Member-only story
Dear Algorithms
708. Possible trigger warning
This is a model of a duck-billed platypus which is not quite a mammal.
~
I’m so sorry I upset you with my choice of picture for my post The Plan: part 2. I understand that you’ve been taught to ban any picture which shows people without clothes on.
Didn’t you know that the clothes can come off? I mean, it would be understandable if you didn’t. Even pictures of people in showers always have a huge amount of soapsuds, so how would you realise? It must have been a very nasty shock.
I have to tell you, my dear algorithms, that you have seriously offended me.
In two ways.
The first way is the picture I chose to illustrate my post. This was chosen from Pixabay. It had no adult content warnings.
It’s a rather beautiful Old Master paining by Botticelli (1445–1510) — ‘The Birth of Venus.’
I’m not going to put it up here — you can go and find it for yourselves. It’s currently in the Uffizi gallery along with a lot of other paintings by Botticelli and it’s extremely famous.
Now it’s true that Venus (in the centre of the picture) has no clothes on — though to be fair she is coming up from the sea after a slightly strange birth from sea foam and… er… something else which…
