(Sorry for the delay, been busy last couple of days.)
So, those of you who don't yet know, a big
mess has broken out lately in the Flickr community over the following fact (from the offical
FAQ):
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.
In other words: german users can not access photos on flickr that are not flagged “safe” … only flowers and landscapes for germans …Copy and upload this picture to your account - show flickr who we are!
This is because of strict local laws. However, I believe, at least from a superficial observation, that the Flickr staff has dealt with these legal issues wrong (as Heather
admitted, partially), and is now paying for it by a massive user upheaval.
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On a more personal note, I must say that Flickr's censorship policy has pissed me off much more seriously a long time ago, in a different, less widely known matter. As you probably know, I admire
Rose & Olive's photos, which often contain tasteful nudity. I'm by far not the only one; they enjoy an immense fan base here on Flickr. Which was why I was amazed to find out one day that their account has simply vanished off the site; the staff simply deleted it, without a trace, and i'm not sure that even a warning was given. Their photos were properly flagged as "unsafe", so I don't believe anyone could claim they were harming anyone. Luckily, they're back now -- however now they're much more "careful", i.e., they're forced to censor themselves and have moved the spicier stuff to a different site. And flickr lost a great deal of wonderful art.