Why do people only block out eyes in “anonymous” photos?

r/

I see a lot on Reddit pages people only block out eyes I mean I don’t understand the point if you’re still showing the rest of your Face I feel like I’d still be able to find you in Walmart

Comments

  1. ZookeepergameTiny515 Avatar

    “I’d still be able to find you in Walmart” is striking me as super funny rn lol nice

  2. Maleficent_Rise4068 Avatar

    I agree, especially now that technology makes it so easy to search the web for facial recognition matches. Even if you’ve aged or gained a ton of weight, it can still figure out who you are.

  3. Mind_Ronin Avatar

    True, but it’s unlikely you would be able to find me in a Target.

  4. oby100 Avatar

    The picture is kind of unusable when the eyes are blocked out. It’s far from perfect, but there’s always a chance a pic gets some popularity or is simply stolen and used for commercial means. Not likely if it’s an incomplete view of a face.

  5. EPalmighty Avatar

    Your eyes are such an important part of facial recognition to humans. I bet you can recognize a ton of celebrities based on their eyes alone, as opposed to their cheeks or mouth even. So if you block out the eyes it becomes really hard to recognize one someone.

  6. MrPresident20241S Avatar

    I mean maybe but I know I personally would have a hard time, especially in the sense that you aren’t actively looking for something or someone you saw in a Reddit photo out in public.

  7. Diligent-Depth-4002 Avatar

    bigger question is : Why so many news media keep hiding criminals face? sometimes pixelate the whole person

  8. Suoritin Avatar

    Also censoring face isn’t enough. There was a documentary where they baited online predators and censored faces but people were still able to figure who they were.

    It is weird that we think face is our identity even when tattoos might be more useful identifier.

    edit: documentary is “Caught in the Net”

  9. 69wordsperminute Avatar

    The feeling of privacy is more important than actual privacy in most instances.

  10. DrEnter Avatar

    Obviously it’s so the person in the picture can’t see you.

  11. some-dork Avatar

    eyes are really important to properly identifying a likeness. I do portraiture (as in paint portraits of people) and trust me when i say the eyes are one of the most critical and hardest parts of the face to get right.

    It also probably keeps you from being able to reverse search the person’s likeness. Say I post a photo with my face in it on an anon site like tumblr or reddit. That photo could potentially be reverse searched to find, say, a photo of me with similar lighting on a friend’s instagram, which could then be connected to my instagram, thus my government name, college, family, hometown, etc (a lot more personal information i’d ever want connected to my anon socials lol)

  12. Morpheyz Avatar

    If you know the person, you may be able to figure out who it is, especially if you’re narrowing down the choices. “Is this Steve?”, you maybe able to answer that easily, even with eyes blocked out. But people are really bad at remembering unknown faces based on facial features. For people we don’t know, we heavily rely on “external” features like haircuts.

  13. superdas75 Avatar

    I laugh when they block out the eyes of someone with facial tattoos