Look, I think flickR should be able to control their network and its content however they wish. But this policy is ridiculous and evil (wiping out all user data and not letting them get it back) and they deserve all the negative press that comes with it, especially when they act like dismissive assholes. - Anthony Citrano from Bookmarklet

Is he the guy that wrote that hilarious exit letter re: silver mining? - anna sauce

Same dude anna. - vijay

god, I love Stuart (finally read post) nice way to stand behind your colleague. - anna sauce

exactly. : ) Title is misleading. - vijay

I'm not a fan of Flickr but it's hard for me to summon any outrage on behalf of that dick. - Chester

Check this out.. last line from Johnson- "Ask Heather to fill you in". lol! Credit to Stewart for showing the level of restraint he did. - vijay

flickr is a great service but their terms of use and the ways they enforce them makes them much bigger dicks than any justifiably irate user. And I am not trying to compliment them. But it's typical corporate internet arrogance. - Rick Powell

What a great chance to respond to a CR issue without having to represent the company admirably... given a chance to say what he actually felt, I think Stewart's response was maybe not totally called for, but totally funny and he has the right. Way to back up your former peeps too. - SAM

Well, whatever. I think Stewart is a dick, but far fewer people will read that than have read and will read his e-mail and will make their own minds up. - Rick Powell

So, if somebody emailed me to ask me to mediate a problem they were having with my former employer, I suspect that my response would both be ruder and shorter. - Wirehead

I completely agree Anthony, it is unbelievable and I have a Pro account :-| - Luca Conti

@Wirehead Well, in that case, you, just like Stewart, would be going out of your way to be a dick yourself. All he really needed to write was the first sentence, or not respond at all. But flickr's policy of deleting a user's photos without warning and without appeal, pretty much sums up corporate assholism for me. - Rick Powell

My capital rules of staying on the internet: 1. be nice. 2. if you can't be nice, be civil. 3. if you can't be civil, be offline. They served me well in the last 15 years. (and - honestly - I trust Heather's judgement in managing communities a wee bit more than a random guy trolling comment threads, being nuked from existence and throwing a tantrum about it) - dario

There is usually little difference between a nice person enforcing bad corporate policy and a bad person doing it, except for the style in which it's done. Apologies to "Heather," I'm sure, since I don't know her personally. [insert eye rolls here.] - Rick Powell

this is why i stopped using flikr. They dont CARE. - Jim Hague

As somebody who manages online communities for a living, I'm going to have to say that the response here was probably the right one (granted I haven't seen the original threads, and he could have afforded to be a little more civil with his language). Trolls live for this shit. And most of them are dicks. - mike fabio

Troll is a dismissive word, used ubiquitously and uncritically. It's been MY experience that while there are genuine trolls, the word is not infrequently used to dismiss someone who brings up an uncomfortable political issue. No excuse for being a dick, of course. - Rick Powell

What concerns me in this issue is that if someone at Yahoo decides that they disagree with something I said or the way I said it, they are willing to completely remove my account. It makes me distrustful of the cloud as a place to store my data. With that said, Yahoo was perfectly within their rights to make this move. It just seems like they don't care to engender confidence in the integrity of the data on their servers. - Scott Ohlemacher

I have wondered if flickr so easily deletes paying customers photos because they have never provided an easy way for anyone to download all of their collection once it's in the cloud. I guess they think, why would anyone want to do that? - Rick Powell

@Rick Powell: You're right that there is no excuse for being a dick, but dickery is subjective. - Scott Ohlemacher

And I think deleting a paying customer's photos, even if he violated terms of service, and not the law, for instance, is simply bad corporate policy. That is really being a dick, in my opinion. - Rick Powell

Amen, Rick, Amen. Perhaps the real issue was that flickr was afraid of losing the White House photostream? - Scott Ohlemacher

Wow, just wow. Just goes to show you that money (or talent for that matter) and class don't always go hand in hand. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Finally Flickr's actions as Judge, Jury and Executioner in deleting unwanted members is getting some mainstream coverage due to the political angle. Even if some disagree whether it was the correct forum to air his grievances on the WH's detainee photo policy, it appears to have been measured and civil. Certainly not grounds for a non-appealable deletion. So exactly how does Flickr safeguard our photos (i.e. backups), if deleted members cannot be retrieved? Cloud-computing, or merely dust? - Nils Sandin

