Ducks In Public Viewing: What You See Is What You Get

Two unrelated instances that say something (open to interpretations of course). Both are somewhat quirky in the sense that one largely goes un-noticed installed in a prominent place in front of the Main Street entrance to the City of Mesa's 8-story City Hall building that you can see here > 10 May 2016

New Series: Inter-Active Public Art #4 > QUACKERS @ City Hall



Let's have fun and play this with a straight-face, what you see is what you get or is it more, open to different interpretations?
It is remarkable that out of all the possible selections for a public bronze sculpture in front of Mesa City Hall by the cascading water that harks back to the pre-history origins of irrigation canals hand-dug by the indigenous people Hohokam and later exploited and advanced by the Mormon Pioneers who "founded" this city in 1878, what we get permanently installed in waymaking is this piece-of-work by an artist from Loveland, Colorado dedicated in 2004 . . . not a local artist and with no roots here where irrigation created rich agricultural lands fertile for early economic developments and expansion of suburban sprawl. A small child feeding crackers to two ducks. What are your interpretations of the piece?
Front-handed and back-handed dealings in City Hall antics? Or just what it is?

Here's the word-by-word description from the source indicated below:
This sculpture depicts a small boy holding a cracker toward a duck.
At the same time, the boy is holding a cracker behind his back that is being bitten by a different duck.
The sculpture was inspired by Nathan, the son of sculptor Mike Dwyer, who likes to interact with small animals.

The sculpture was purchased through the City of Mesa's Permanent Sculpture Panel and was dedicated in April 2004.
The sculpture can be visited 24 hours a day on the Northeast corner of Main St. and Center St. in downtown Mesa, AZ.
With this added:
Visit Instructions:
Please upload at least one photo of the sculpture and tell us a little about your impressions of the piece. Additional photos are always appreciated.

BLOGGER NOTE: Installation was made one year before then City Manager Mike Hutchinson chose to retire after 5 years in office.

In January 2006 current City Manager Chris Brady took his place continuing in the job as the city's chief executive officer for more than 15 years.

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And another one that was a public spectable during the confirmation hearings for the nomination of a candidate for a Supreme Court Justice >

Content Moderation Case Study: Understanding Cultural Context To Detect Satire (2020)

Content Moderation

from the she's-a-witch,-burn-her dept

Wed, Dec 30th 2020 3:36pm — Copia Institute

Summary: During the somewhat controversial Senate confirmation hearings for the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, there were a few moments that gained extra attention, including a confrontation between Senator Mazie Hirono and the nominee concerning statements regarding LGBTQ rights that Barrett had made in the past. Hirono, who had separately called the hearings themselves illegitimate, was then criticized by traditionally right-leaning media for what they felt was overly aggressive questioning.

The satirical site The Babylon Bee, which frequently targets Democrats for satirization, published a piece roughly parodying a famous Monty Python sketch in which villagers in a medieval town try to determine if someone is a witch, including by weighing them to see if they weigh the same as a duck. The Babylon Bee took that sketch’s premise and ran a satirical article claiming that Hirono demanded that Barrett be weighed against a duck.

Facebook had the article removed, saying that it was “inciting violence.” The Babylon Bee appealed the decision, only to be told that upon a further “manual” review, Facebook had decided that its original analysis stood, and that the article “incites violence.”

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One take-away is what-you-see is way more than what you get at first glance. . .

Let's dig into it all

"Resolution: As the tweet from The Babylon Bee’s CEO started to go viral, leading to another round of news coverage in traditionally right-wing focused publications, Facebook eventually apologized and said that the moderation decision (and the manual review) were a mistake.

"This was a mistake and we apologize that it happened. Satire can be difficult for our systems to identify, but we've restored the article and their ability to monetize," a Facebook spokesperson told Fox News.

As often happens in these situations, the CEO of the Babylon Bee insisted that this response was implausible, apparently believing that everyone would recognize the cultural references his site’s article was making use of for satire.

"Why did it have to take getting the media involved to fix this? And why did it happen in the first place?" Dillon asked in response to Facebook. "This was not just an algorithm flagging an article in error. Yes, that happened. But then a manual review took place and the ruling to penalize us was upheld. I notice they left that part out."

Originally posted to the Trust & Safety Foundation website.

Filed Under: amy coney barrett, content moderation, mazie hirono, monty python, satire
Companies: babylon bee, facebook