To me, These events are a history repeated by itself of flickr-Yahoo.

Yahoo – flickr = Yahoo!

TH is a user of flickr. However, flickr have the Supreme God & goddess. Whom decide who should be censored; block or deleted…etc.

I have experience that since Sept 29, 2005 till today.

To me flickr is a great photo management community, but over time the Power – politics seem to be happening in both internal & external which are the “customers”.

If the management on the top is assuming the imperialism management or authoritarian style then e-gangsterism or e-hooliganism would born naturally.

TH is good heart by sounding out for flickr to improve. It means well & good. However, that is not really appreciated as my earlier experiences.

Perhaps it is the same as what I have been served & f-team God think that it is a threat to their existence.

Especially, TH have commented at his own flickr. Which they have the power to do what they want. Anytime a violating the TOS can just created. & then they can exercise their power.

flickr junior staffs messing at Zooomr site are totally un-professional in the web2.0 era.

In my opinion, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel should need to come forward to the front to assume the leadership to iron out those censorship issue including Germany, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea & also those blockage, suspensions, deletions, harassments; oppressions; bully to the Yahoo customers..etc. before it is too late.

FLICKR SHWAG THIS U MOTHERFUCKER!!!!

I WILL KILL U U STOOPID FUCKING CUNT!!!!

1. They have stated they know.
2. You have seen examples that they know.
3. The information is clear, precise and prominant.

Does it say anywhere on Zoomr when, where and under what circumstances Ziplines are viewable? In todays world of word play and ambiguity “Putting it on the line” could mean ANYTHING.

1) Thomas Hawk, the CEO of a completing photo-sharing site, being

critical of Flickr
2) Flickr censorship.

Here is my disclosure statement: I am NOT affiliated or employed by any photo-sharing site. I have active accounts on both Zooomr and Flickr, both under user name tjcrandley. I do not know anyone on the Flickr Team, I do not know Thomas or Kristopher(although I would really like to).

My take on issue 1. Thomas Hawk does criticize Flickr. There are a number of very famous rants about the issues that Flickr has had in the past, or things that he thinks are broken about the site/service.

However, there are also a number of posts on his blog extolling the problems with Zooomr, and the highlighting and applauding the things in Flickr. He does a pretty good job at playing both sides.

After reading Thomas’ blog for over a year, and watching his photo stream (as well as a ton of others in Google Reader), I have come to learn two VERY important facts about TH: He is an avid Flickr supporter and it deeply involved and respected in the Flickr. I would go to say, based on TH’s own postings and chats, that he is First and Foremost a Flickr user.

I have asked him multiple times in the Zooomr chat why he uses Flickr when he is the CEO of Zooomr. He has always given a consistent answer: “Because it has a community I’ve been apart of for many years, AND it’s not the same service as Zooomr”. Flicker and Zooomr are both Photo-sharing sites. That really is their only similarity. They are, currently, after different markets and users. Maybe someday that will change, but for now it’s the way it is.

TH absolutely has the right to criticize Flickr because he A) Uses the service more than he uses and other service, and B) Competition is GOOD for both sites. It will make them better in the end. And I think it’s awesome that Flickr employees reciprocate on their blogs and Zooomr Ziplines. It will make Zooomr better in the end. I may be foolish, but I think TH’s comments will make Flickr better. We’ve already seen big-brass at Flickr respond to some of his criticisms, and usually they are agreeing with TH, acknowledging the problem, and promising to fix it.

To TH’s credit, and negative criticism about Zooomr that is put into the Zooomr chat room is addressed by TH if he is in, otherwise it is quickly handled by someone else in the room. Zooomr has a wiki where anyone can anonymously post bugs, suggestions and gripes. Outside of the Flickr forums, Flickr has nothing like this.

I also want to quickly note that by not having any other real venue for complaints (other than email which you get a standard reply from), Flickr encourages people to complain about their service in the Flickr forum AND in people’s blogs. But what is more damaging to Flickr. If they hadn’t censored Thomas by deleting his posts (regardless if they were in the right place), TH wouldn’t have posted something to his blog. And then Twittered it. And then his post get picked up by other web mags. And I wouldn’t have ever seen it and written this.