Yeah- seems like a draconian move by Yahoo. - anna sauce

another Community Manager from a different site chiming in... Flickr was totally within their rights to toast this guy *and* his account. The TOS on any site is not just an agreement between a single user and the company with regard to their own content, but also between the community at large and the company that OTHER users will be subjected to the TOS. This guy was spamming and posting extremely graphic photos. If a site doesn't maintain and *use* periodically the ability they have to nuke a user and all their content, the users themselves have far less impetus to abide by the Terms of the Site. It's not that hard to follow the TOS. Really. I promise. - Edubya

Spam? What exactly was he selling? If I read the accounts right, every American needs to have those pictures shoved under their noses until they wake the frak up. Really, the vagueness in rhetoric that everyone just accepts here is amazing. They were pictures of torture. It was a political protest. Yahoo was certainly within their "rights," although the idea of assigning rights to a corporation makes me queasy, but that doesn't mean I think the world is better off because Yahoo gets to do what it wants. - Rick Powell

@Edubya They have a right and obligation to uphold their TOS. However, asymmetrical responses like this are not a good way to keep up a good image. - Scott Ohlemacher

Yeah, this definitely falls under the definition of protected speech in my opinion. Yahoo isn't looking good over this. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

"protected speech"? I don't think the constitution said you were guaranteed the right be able to post on flickr. The constitution doesn't mean everyone has to put up with your shit. A political protest in flickr comments is a pretty lazy freedom fighter anyway. That said, wiping out a paying customers stored images without a warning is really messed up, and it seems like they do that quite frequently. - Richard Lawler

It may not be constitutionally protected speech in this context, but in another it would be. That should at least make Yahoo pause and handle the situation carefully and diplomatically just to avoid the backlash. - Scott Ohlemacher

The constitution says that political speech is protected. It doesn't specify forum. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

I think that Anthony's first comment here sums up the situation admirably. Flickr did something legal that was morally ambiguous. - Scott Ohlemacher

Just because speech is protect by the constitution doesn't mean that a private service has to allow unfettered expression of it. - Kevin (barely visible)

No, it's not protected speech but it just points out why we can't trust corporations with our data, with anything. They don't give a shit and they don't have to. - Rick Powell

Ah, I love it when people speak up to defend the rights of corporations! Give them exemptions to all moral obligations! So encouraging for our democracy. Whether or not they have the legal right is irrelevant if we are talking about ethics. This is, however, the kind of culture we have. - Rick Powell

A rule against spamming comments != a law prohibiting free speech. How is a corporation morally obligated to put up with spammers, no matter what the content is they're spamming? - Richard Lawler

This may not hold up to scrutiny, but as a publicly traded company reliant on their image to maintain a user base and therefore profits, don't they have an obligation to shareholders to handle situations like this in the most diplomatic way possible? - Scott Ohlemacher

Sometimes the truth hurts and hearing it from someone you hope will help you hurts even more. I've seen Johnson's trolling and he deserved this treatment, plain and simple. - Rene, Pro Button Pusher

Corporations are not morally obligated to do anything. That's the point. That is why they cannot be trusted. Further, I didn't make that equivalency between spam and free speech. You did. Not to mention which the word "spam" is debatable in this case, not least because corporate policies disdain politics, by default, a position which, of course, always favors the powerful. - Rick Powell

debating whether this is a free speech issue or not is moot. Flickr (or pretty much anywhere else different from your own site) is private property, they have community guidelines which are designed for "the greater good" (which translates nicely to: having the largest number of satisfied users/customers possible). Flickr community guidelines basically boil down to "Behave. If you don't, it may very well be one strike, you're out". - dario

Rick, not to defend Flickr because I think they've handled this poorly (from a PR point of view if nothing else). But if you sign up to use a service and agree to the TOS, you are voluntarily agreeing to a certain code of conduct. If you violate the TOS, you are subject to the penalties of doing so. Johnson is free to take his protest to another venue. That said, Flickr could be a bit more accommodating and give the guy his images back. - Kevin (barely visible)

and yes, losing your stuff sucks bad, and yes, they probably should implement some sort of "pre-ban" which lets you download your content back on - say - a two weeks notice before the termination of your account. - dario

