:
So Cole is keeping all those Soros bucks to himself? Probably spending it on high-end critter food.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
IOW, ‘monetized’ doesn’t mean much. In this sense, practically the whole frickin’ Internet is ‘monetized.’ And very little of it is making money. Anyway, let’s quote Ms. Simpson:
She says that because we take a few bucks in ads to defray some small part of the cost of keeping this site going, any mention of her here needs to be accompanied by our pushing business in her direction.
And:
iANAL, but I’m guessing that’s a big NO raised to the NO’th power.
Plagiarism is when you pass off someone else’s work as your own. I am sure Adam did not do that, especially given what he’s been through.
And finally, it sounds from what Adam said that it takes more than a minute or two to explain how to do a reverse image search. The fact that such searches exist doesn’t mean that most people know how to do one; I bet the vast majority of Internet users have no idea how to do one, precisely because it appears to involve real work on Adam’s part to explain these to us.
So it seems a bit much to me for someone to expect this as part of due diligence on the part of a site that’s only ‘monetized’ in a very trivial sense.
And if being ‘monetized’ like this opens this site up to any sort of legal obligation or liability (which Ms. Simpson seems to imply), then I for one would be happy to chip in to help pay for getting rid of the ads. Better that than this site having to lawyer up if something like this should happen again.
something fabulous
Seems weird it’s been at 61 comments for a while? test test?
John Revolta
@something fabulous: Mighty quiet out there………………….
mrmoshpotato
@something fabulous: What is it – Sunday night? You sleeping slackers!
(back to Last Week Tonight)
something fabulous
@John Revolta:
@mrmoshpotato:
Heh. Left Coast Brigade (of Mostly-Lurkers Squadron) here– Sundays are usually as jumping as any other time, seems to me! The holiday maybe? Will take as a sign I should try to go to sleep some time before 4am and see what happens. Have a good night, y’all!
Jay
So yesterday BC broke it’s previous Covid cases, set the day before.
We have a security door. Have to be buzzed in, or out.
It’s a PITA, , so, when we are busy, like from now until November, we get in the habit of propping it open,
So, two Maskholes came in, when I was by myself. ( Propped open door meant they could avoid the “greeters”,( and two actual customers)
Fuckheads tried to interrupt other customers ahead of them in line.
I just said ‘ mask, mask, mask, pointed to the free masks, 10-12 times, while they pretended to ignore me, then chased them out of the store.
One tried to “front me” in the fucking parking lot.
I was not polite.
So, for the next couple of weeks, I have to watch my six.
Fucking, fucking maskholes.
I don’t get paid enough for this shit.
If the assholes come back, I am curbing them in the parking lot.
Gvg
@Adam L Silverman: no problem, another poster did a link which seems to have instructions, so I added it to my reading list. I have hopes other people may add some more later. I probably won’t try it out till after work tonight.
debbie
And another gray area of the Internet has been found. ??♀️
zhena gogolia
@karen marie:
That was my reaction too.
zhena gogolia
@DCA:
Yes, calling this “plagiarism” is a bit much, IMO. I’m glad it’s been corrected, but really.
J R in WV
@NotMax:
Cole is on staff in some fashion at WVU — I’m not sure he is actually paid for adopting a fraternity at Bethany. Might get volunteer help doing heavy lifting on mulch, willow trees etc.
J R in WV
I visited Ms Simpson’s twitter stream, she is a very funny person.
I bet Adam sends her every penny he earned for that Passover post… ;~{ )
Hannah Simpson deserves to become a well known name in the funny business — asap !!
The end of my funny business on a roll …