This post originated from an RSS feed registered with PHP Buzz by Jim Reverend. Original Post: Thanks for the censorship, Flickr! Feed Title: revjim.net: PHP Section Feed URL: http://www.contegix.com/xml/rss20/feed.xml Feed Description: because a Reverend can't be wrong. Rants, raves, code reviews and programming practice discussions regarding all things PHP. Latest PHP Buzz Posts Latest PHP Buzz Posts by Jim Reverend Latest Posts From revjim.net: PHP Section

I wont be using Flickr any more.

Dear Flickr,

I am a paying customer and was an avid Flickr fan. I turned many people on to your service and sung the praises of the community you’ve built and the flexibility of your platform only to find that my account has been marked with some magical flag that keeps any of my images out of the public site areas. Why? I’m not sure. Nudity, I imagine, despite the fact that my photostream is 90% nude free, if even that low.

Was I informed that nudity was allowed but would render me with severely reduced exposure? No. Was I given an opportunity to correct the situation when my account was flagged? No. Was I even told that my account had been flagged? No.

I will not be renewing my Flickr account next year, I will no longer use your service, and I will no longer direct friends and family to your site for their own needs. However, before I go, I’d like to offer you a suggestion…

Instead of playing daddy and censoring the content on this site for all of its users, perhaps you should consider allowing your users to censor themselves.

If you’re going to censor, at least be even about it. I recommend reviewing all of these accounts as well as filth like this.

Yours,

Jim

I don’t intend to allow my images to be censored like this. In an effort, not to correct the situation, but to understand what I “should” have done, I’ve scoured the Flickr forums and, by reading a lot, I’ve started to put together a vague idea of how this works in Flickr’s very confused head.

There is a little link on every photo that reads “may offend”. When you upload a potentially offensive photograph, you should read the minds of the Flickr censors as well as the entire Flickr community and click that link yourself if it’s possible the image you’ve uploaded will offend anyone. If you do not click that link then, when people other than you click it when viewing your photo, it marks your entire account for review and pulls all of your images from any public site areas.

Now that I’ve been flagged in order to see my images you have to be viewing my photostream directly, or you have to be viewing a group photostream that you are a member of. If one of those two things isn’t happening, my photos will not show up.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe it’s all for the children.

If all it takes is for a few people to click that little link and an account will be flagged, then I can help Flickr censor photographs too.

I hope that you’ll join me in my effort to make a cleaner, safer, less offensive Flickr for the children. The next time you see a bare ankle, a thick juicy steak, or that hot new Corvette on Flickr, do the children a favor and click that little button. I’m serious.

Here are a few guidelines.

• Recent Images are better than older images
• Images with lots of views, favorites, and comments are generally prominent Flickr users and tend to be where a lot of the filth comes from.
• A good place to start is the Most Interesting Photos of the last 7 days.
• You may also just want to tackle the Most Recent Uploads page. People are offensive all the time and there are lots of ways to offend people. Be sensitive to all of those cases. If in doubt, FLAG IT.
• Remember, if anyone might take offense to an image, you should click the link to save them from the trouble and pain it would cause.

I hope that you’ll join me in my quest to improve Flickr. And please, spread the word.