Is it an appropriate solution for us to "vote with our eyeballs" and boycott the service until they change some of these policies in a public way? - Scott Ohlemacher

Peeps, the First Amendment protects you against government action. You have no constitutional right to a flickR account. There's a difference between saying "flickR sucks for doing this" and "flickR has no right to do this." They certainly do have a right to do it, and I have a right to think they're assholes because of it. But I guess that's what I said initially (sorry.) - Anthony Citrano

@Kevin Have you read the TOS lately? Do you know what NIPSA means? I certainly don't know, after reading it a dozen times. Their TOS is not as arcane, opaque and just plain retarded as ebay's, which must set some sort of record in the history of incomprehensible corporate jargon, but it's not exactly transparent. I think they can ban me if they want. But after accepting my money and then immediately deleting my data without recourse, they want me or anyone to be reasonable about it? Who is being unreasonable? - Rick Powell

also, on the "morally reprehensible" issue: this has nothing to do with ethics. Turning over your users' personal data to the chinese government IS unethical, and still, as a publicly shared company, you have to answer to your shareholders first, which might -or might not- be interested in your moral high ground - dario

@dario What you described is why, in my youth, I believed in economic democracy, which, I think, only the Zapatistas actually advocate now. - Rick Powell

I think you people are confusing how the flickr software is presently implemented with an arbitrary policy decision. This is common with people who don't know what they are talking about but like to sound like they do. I twittered this on Tuesday... unless you've actually hacked big software that runs on large server farms, STFU about how you'd change how a large website that runs on large server farms would work. - Wirehead

Oh, I love that one! Technological barriers, the last refuge of the nihilist. Give me a frakin break. This thread has seen it all, right? First-name dropping, specious arguments about the rights of corporations, equating speech with spam, and now claiming the high ground for those who "have hacked big software." I believe I'll have another beer and thank the gods I have never been anywhere near large server farms. Big cow farms, yes. - Rick Powell

Anthony...I agree. Chalk it up to another Festivus miracle, my friend! lol - Carlton Hackett

@Wirehead That was needlessly vitriolic. Couldn't be civil and say something like "There are technological limitations related to policy implementation in communities of this size" rather than making assumptions about the skills and experiences of the people in the discussion and then disparaging them? You didn't contribute to this conversation at all, you detracted from it. @everyone else: sorry for feeding the troll. - Scott Ohlemacher

Dude, I'm just stating an unpleasant truth. But it's very popular amongst people with a little grain of knowledge to assume that they can apply this everywhere. Do I sit here and make suggestions for how cattle ranchers might improve production? No, because I recognize that I don't know a damn thing about cattle ranching and would probably suggest something really stupid. - Wirehead

On that note, I'm going to go have a beer and watch the hockey game. - Scott Ohlemacher

@Pat I would guess that a large percentage of the world's dissidents would say that the normal rules don't apply to them, and they would be right, else they would not be dissidents. As for your comment, your rhetoric is precious (alas? a bit sad?) and your argument, if I can call it that, empty. Anyone else? - Rick Powell

Alex: The constitution defines how government must act. The speech is protected from the government squelching it. No private company is obligated to allow anyone to speak in any way other than the way it wants. Period. The constitution does not give you the right to make the New York Times print anything and everything you want, nor does it give you the right to make flickr do it either. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Most law, and most particularly, the Constitution points back to principles that Dick Cheney, among others, refers to as "quaint," but that doesn't mean they're not valued or have no value, or don't constitute, get that word, the basis for understanding moral behavior. Most citizens understand this. Corporations, unique in history we will eventually realize, are somehow allowed to opt out. They have grandfather clauses and exemption clauses and all sorts of clauses and loopholes (also known as tax breaks) that ordinary criminals, ahem, people, would be pleased to find themselves availed of should they stand before a court of law or a jury of peers. flickr is not remotely close to one of those, but I still think they're assholes. - Rick Powell

Big, scary, god-like (it's a technology, Captain, but none like we've ever seen) server farm or not, I expect backups have to be available. Maybe only for a week (I think that's how long I was told Sprint's picture mail server kept backups), but for some period of time. - a runcible MiniMage

