Althouse: Responding to a customer complaint, the official US Airways Twitter feed sends out a picture of a naked woman holding a toy plane.

April 15, 2014

Responding to a customer complaint, the official US Airways Twitter feed sends out a picture of a naked woman holding a toy plane.

"The tweet was deleted after approximately an hour but not before it had been retweeted hundreds of times."

I'm linking to BBC.com, where the story is ranked as #1 on the sidebar "Most Popular" list under the teaser "US Airways apologises for porn tweet."

Come on, the tweet was incredibly foolish — and a good reminder of the inherent danger of relying on some lower-down writer-drudge to man the Twitter feed — but it was not porn. A photograph of a naked person isn't porn.

Wait! I was relying on the BBC description of the photograph: "a naked woman and a toy plane." Then, I went looking for the photograph. I must say that it is porn. (NSFW: here.) The woman is holding the plane in a very special place.

ADDED: And by NSFW, I mean not safe for anybody.

39 comments:

Bill R said...: I notice it's a jumbo jet.; 4/15/14, 7:08 AM
Paco Wové said...: Well, that's an early morning eye-opener.

Usually when I think of a person holding things, it's with their hands. Very provincial and flyoverish of me, I know.; 4/15/14, 7:08 AM
Illuninati said...: As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words."; 4/15/14, 7:11 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I introduced the word "holding," making an assumption from "a naked woman and a toy plane" that the woman was holding the plane. Based on that mental image, I wanted to say, don't call that porn….; 4/15/14, 7:17 AM
DrSquid said...: "USAir to tower, we have the runway in sight."; 4/15/14, 7:17 AM
gratefulgee said...: Moments earlier she thought, "Well all right..." http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B000001FDI/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_0?ie=UTF8&index=0; 4/15/14, 7:25 AM
Curious George said...: Unfortunately the mystery around the whereabouts of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is solved.; 4/15/14, 7:25 AM
rhhardin said...: 777s have battery problems.; 4/15/14, 7:27 AM
David said...: Nice going Althouse. You know it when you see it.; 4/15/14, 7:28 AM
rhhardin said...: They also muffed a landing at LGA recently.; 4/15/14, 7:31 AM
Mark said...: Not that special, really.; 4/15/14, 7:37 AM
MadisonMan said...: You think the twitter manager is in hot water?; 4/15/14, 7:39 AM
Tank said...: Where would you get a picture like that?

Does everyone have one?

I guess they do ... now.; 4/15/14, 7:43 AM
Mark said...: They lost radar contact with the plane, but found it using ultrasound.; 4/15/14, 7:44 AM
campy said...: "If we find my car we can drive out!"; 4/15/14, 7:46 AM
rhhardin said...: It's not properly porn, just NSFW. The airplane joke is the point of it.; 4/15/14, 7:55 AM
RMc said...: Somebody gettin' fired.; 4/15/14, 7:57 AM
rhhardin said...: Sources (Bernard McGuirk) say it was a "They found the plane" joke, referring to MH370.

CNN ought to be covering it.; 4/15/14, 8:16 AM
Big Mike said...: "Pornography is a question of geography."

--- from the play "Teahouse of the August Moon"; 4/15/14, 8:47 AM
Patrick said...: Landing strip?; 4/15/14, 8:59 AM
Anonymous said...: Ew. Way too early in am to see that.

That wasn't "a mistake". That was just someone's way of calling the woman a bitch.; 4/15/14, 9:02 AM
Oso Negro said...: Oh no! That jet gash landed!; 4/15/14, 9:09 AM
Sofa King said...: 100 bucks says this is a copy/paste error. Twitter grunt gets DM'ed a tweet with a NSFW photo. Twitter grunt copies and pastes the link into something else, a new private tweet or something, and goes back to work. Twitter grunt attempts to copy a link to the feedback page and fails without realizing it. Doesn't notice he is pasting the previous link in the tweet.; 4/15/14, 9:11 AM
Strelnikov said...: The original description of the photo brought to mind the cover of Blind Faith's self titled album. Wrong.; 4/15/14, 9:17 AM
Strelnikov said...: "If we find my car we can drive out!"

Version I've always heard it was a semi-truck.; 4/15/14, 9:18 AM
Anonymous said...: Someone has just lost his job.; 4/15/14, 9:36 AM
Wince said...: It looks like a Brazilian Airlines jet.; 4/15/14, 9:36 AM
Renee said...: Thanks for the warning....; 4/15/14, 9:36 AM
Curious George said...: "You're gonna need a bigger plane"; 4/15/14, 9:41 AM
Sam L. said...: Yup, porn it is.; 4/15/14, 9:46 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "The original description of the photo brought to mind the cover of Blind Faith's self titled album. Wrong."

Yeah! Me too.

It's what gratefulgee is pointing to as well.; 4/15/14, 9:48 AM
rhhardin said...: I deduced as a kid that nude females without shown labia and all nude males are art, from a quick survey of galleries.

Labia may be creeping into art now that I'm no longer checking galleries.

Maybe prudes got rid of all the classical labia art so there isn't any surviving.

Pictures of nude females would presumably follow the same rules.; 4/15/14, 10:43 AM
Tom said...: Cockpit. That is all...; 4/15/14, 10:46 AM
Strelnikov said...: I've seen specialer places.; 4/15/14, 11:10 AM
Strelnikov said...: "Moments earlier she thought, "Well all right..." http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B000001FDI/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_0?ie=UTF8&index=0"

Unfortunately, this plane has found it's way home.; 4/15/14, 11:12 AM
n.n said...: It's not only pornographic, but hardcore. There is an unmistakeable emphasis of parts over attributes.; 4/15/14, 2:58 PM
Meade said...: Breechcraft.; 4/16/14, 7:50 AM
Joe said...: A friend's BYU art teacher once observed that the difference between art and porn is that if it's out of focus, it's art.; 4/16/14, 3:22 PM
Joe said...: I'd fire the person for having such horrible taste in women. Especially since I was looking forward to a retro photograph of an attractive nude stewardess holding an airplane.; 4/16/14, 3:23 PM