News commentary

The Napalm Girl Standard

The Verge · Som-Mai Nguyen · last updated

Note: The disturbing image that is the subject of this story is fully displayed in the original article.

How the war’s most horrific photograph is now a litmus test for free speech in the era of social media.

It’s a photo you may have already seen. Captured in stark black and white, several Vietnamese children run down a road, flanked by soldiers. In the left foreground, there is a crying child whose mouth is contorted. But the viewer’s eye drifts toward the center and the main subject of the photograph: a 9-year-old girl, who is naked, crying, and shrieking in agony from the burns on her body. The photograph is titled “The Terror of War,” but it is ubiquitously known as the Napalm Girl photograph.

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