Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Flickr Really Screws Up: Community Revolts, Film at 11
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 11:00 AM
I had a feeling that this story was going to get a lot bigger. And now, it has, but from a surprising source: Flickr seems to have put fuel on the fire, only they're in the middle. Thomas Hawk leaps into the fray as only he can:
"So what's got me pissed today? What's got me pissed today is that according to Rebekka, Flickr has removed her image from their site. That's right. Not only did they remove and kill her image and her *non-violent* words of protest, but they censored each and every one of us who commented on her photograph, who offered support to Rebekka, who shared in her frustration by wiping every single one of our comments off the face of the internet forever. According to Rebekka, Flickr's explanation? “Flickr is not a venue for to you harass, abuse, impersonate, or intimidate others. If we receive a valid complaint about your conduct, we will send you a warning or terminate your account.” WTF?!?"
Rebekka has some of her own thoughts on what's happened, and it seems that this isn't the first time Flickr has gone overboard with censorship. Flickr staff have responded and apparently it was just a mistake? Yeah, right. A mistake is "Oops, I didn't mean to click that button". A regret is "Oh, wow, we really shouldn't have deleted that!". It's a weak defence to say a regrettable decision was a mistake.
I'm not one of those people that believes that every person has some sort of inalienable right to say whatever they want on someone else's Web site - freedom of speech only applies to public spaces - but on the other hand, Flickr is all about community and without community there is no Flickr - meaning they have to do what's right for the members of their community. In this case, they didn't do that, so getting raked over the coals isn't a surprising outcome...
"So what's got me pissed today? What's got me pissed today is that according to Rebekka, Flickr has removed her image from their site. That's right. Not only did they remove and kill her image and her *non-violent* words of protest, but they censored each and every one of us who commented on her photograph, who offered support to Rebekka, who shared in her frustration by wiping every single one of our comments off the face of the internet forever. According to Rebekka, Flickr's explanation? “Flickr is not a venue for to you harass, abuse, impersonate, or intimidate others. If we receive a valid complaint about your conduct, we will send you a warning or terminate your account.” WTF?!?"
Rebekka has some of her own thoughts on what's happened, and it seems that this isn't the first time Flickr has gone overboard with censorship. Flickr staff have responded and apparently it was just a mistake? Yeah, right. A mistake is "Oops, I didn't mean to click that button". A regret is "Oh, wow, we really shouldn't have deleted that!". It's a weak defence to say a regrettable decision was a mistake.
I'm not one of those people that believes that every person has some sort of inalienable right to say whatever they want on someone else's Web site - freedom of speech only applies to public spaces - but on the other hand, Flickr is all about community and without community there is no Flickr - meaning they have to do what's right for the members of their community. In this case, they didn't do that, so getting raked over the coals isn't a surprising outcome...
