Unbelievable "edit" by Microsoft

binarysoul

Wow!!!

I'm shocked!!!!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft in web photo racism row

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

HeroPsycho

Sometimes I don't even understand why companies do that kind of thing.

dynamik

HeroPsycho wrote: »

Sometimes I don't even understand why companies do that kind of thing.

You realize the Polish are the ones that did it, right?

wd40

The thing that I like about Microsoft is that they do not care about politics, they spotted a mistake and apologized for it, they can not keep track of all advertisements and all employees all over the world.

GAngel

What's there to get worked up over. Every company markets to individual regions specifically.

Stupid mistake but not earth shaking.

binarysoul

GAngel wrote: »

What's there to get worked up over. Every company markets to individual regions specifically.

Stupid mistake but not earth shaking.

We must ask an intriguing question? What was wrong with the original photo?

Certainly not earth shaking, but why they didn't use another picture altogether? Nowadays even 2 year olds have digital cameras, so I don't understand why they couldn't take another picture with their desired faces in it?

msteinhilber

How many Polish people does it take to.... err nevermind

GAngel

binarysoul wrote: »

We must ask an intriguing question? What was wrong with the original photo?

Certainly not earth shaking, but why they didn't use another picture altogether? Nowadays even 2 year olds have digital cameras, so I don't understand why they couldn't take another picture with their desired faces in it?

I'd put that's down to someone not doing there job not MS being racist.

As for the original photo poland's black population is under 1% I believe so the picture wouldn't exactly be a good representation of who would work at an MS branch there. That's a guess i don't really know and don't really care if they had 3 white 3 black or 3 anything on the photo. As long as any company doesn't practise discretionary hiring like that how they advertise is not my business.

djhss68

That's a horrible photoshop.

networker050184

They should have at least changed his hand too.

blargoe

If they were going to change the guy's head to market to the Polish, they coulda made the guy look more Polish.

JDMurray

The group responsible at MS probably ran it by a Polish marketing consultant who recommended that the photo be altered to be more appealing to potential MS customers in Poland. I'm sure there was no intent to denigrate any race, as doing such things tends to have a negative influence on share holder value.

dynamik

JDMurray wrote: »

The group responsible at MS probably ran it by a Polish marketing consultant who recommended that the photo be altered to be more appealing to potential MS customers in Poland. I'm sure there was no intent to denigrate any race, as doing such things tends to have a negative influence on share holder value.

This

ilcram19-2

humans still amaze me

WilliamK99

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7308/microsoftlocalisation.jpg

This one has the Wookies all outraged!

tribe_menx

Still prefer my face there

dynamik

The Gary Busey one has been my favorite so far:

binarysoul

dynamik wrote: »

The Gary Busey one has been my favorite so far:

Simply amazing

I can't stop laughing!

GT-Rob

^ omg that made my day. Its funny how bored nerds on the internet can do a better photoshop than the marketing team at Microsoft.

skrpune

WilliamK99 wrote: »

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/7308/microsoftlocalisation.jpg

This one has the Wookies all outraged!

at least the photoshopping on that one is good...the original photoshopping of that white guy's head is awful!

UnixGuy

That's so ignorant...

WilliamK99

UnixGuy wrote: »

That's so ignorant...

Why? Microsoft did nothing wrong....

The marketing team in Poland edited the ad to suit their clientle seeing as less than 1% of the population in Poland is black.

The only thing that was done wrong was they used a 6 year old to photoshop the thing...

UnixGuy

WilliamK99 wrote: »

Why? Microsoft did nothing wrong....

The marketing team in Poland edited the ad to suit their clientle seeing as less than 1% of the population in Poland is black.

The only thing that was done wrong was they used a 6 year old to photoshop the thing...

??

I obviously meant the picture, and THEY whoever they are who did it.

blargoe

As someone on slashdot said, how hard would it have been to just take another effing picture with some actual Polish people in it. Really.

msteinhilber

blargoe wrote: »

As someone on slashdot said, how hard would it have been to just take another effing picture with some actual Polish people in it. Really.

