The AP will not auction off the NFT of “migrants drifting in an overcrowded boat in the Mediterranean,” as it had planned to on Friday, after many complaints that the auction was a blatant attempt to profit from human suffering. The NFT marketplace it launched at the end of January, however, remains up and running.

People really, really don’t like this AP monetization strategy. It also, imho, undermines the rationale for the legal protections granted to photojournalists capturing the likenesses of strangers without either obtaining their consent or sharing the proceeds with them. pic.twitter.com/pVAKQp4kOs

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) February 24, 2022

The AP deleted the tweet sent at 2 PM on Thursday about the auction. “This was a poor choice of imagery for an NFT. It has not and will not be put up for auction,” Lauren Easton, AP’s director of media relations, told me in an email.

She added: “AP’s NFT marketplace is a very early pilot program, and we are immediately reviewing our efforts. As a not-for-profit, AP’s mission is to inform the world with accurate, unbiased journalism. That remains our primary focus.”

The AP launched its NFP photography marketplace at the end of January with the “white-label NFT marketplace” company Xoaa. “NFT price points will vary,” a press release noted at the time. “As a not-for-profit news cooperative, proceeds go back into funding factual, unbiased AP journalism.”

Two “commemorative NFTs” by Anja Niedringhaus — the German AP photojournalist who was killed in Afghanistan in 2014, and a 2007 Nieman Fellow — were auctioned off this week at 0.66 ETH, about $1789, each.

NFTs purchased through the AP’s site can be resold there, with the AP taking a 10% fee “inclusive of payment processor fees.” The AP sold another Anja Niedringhaus NFT, “Splash in Kabul,” for $1,799 3 days ago; that buyer is now trying to resell it for 532 ETH — roughly $1.4 million, at the moment.

An NFT of Noah Berger’s “Marsh Fire,” first bought for $399, is being resold for 35.52 ETH, or about $99,999 at the moment.

Here’s a good thread filled with screenshots from the AP staff’s official Discord, where staffers expressed dismay over the migrant boat NFT and the program in general. “Clearly what happened tonight doesn’t have to do with whether the photographers are consenting,” one wrote, after it was made clear that AP photographers have to actively agree to have their work in the program. “It has to do with the consent of the people in the boat, and whether a video of them should be turned into a commodity. How are you deciding what photos get turned into NFTs and do you even recognize that something went wrong here other than that you went viral?”

Associated Press staff in the AP’s official Discord, following their tweet offering to sell NFTs of a video of migrants in a boat at sea:
“All photographers are consulted and are active participants in the project,” adds that it funds the AP’s journalism, photographer gets a cut. pic.twitter.com/kh1Q4Hw31I

— Tony Webster (@webster) February 25, 2022

Here’s the AP’s blockchain/NFT strategy director answering more questions on their public Discord chat about the AP’s offering of an NFT of a video of migrants in a boat at sea: pic.twitter.com/mi3z1GZ9m0

— Tony Webster (@webster) February 25, 2022