Statement regarding the Popular Vote Award
MedFoto is a competition that aims to educate, disseminate and make people aware of the importance of conserving and preserving the Mediterranean through photography. The competition organisation has a jury made of six experts to award the prizes in the different categories, special prizes and the absolute prize.
With the aim of reaching the maximum public and disseminating the photographs so that they can act as educators and raise awareness of these values of respect for our sea, we are organising the Popular Voting Award. And we do it through a social network with millions of followers: Instagram. We are convinced that this is one more channel of dissemination to achieve MedFoto’s objectives: to raise awareness and promote the conservation and protection of our marine environment.
However, a Popular Vote Award must be fair and respond to the will of the participating public. We understand and encourage authors to share their finalist photo online and ask their friends and their friends of friends to vote for it.
However, this year we have observed sudden increases in “Likes”, coming from users likely to be fake profiles, without an associated outreach campaign by the author, and which clearly fits the characteristics of a “Like” purchase. A dishonest decision that disrespects our audience and that we cannot accept.
We think it isn’t fair for the rest of the participants to continue with the voting process for the award. For this reason, the organization of the contest has decided to suspend the Popular Vote Award.
We deeply regret the way this year’s voting for this award has been conducted. For this reason, with a view to the next edition, the organisation will evaluate whether to maintain the Popular Votie Award as well as the channel through which the photographs are publicly judged.
In L’Escala, on July 9, 2024,
MedFoto 2024 Organizing Committee
