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The Lena image always reminds me of this very short horror story (written in the style of a Wikipedia article)inspired by it: https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
This is the image (the one on the left): https://media.wired.com/photos/5c5354d391d0df22c1dee493/mast...

The one on the right is a recent re-creation as the model is now in her late 60s.

Big thread a couple of months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39885977
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna

Huh, I did not know that this image was supposed to be sexually suggestive.

It’s cropped from a Playboy photoshoot.

I didn’t think it was sexual to that degree. Surely knowing it’s a cropped nude was part of the allure of reusing it.

Lena Forsén explicitly prefers to retire the picture, so this should be reason enough.

This to me is the only argument about this image that stands to any scrutiny.

I happen to believe, though, that any and all information you release to the public is de facto no longer under anyone's control. This is the natural state of things and cannot be stopped, so a global optimum can only be reached in acknowledging this fact. Instead we create legal and bureaucratic fictions to try to manage and eliminate it, which only serves to disrupt and not to protect at all. I view the status quo on this (from this image to copyright) as counterproductive.

As far as I understand, she is not fighting a legal battle to outlaw the photograph. An organisation of intellectuals, such as the IEEE, can simply honour a request.

The diversity and inclusion argument: this tradition bears some similarity to locker room nudes, which don’t encourage equal participation between genders. The flipped scenario of posting a cropped Hasselhoff nude is not symmetrical. It sexualises the basic conversation about image algorithms, which is somewhat (but not entirely) besides the point. It made better sense when it was a closed group of mostly men.

Actually, through the years she was quite ambivalent on the image's use, and in fact expressed feeling a certain amount of pride. She was not coerrced into the photoshoot that produced the image in any way.

It was only when others complained about the image, that she changed her support since it seemed to be offending some people.

Sadly, wokeness really represents a major setback in sexual freedom and escape from sexual repression. This is coming from someone who "identifies" as far left. wokeness is not a progressive or leftist position, but a judgement against other's choices, similar to wing-nut positions.

This is a really great watch: The image you can't submit to journals anymore - BobbyBroccoli - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCdwm2vo09I
Even if you don’t care about the ethical reasons, the copy everyone uses has been printed and re-digitized so it isn’t a great reference in the first place. About time.
> printed and re-digitized

It was never digital to begin with

    It is a picture of the Swedish model Lena Forsén, shot by photographer Dwight Hooker, cropped from the centerfold of the November 1972 issue of Playboy magazine.
Wet film photography -> magazine centrefold reproduction was entirely sans digital in 1972.

The first digitization came later

   The engineers tore away the top third of the centerfold so they could wrap it around the drum of their Muirhead wirephoto scanner, which they had outfitted with analog-to-digital converters (one each for the red, green, and blue channels) and a Hewlett Packard 2100 minicomputer.
at 100 dpi

    The Muirhead had a fixed resolution of 100 lines per inch and the engineers wanted a 512×512 image, so they limited the scan to the top 5.12 inches of the picture, effectively cropping it at the subject's shoulders.
Which highlighs why it's been such a poor reference for more than three decades now.