Not to defend the move at all (I'm on the fence on it), but I can see the perspective from the manager in charge of the advertisement for that region.

New shoot with Polish people in it:

Professional photographer - $X
Models to sit the shoot - $X
Facility to shoot at - $X (if not already available)
Props in the shoot (desk, chairs, etc) - $X (if not already available)
Time and logistics planning - $X

Photoshop the existing shoot:

Someone familiar with Photoshop - $X

networker050184

msteinhilber wrote: »

Not to defend the move at all (I'm on the fence on it), but I can see the perspective from the manager in charge of the advertisement for that region.

New shoot with Polish people in it:

Professional photographer - $X
Models to sit the shoot - $X
Facility to shoot at - $X (if not already available)
Props in the shoot (desk, chairs, etc) - $X (if not already available)
Time and logistics planning - $X

Photoshop the existing shoot:

Someone familiar with Photoshop - $X

Getting caught in the act - priceless

Lizano

If they had taken the two white guys out and replaced them for two black guys for some site in Nigeria or some other other with majorly black population, this would not be in the news...

Solaris_UNIX

Lizano wrote: »

If they had taken the two white guys out and replaced them for two black guys for some site in Nigeria or some other other with majorly black population, this would not be in the news...

Did anybody even notice that the original Microsoft USA photo had no white / Caucasian people in it? Take a look at it more closely. It has an Asian American guy on the left, an African-American guy in the middle, and a Latina / Hispanic woman on the right, and I guess the fact that no one was "outraged" by it means that there are no people of European descent working in Microsoft IT jobs, am I right?

Also, I doubt that Asian Americans would have been angered at all if the Asian American guy had been photo-shopped out.

Solaris_UNIX

Also, I think if the government is going to attempt enforce things like political correctness and affirmative action, it's only logical to enforce it universally- in all fields, and all careers, including PROFESSIONAL SPORTS.

If 75% of the people who live in Southern California are Hispanic, then it logically follows from the politically correct axiom that 75% of the people who play on NBA basketball teams in SoCal should also be of Hispanic descent as well. How good you are at actually playing basketball should not be a factor in determining whether or not you make the team. Not having at least 50% of the people who play for the L.A. Lakers be of Hispanic descent is "politically incorrect", don't you think? We should all be outraged! It might even be a sign that there is severe discrimination against people of Asian-American, European-American and Jewish-American descent in the National Basketball Association (!).

There's also rampant discrimination against short people, blind people, deaf people, and midgets in both the NBA and the NFL. How many people are there who are under 3 feet tall that play professional basketball or pro-football? I think there should be a "politically correct" law that at least 10% of the people who play professional basketball in the NBA should either be midgets or be blind / deaf, and if any team doesn't meet their "midget quota" then they should not be allowed to play in the NBA. What do you guys think?

When you take these politically correct laws and try to enforce them in an area like professional sports it shows how patently absurd this all is... Well, I'm off to go photoshop some Asian American and Hispanic American heads on pictures of basketball teams....

Plantwiz

blargoe wrote: »

If they were going to change the guy's head to market to the Polish, they coulda made the guy look more Polish.

What exactly does a Polish person look like?

How do you know that man isn't Polish? How do you know the other two are?

Changing their marketing photos is no different then when individuals (and several of us recommend to the job seekers that they should do the following) make your resume attractive to the company you are applying to...you are selling yourself when you submit a resume...MS is selling their image/products when they advertise.

blargoe

I would have used "Air quotes" around "Polish" if I could... I did mentally anyway. Yes, of course I don't know whether any of the people in the first or second picture are Polish in the legal sense. None of them look like what comes to mind when you think "eastern European ancestry"... is that better?

I don't dig all the fake outrage over this, I just think they should have known that someone would catch the switcheroo and try to stick it to the evil empire so to speak.