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.

[–] yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 hours ago

That's a really good explanation!

[–] BillyClark@piefed.social 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

The lighting in the OP is much worse than in the current image and even gives the subject red-eye.

Is there a rule against using filtered images? A red-eye filter is trivial, but it would still be a filter. But I think even most cameras do this automatically in portrait mode.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Is there a rule against using filtered images?

No,* although I was referring to why the image as-is couldn't be used. Images sometimes undergo minor editing for things like color correction, watermark removal, etc. It'd be preferable if the original image didn't have the red eye, but the correction isn't a huge deal. The poor lighting is the much more severe issue.

* There are different levels of "rules" on the English Wikipedia. I'd categorize them into "policies with legal considerations", policies, guidelines, the Manual of Style, and norms.

Policies are widely accepted Wikipedia standards everyone has to abide by like "verifiability"; the ones with legal considerations are even more serious like "libel".
Guidelines, like "offensive material", are best practices supported by consensus that editors weigh when making decisions. Often more specific than policies.
The Manual of Style does what it says on the tin and answers your question about red-eye correction. It's concerned with nitty-gritty technical stuff like when to use certain punctuation, how long a lead section should be, etc. Everything everywhere must abide with few exceptions, although the MoS is so extensive that things slip through the cracks all the time – usually inconsequentially.
Norms are informal standards outside of policies and guidelines that editors (sometimes only in a specific subject field) usually agree on. As a specific example, most major cities of the world have a collage showing different landmarks, but this isn't written anywhere. Wikiprojects (collaborations over a specific field, e.g. astronomy) often have their own best practices for their specific fields. And there are "essays" – which are opinion pieces editors can easily link to that often describe norms (they don't have to; they can just be an editor's pet peeve) but which aren't binding. A classic example of the essay is about "coatrack articles".