The Associated Press recently decided to get into the NFT game, and things are already going predictably terribly.
On Thursday, the news organization tweeted an announcement that the following day’s auction would for be a video “of migrants drifting in an overcrowded boat in the Mediterranean.”
It’s truly amazing that the AP seemed caught off guard by the backlash, which was intense and well-earned, since it sure seems like they were trying to profit off of the suffering of migrants.
The AP deleted their tweet within a few hours and announced they would not be auctioning the video after all.
In a statement made to The Wrap, the AP said this video was “a poor choice of imagery for an NFT,” and that as a “very early pilot program,” they are “immediately reviewing our efforts” regarding their NFT marketplace.
Even for a fledgling program, it’s shocking that anyone thought this could be a good idea. It looks like at least a few of the NFTs being auctioned by the AP provide a portion of profits to various charities, but there was no mention of that in regard to this video. The organization has also issued the vague statement that “As a not-for-profit news cooperative, proceeds go back into funding factual, unbiased AP journalism.”
And while removing this particular video was obviously the right call, it does not look to be the only “poor choice” in their catalogue.
In their initial press release about the foray into blockchain last month, the AP said that their “NFTs will range from space, climate, war and other images to spotlights on the work of specific AP photographers.” (Like, for example, a “Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a Jewish settler challenging Israeli security officers in the West Bank settlement of Amona” featured in that press release.)
Subjects like “climate” and “war” are going to be inherently sensitive topics and shilling fake jpegs of people in crisis was bound to be a bad look.
(image: Paramount)
