Nothing to write home about

Censorship

Over a week ago, several thousand Flickr users in Germany turned on their computers and found their their terms of service had been changed. German flickrites were no longer able to view anything categorized as “moderate” or “unsafe”. No one at Flickr had bothered to let them know.

While some people can’t understand what the fuss it about, it was quickly taken up as a censorship issue, with protest photos springing up all over the website.

Revolt

Protest photos were turning up in explore (where the top 500 photos of the day according to a Yahoo patented algorithm are displayed). Then things started to get nasty.

Apparently people complained. The loudest of those, probably, were Yahoo executives trying to keep a lid on some bad PR. Flickr acted quickly to make sure those photos no longer showed up in explore even though some were attracting thousands of views and comments.

Customer service?

In the forums there were shouts, names were called (by staff and customers), feelings were hurt, but no real explanation has ever been given as to why the affected users, that also include Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea weren’t informed in advance of this change. In response to the group of 11,000 Flickr users protesting against the overnight censorship, a staff member said that if they didn’t like it they could leave.

Did Flickr really believe that no one would notice?

Broken

You might be forgiven for thinking that Flickr would be a better place without the restricted photos altogether.

But the fact is that the filters are way off.

I’ve been warned about content that’s turned out to be as hard core as a vase of flowers, and a teenage boy hugging his mother in the kind embrace that happens outside schools across the world every day of the week.

To be honest I’m not sure that my photo of David would be unavailable to German viewers if the filters were applied to it but then I’m equally not sure that my photos of sunsets or buildings or flowers would get through.

So what’s gone wrong?

Over the past couple of years, people have gathered at Flickr, trying to turning it into a community, believed it was a community. Now they find out that it never was, that it’s a multimillion dollar global corporation.

What next?

People are leaving Flicker in droves. My account runs until April next year - it’s tempting to stay around and get my money’s worth, but I’m trying to convince myself to make a clean break. It’s hard though, I’ve built up a network of contacts whose photos I look forward to seeing every day. Some of them are real friends, and some I’d call friends although I’ve never met them.

I’m considering the move to Ipernity, not because I want to see bare bums and nipples (actually I don’t) but because since Flickr was eaten up by Yahoo I’ve watched things deteriorate, and I’m not going to wait for Yahoo’s next move. The have already forced people to get a Yahoo login or forfeit their account and they’ve taken photos uploaded to Flickr and used them to advertise products on a Yahoo sales page. You won’t be surprised to learn that they didn’t ask first. That time there was a photo protest which quickly put a stop it it.

Some Flickrites are criticizing those who are switching from one commercial outfit to another, suggesting that we should stay and fight. But Yahoo isn’t a repressive government (thank God) it’s a business, and when a company treats you badly you can complain or you can take your business elsewhere. Or you can do both.

I hope Ipernity stays small enough to be able to understand its customer base. I hope they won’t sell out to the likes of Yahoo. And I hope that Stewart Butterfield got a lot of money from the sale of Flickr - when you sell your soul, you ought to at least get a good price for it.

You can find me at www.ipernity.com/home/ronet. Check it out. There is life after Flickr, and it’s fun.