The Associated Press Wanted to Sell an NFT of Video of Migrants Adrift at Sea ⇥ web3isgoinggreat.com

Molly White, in her excellent Web3 is Going Just Great project:

However, on February 24 they announced that their newest NFT would show a short, top-down video of around fifty migrants crammed into a small inflatable boat, adrift at sea in the Mediterranean. Any goodwill the AP might have had for their NFT project was likely shattered by their choice to monetize a video of human suffering. The already horrific NFT announcement was particularly ill-timed, given its juxtaposition on many Twitter feeds amongst news of Russian military action against Ukraine. The Associated Press deleted the announcement tweet four hours later.

When I first saw a screenshot of this tweeted by Rob Sheridan, I could barely believe it was real, but it was. The AP really decided it would be a fantastic idea to sell the ownership — in whatever bizarre way an NFT constitutes “ownership” — of a video of migrants escaping their homeland.

The Associated Press:

We deleted an earlier tweet promoting an upcoming NFT auction. This was a poor choice of imagery for an NFT. It has not and will not be put up for auction.

No shit. Consider that at least a few people were surely involved in this process: someone to operate the NFT auction, a social media person to write the tweet, and some managers along the way. This is a clearly terrible idea that somehow sailed through the approvals process because, I guess, the lure of NFTs is simply too good to second-guess the humanity of the situation.