Like everything on Wikipedia, it's a communal thing that's decided by consensus based on preference and guidelines. In this case, here are reasons why the image wouldn't be selected over the existing one:
- The image in the OP likely isn't released under a compatible free license (rule of thumb is that CC BY-SA is the most strict you can use). As the subject is living or suitable free alternatives exist (in this case, both), it cannot be argued as fair use (even if it were fair use, the image's resolution would be heavily scaled down). This would preempt anything else and immediately disqualify it.
- The current image has only Ratner center frame against a plain background, whereas the image in the OP has Ratner off to the side with three other people against a cluttered background. A portion of Ratner's face is hidden behind a woman's hair, whereas most of it is captured in the current image.
- The image in the OP has distracting digital markup – block censorship and an unnecessary red circle around Ratner's face (the red circle would be left to the caption, something like "Brett Ratner (right)").
- The lighting in the OP is much worse than in the current image and even gives the subject red-eye.
- The OP image is both lower-resolution and captures less of the subject's detail.
- The image in the OP would violate neutral point of view (NPOV) by nature of intentionally using an image whose depiction of the subject is worse in every way just to get him in frame with Jeffrey Epstein.
For a living person, the considerations are mostly what you'd expect for any other application, namely: is the copyright compatible? is it neutral? does it capture the subject well? is it well-composed? it it high-resolution? since the subject is alive, is it fairly recent in order to capture how they look now? does it capture how the subject typically looks and/or something the subject is known for? Here's what the Manual of Style has to say on image selection broadly.
