Nudity on AOL UK

The "new" AOL UK home page (same old page, if you use AOL.com) soft-launched May 14th. AOL was so pumped they added a direct link to it from their Corporate press release. That's right: they couldn't wait for UK mums to gasp as kids viewed naked women in seductive poses on AOL UK. No other web company would feature nudity on a home page viewed by millions of people each day but this is AOL we're talking about - anything for an ad dollar, I suppose.

Terribly indecent for the AOL UK home page, don't you think?

Click image for full-size uncensored version - possibly NSFW.

Naked chicks on AOL UK Home Page - CENSORED

I wouldn't want my kids looking at that - would you?

I didn't get in - and stay in - until late on the 14th so I only got one screen grab. It's not full screen or terribly clear (I've cropped and expanded the "money shot" and I'm including the original to prove it's not a product of my editing skills but the real thing). If anyone has bigger/better screen grabs feel free to give us a peek - I checked The WayBack Machine hoping to grab better shots but they stopped indexing AOL UK in 2008.

I don't know how many days the risque photo montage remained online. The same spot on the page now links to a parenting site. Does that surprise anyone? I'd imagine enough complaints poured in that AOL had no choice but to replace naked tree-climbing women with staid-looking parents - the same parents who wouldn't want their kids viewing gratuitous nudity on AOL.

If you catch nudity on AOL's home page (in the UK, the US or India - doesn't matter) and can't wait to share it hit me up on email or leave a comment (if leaving a comment, no inline images - hyperlinks only, please).

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Posted on May. 20th, 2009 at 09:14 pm | | Leave a Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Comments

(Anonymous)

Doesn't Surprise Me...

AOL's in a desperate position of squeezing any additional page views and clicks, that their editorial review team is no where to be found and probably muted at best.

While adult content is certainly not illegal to display, it's a matter of experience, ethics and consumer advocacy to place barriers to minimize access to minors.

I imagine that this was simply a gaffe in managing the content on the page. Big Bowl, their god-awful in-house CMS, has a difficult interface and clearly someone pasted in the wrong thumbnail image. But for why did they request that image? It's been my experience that the AOL Photo team would probably confirm whether they wanted to display T & A before sending it live to the content editor... Surely, someone with sound judgment was laid off recently. If I recall, they now outsource the licensed photo content to India. Again, not surprised that they made an error in judging the appropriateness of such content. Of all things, on the homepage.

Nudity itself is not the problem. It's the appropriateness for the audience. If AOL had a legitimized a premium adult access area (through partnership with Playboy, perhaps), they could rake in even more page views, provide and enforce age verification and even generate more revenue. Will it happen? Not likely. But if they did, I just might have respect for AOL for reaching out and meeting the needs of their adult audience and monetizing it, even if it's 14 years late to the porn game.

"AOL: What would you do for a page view?"
Posted on Jun. 3rd, 2009 07:02 am (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: Doesn't Surprise Me...

"Nudity itself is not the problem. It's the appropriateness for the audience."

Exactly.
Posted on Jun. 8th, 2009 08:38 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]rake_blackguard

That image would not be considered risque in the UK. For example, flaccid penises and bared breasts are seen on the news and on commercials all the time.

Dump your moral hysteria, it doesn't suit you.
Posted on Jul. 5th, 2009 09:40 am (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

How do you know what does or doesn't suit me? To some extent I'm a prude, especially when it comes to The Children, who, as far as I'm concerned, must not hear or speak foul language nor see nudity anywhere except on their own bodies until they are at least 14 years old. Is that unrealistic? Maybe. Does it make me a classic American prude? Of course! Do you think I give a damn if that bothers you? Not at all.

Be careful of what you say next, sweetie; I can and will ban you in an instant.

Edited at 2009-07-05 04:11 pm (UTC)
Posted on Jul. 5th, 2009 04:09 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

And since you turned your critique from American values vs. British values into a personal attack, I'll go back to the point you were trying to make before you lost it: that the uncensored version of the photo above would not raise a brow in the UK since over there it's quite common to see naked body parts on TV and in other forms of graphic media. Does that mean that as a British "mum" you don't mind your children seeing such nudity, whether it is tasteful or tasteless? Does the fact that it's so common over there to see nudity make seeing it right?

You're arguing with someone who didn't watch TV for 10 years because I was so disgusted with the supposedly puritanical, FCC-controlled American version of it - do you know where my TV would have gone in Britain during those same years? Right out the nearest window. I do not compromise *my* values simply because society seems to dictate I should.

Edited at 2009-07-05 04:36 pm (UTC)
Posted on Jul. 5th, 2009 04:19 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

And one more thing, Rake Black Sheep or whatever your name is: that was the first and last time AOL UK ran a picture of naked women on the home page, so you tell me some sort of fuss wasn't put up right away. There is a comment above yours and I know who wrote it because he's a friend of mine who worked for AOL who was visiting my blog that day, and even *he* said it had to be a snafu, that even AOL UK wouldn't *normally* put a picture like that on the home page...that it must have just slid past them somehow. Are we quite done with this topic, or do you still have something else to say?

Edited at 2009-07-05 04:37 pm (UTC)
Posted on Jul. 5th, 2009 04:24 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]rake_blackguard

So, what you could do with one reply you still manage to fail to do with three?

God you're pathetic.
Posted on Jul. 5th, 2009 10:41 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

I considered condensing all my thoughts into one reply but I didn't feel like it. That's the nice thing about having my own blog - I can use 30 replies to say what I want, or 103. If you had any reading comprehension at all you would realize you're the one who's pathetic for having nothing better to do than spout senseless bullshit at me. Instead of coming uninvited to my blog to get your tiny rocks off by trying to bother me (it's not working- I'm about to get a lot happier than you are right now and you're NOT), why don't you run along like a good boy and go get hit by a truck?
Posted on Jul. 6th, 2009 03:30 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]rake_blackguard

"Senseless?" You're the one losing her shit about a little nudity, WHILE moaning "oh won't someone think of the children."

"(it's not working- I'm about to get a lot happier than you are right now and you're NOT)"

Good for you, sweetcheeks. Good for you.
Posted on Jul. 6th, 2009 07:27 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

No, you're wrong: you're the one losing his shit over me writing about a little nudity.

You don't know me yet somehow you presume my "moral hysteria" plays into it. It's not my "moral hysteria", it's "my values", and even if it was my "moral hysteria", you have no right to personally attack me over it - say what you want about what I wrote, but keep your personal insults out if it.

You really lost it big-time because I have friends who have said the same thing you said about this post, but I could not approach your comment as neutrally as I did theirs; they didn't attack me for suffering from "moral hysteria"; you did. I don't like being attacked.

I am disgusted with the the idea of children seeing gratuitous nudity online or off either here or overseas, regardless of my morally-challenged friends who may happen to agree the UK is much "looser" overall. I am also disgusted by skanky strangers like you calling me "sweetcheeks" because I apparently have more of an offline life than you do.

Anything else?

Edited at 2009-07-07 04:06 am (UTC)
Posted on Jul. 6th, 2009 12:27 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Also, since I assume LJ won't send you notifications of such things, you are now banned from commenting here. Take your riff-raff commenting style somewhere else (how 'bout my other LJ so I can ban you again?).

Edited at 2009-07-07 05:05 pm (UTC)
Posted on Jul. 7th, 2009 05:04 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

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