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June 14, 2007
Flickr's censorship system has gone over the top
It started out with innocent users (like me). Now it's extended to entire countries. Flickr's filtering system has now prevented users from Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong or Korea from viewing any photos considered "unsafe." Compounding this problem is the fact that the filter system has so many glitches in it, that even photos of dogs and kittens can be considered "restricted content."
From the Flickr FAQ:
SafeSearch is a feature that allows you to control what turns up in your searches on Flickr, and it's on for everyone by default.Note: If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service so won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off.
From Flickr staff:
We have absolutely no intention of censoring the content on the community's behalf. It is always been our intention that Flickr members participate to whatever extent they want and are as free as possible create their own experience. Currently, switching the SafeSearch function off is not available for German members. It is a really complex situation -- we have been in deliberation on this for a while, and we had to make the decision whether or not to leave Germany and the German language out of the international launch.The decision came down to the wire, but we decided to include Germany. We're still hoping that that was the right decision. It definitely was not a decision that was made lightly and there is no intention to annoy, frustrate or inconvenience Flickr members in Germany. Rest assured, we do hear you loud and clearly (painfully loud, even) and are doing our best. We hope to have more to say soon.
Oh Germany. Here we tried so hard to get past the whole "Hitler" thing and then we were so proud of you for tearing down your big ol' wall, but now you come up with this and we have to be worried all over again. You can't spit in public in Singapore, so they're obviously more easily offended, and we won't bug Korea because they might nuke us, but come on, Germany. Really.
Read more in the Flickr help/discussion forums and the against censorship group. Thousands of Flickr users are creating images in protest. This is my favorite thus far.
Photo of Zumi's reaction by bbdoyle via F*!@r
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it seems Flickr has made some spectacular blunders of late. They may be working feverishly behind the scenes to fix their stupid faux pas, and it's reasonable to conclude that they can't talk about what they're trying to do until they can give some concrete good news, but hell, why even get into this situation in the first place.
If the issue was capitulating to the German government demands that it restrict content, they should have just said "No!" to begin with. Why not get the German members on board to begin with and enlist their support?
Ever since Yahoo has taken over Flickr, the decisions made and the service has really sucked, big time.
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for a country that favors speedos on beaches this is a surprise.
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Mal - That picture of Zumi's response is outstanding!
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I'm offended by that fuzzy ball.
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I just want flickr to take the responsibility and be a little more forthright. It is not like they were put into a position where they had no choice. Their legal department must have viewed the launch of global flickr as a nifty way to deal with "the German problem." There were ways to deal with this -- or they could have given a heads up to their German users before the roll out. I just hate their "lil' ol' us just had no choice. Sowry." stance.
Puke in their shoes.
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The Germans are ok. It's just Yahoo and flickr acting blatantly unprofessional. All they've done won't help them to be "safe" from the German laws, they are still violating the most elementary rules ("Impressumspflicht") that have been an obligation for years in Germany, not to speak of banning Nazi propaganda (the Germans have good reasons for that). But imposing US bible belt content filtering on Germany does really miss the real point. 90% of the illegal content is not affected by the filters, 90% of the filtered content is not illegal in Germany. Can't you expect a CEO to get some professional advice before deciding on stupid measures? That's the question.
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Hey come on ... it is not Germany. There are plenty of German porn sites that people can legally enter using a fairly simply age verification process.
It is not about Germany. It's about Yahoo! censoring German photos for no obvious reason.
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they censored me, too. i was informed of having been reviewed as "safe," but apparently i embarrassed staff member Michelle of flickr when i posted all the details to her thoughtless, unwarned and unwarranted deletion of one of my photos and then she deleted my whole damned account. Please read the details at my blog:
http://dysamoria.com/blog/index.html