Yahoo! have recently changed their Terms of Service for Flickr. According to this help entry on Flickr, the usage of their photo sharing site is from now on restricted for users from several regions in this world. On the page they claim that 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.”
This means that users from those areas will not be able to search Flickr for items that are marked as “moderate” or “unsafe”.
What makes this new “feature” even more problematic is that if a user is from any of the above regions, there is no way for them to disable the “SafeSearch” feature, and that “unsafe” and “moderate” pictures are reportedly being silently hidden. This way affected users won’t even know about not seeing all pictures. Direct links to those pictures result in a message saying the user doesn’t have access to those images.
Based on rather loose guidelines (”Restricted - This is content you probably wouldn’t show to your mum, and definitely shouldn’t be seen by kids.”) Flickr staff has apparently also started to flag individual pictures, sets or even entire accounts as “restricted” or “unsafe”.
In their help entry on content filters, Flickr says:
An “unsafe” account is something we think of as a loose cannon. It’s not clear to us that you’re moderating your own content at all, or if you are, you’re not bearing in mind that there are other people using Flickr and that it’s up to you to not be overtly offensive.
A discussion is also in progess in the official Flickr/Help forum. Flickr users from Germany as well as from other regions have already started to form up and publically protest the new Flickr policies.
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Zooomr is another cool photosharing site, check it out http://www.zoooomr.com
oops it’s http://www.zooomr.com
I was going to suggest Zooomr as well. The community’s not as large, but it’s still a pretty cool site.
Do we really need to use flickr anymore. If they want to alienate their customers go ahead, we will go elsewhere.
I absolutely love Flickr and its community and hate to see this sort of thing happen. One of my Flickr friends had her account flagged as unsafe and after some petitioning, managed to get it removed. And how did Germany get mixed up in this bruhaha? I can understand the conservative Asian governments, but Germany?
I would like to recommend another photocast network gallery, http://www.mbpgalleries.com/. Maybe it’s time for the photocast network to have it’s own set of galleries where the people providing the content (podcasters and listeners, in this case) and the viewers (other podcasters and listeners) set the policies related to that content.
It is a sad commentary when more and more web2-type outfits fall prey to the political hoo-ha.
I decided not to pay for flickr, having to draw the line somewhere with my subscriptions, but now I am convinced I made the right decision.
I was actually about to start my PRO account with flickr, but not anymore. I’m going to check for zoomr.
Do we really know why they are doing this in particular areas? Doesn’t really make sense to me to start protesting without evening know “why” it’s happening in such a specific pattern.
They made some “suggestions” that german age verification regulations make this measurement unavoidable.
Problem: this is simply stupid nonsense.
It’s correct that german sites need to apply “proper age verification” (postal submission of ID document or the like) - but only for PORNOGRAPHIC content.
When it comes to the means of this phrase, you will find, that not like in the US or in china, anything more unclothed than a mummy is pornographic.
I.e. Angela Merkel showing her boobs/nipples accidently in the German Bundestag might be funny or disgusting, but would definitly not trigger a PORNOGRAPHY outcry like the nipplegate massacre.
In other words: pornography in germany definitly EXCLUDES art, and definitly includes showing primary sexual organs (so, you’ll have to show REALLY explicit contents).
On the other hand, and that is where this gets simply STUPID when it comes to legal regulations:
- each commercial website in Germany must feature a so-called “Impressum” and “AGB”, which is essentially a standard “Contact-Page” containing FULL contact information (postal address phone numbers, etc), and the AGB would be a complete EULA in german.
Flickr (also in german language) does not feature ANY of those.
Also, they might get real trouble with Nazi Symbols or glorification of the Third Reich, but the pseudo-rules they apply to images are so “undefined” that those might easily “get through”. On the other hand, a really harmless breast picture or whatever might be censored, and my friends won’t be able to see it even when logged in. Not that I made such images (yet).
So, actually, they are breaking a LOT of rules/laws that are a definite “MUST” for any german website (and usually lead to at least a lawsuit with at least $1400 in cash for the lawyer who found the flaw on the page), and on the other hand enforce absolutly unnecessary rules for their community (or, CAPITAL for that matter).
Great. Stupidity forever. I really love - LOVE - flickr, I recommended flickr, used flickr everywhere… and I hate this downfall. Always wanted to get a PRO account when reaching 200 pictures (should be there in 3-4 months) - not anymore. Sorry.