Issue 2: Let’s start with a quick baseline (taken from webster.com):

Main Entry: censor
: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable censor the news; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable censor out indecent passages

Using that definition, Flickr does remove content that users have posted, and suppresses access to certain content. Not just TH’s content. Many other very prominent bloggers and internet celebs have been censored. Many non-internet celebs – regular people – have been censored. Heck, recently entire countries have been censored.

This is a fact.

Now, some have suggested that TH’s comments were taken out of the particular thread because he turned the threads focus to TH’s problem and not the original intent of the thread. The complaint was about censorship, and NOT as much about TH’s personal vendetta against Flickr (because as I mentioned before, he LOVES Flickr). When writing for public consumption, including personal accounts of the critique draws people into the conversation. It sounds like Thomas was retelling his experiences with censorship on Flickr. That helps people who may not know him quickly related to his experience, and empowers the reader to take TH’s story and compare it to their own.

This process of sharing and relating is also an integral part in building and participating ANY community.

In conclusion:

Was Flickr wrong? Maybe. It’s hard to tell because their rules are so entirely subjective, and very hard to define.

Was TH wrong for complaining? NO More people with censored content, regardless if they are pictures or forum posts, should scream when Flickr censors their content. Scream on the Flickr forums, scream on their blogs, scream in public if they think it will help. Censorship is a slippery slope that only leads to power, and power always corrupts.

What needs to happen to stop these kinds of rants? Flickr needs to set some better rules, decide what moral ground they are going to stand on, and then communicate that to their users. And they need to do a MUCH better job of PR when things like this happen. I imagine they haven’t done this much since it will jeopardize the user base. That is cowardly.

Flickr/Yahoo may have undisclosed business reasons for choosing to filter images. I can see situations where they are weighing the legal liability against the censorship aspect and the legal liability trumps. Because of their size and brand, they are targets for legal action in situations like this.

What bothers me the most about your post, though is Dunstan Orchard’s behavior here and on Zooomr. As an employee of Flickr with the power to exercise “censorship” (though I would argue it may be more along the lines of enforcing t&c; of use), to come onto Zooomr and this blog to trash you and Zooomr is something that would not be permitted in my neck of the woods — it’d be grounds for termination rather quickly.

The rule with regard to community management is that you allow open criticism by members, respond reasonably where possible, and leave it there. To take the step of jumping into the fray with both feet leaves me with a really bad taste in my mouth.

As an aside, I prefer it when you make your criticisms of Flickr here rather than there…just my opinion, but when you’re on your own blog you should say whatever you want. When you’re on Flickr’s real estate, maybe not.

If you were to equate online community to people’s homes, you might wipe your feet before entering the door at someone else’s home, but perhaps not when walking into your own house. The same holds true for online communities, in my opinion.

On your comment farther up about being deleted in discussion threads, no community manager/moderator will partially edit someone else’s post by removing part but not all of it, by the way. It’s an all or nothing thing — either it’s removed or it stays. To edit another person’s post is asking for trouble, accusations, and more trouble. I’m sure they could have told you that they had problems with it, but when arguing a censorship issue, would they have any reasonable expectation that you’d self-censor? Honestly, I wouldn’t — it would just open me up to more criticism to ask such a thing of you. Better to suck the criticism of the removal up and move on.

I think reasonable minds can differ over the censorship issues…it really is a two-edged sword. If there is no censorship, you will lose customers who don’t want to see images they think are objectionable and if there is censorship you will lose customers who object to censorship. It’s no-win. The best you can do is hope to ride a middle line that pleases almost everyone.

OK, that wins the award for best comment in this thread. If you asked me before I did the search I would have said Doug Parker, but I guess I would be wrong.

Not that I’m defending the guy, mind you, I just don’t feel that point helps your argument. I think Yahoo and Flickr are dead wrong in this instance, and it’s sad that this is only the latest in a series of screw ups.

I applaud you and Zooomr for adopting the anti-censorship policy. I’ve never understood why it’s so difficult for some to simply do the right thing and stand up for free speech, which should be among the highest considerations anyone should have. But then I’m not a corporate shithead at Yahoo, and clearly they see things in a way I don’t.

What is the photo hosting world coming to???

And Dunstan, the more I read, the more it sounds like you wanted to provoke Thomas. What is it that you do for Flickr exactly? Besides surfing for porn on the company dime.

I like Slashdot’s way of displaying such users under the name “Anonymous Coward.” Very fitting. Anonymous comments are slightly less worthwhile than fresh, warm dog turds.