See, you are just proving my point, BoringMage. There is a difference between backups and restoring deleted accounts. Given the expected failure rate of disk drives, if flickr didn't keep backups, you'd know. :) - Wirehead

Flickr could disable the account and prevent harmful activity without deletion of customer data, and that is what they should be doing in these cases. This is more about consumer rights than freedom of speech. - Mike Chelen

I'm afraid it cannot be "protected speech" if you spam the same comment 10, 20 more times on individual pictures. Then it becomes heckling. These are the flickr terms: "Don’t vent your frustrations, rant, or bore the brains out of other members. Flickr is not a venue for you to harass, abuse, impersonate, or intimidate others. If we receive a valid complaint about your conduct, we’ll send you a warning or terminate your account." Flickr received probably quite a few complaints about this guy spamming the white house photo stream (esp. if he put pictures not suitable for young eyes, no matter how valid). They warned the guy and removed the comments. He did it again. And again. I don't see it as being that evil to delete an account after warnings - Iphigenie

If they did warn him and he kept spamming, then he deserved what happened. If he didn't back up his own data after being warned and continued doing the same thing, who can he blame? - Richard Lawler

Jeez, I keep commenting, since so many people find so many creative or not-so-creative ways of avoiding the real points. There is no easy way to back up one's flickr collection, which in some cases involves clicking twice for each photo - which can run into thousands of clicks. If you knew what you were talking about, then you would already know this. flickr's API does not allow complete back-ups. Any utility I have found to even download complete sets of other users' photos, has not worked reliably. So, I am forced to trust flickr. Which, I can't. Unless my photos can be viewed without objection by the most fundamentally naive 12-year old, foot-bound female nun inhabiting the steppes of a planet which does not even exist in our solar system. That is my exaggerated interpretation of flickr's TOS. So, yeah, I have a great deal of contempt for their worldview, which involves forcing me to think about an audience about which I have no interest. - Rick Powell

Yes, we've heard your opinion Rick. That's great. It still doesn't justify the guy's behavior. It doesn't entirely pardon flickr, and I don't think anyone is, but he made his choice. - Richard Lawler

Well, Richard, if anyone had actually heard my opinion then they would comment as if they understood the contents of my opinion, which you clearly haven't. I have not made justifications about his behavior, mostly because I really don't fully know the extent and content of his behavior. Do you? Perhaps you can fill us all in? It seems clear he was obnoxious, as many people are who want to make passionate, uncomfortable, political points. (Gods know why, since it usually results either in silence or censure.) but, beyond that, I have few details. I know flickr did what flickr always does, regardless of the level of obnoxiousness: Delete without recourse or appeal. And they are within their "rights," but that is still bullshit, they are still dickheads and this issue will keep coming up. - Rick Powell

Rick, I am not sure about your point - in order to upload to Flickr you need to have the image in the first place, so the assumption is you still have the originals and could re-upload to a new account (I certainly have my images on 2 drives here plus several places online). If you somehow lose the originals you should take copies back out of Flickr immediately, not rely on Flickr (or anything) as your sole copy. PS: have you tried http://www.ghacks.net/2009... - Iphigenie

Congratulations, Joelle, your life is a lot more stable than mine was. I started uploading to flickr when I was homeless and had no computer of my own. Borrowed cameras, with personal images, and gift memberships from readers of my blog. This year will be the first time I have to decide whether to flip the bird to flickr or pay up. 4 years of connections, not to mention photos. Not an easy decision. I dislike the corporate culture of Yahoo, and if I were to offend flickr in some way, some of the most personally valuable photos there have no backups. Because I'm lazy, because right now I don't have a computer of my own, either. The link you cited does not support private images, which a lot of mine are, so that I don't offend that alien, footbound nun I was talking about earlier. - Rick Powell

Just for the purpose of backup perhaps you can switch the images from private to public (but w. adult warning to avoid people being offended) - run the backup, then change it back? Just circumvent the system temporarily so you have your images at least! I totally agree with you that the feeling that the plug can be pulled under you is an uneasy one, but the cases where flickr has done so are quite rare (that or people never say anything, which is unlikely in the case of people who paid for a pro account), and always with warning. It's not as arbitrary as it seems... But yes, the key with all large (corporate or institutional) entities is that they do feel arbitrary and never take you seriously, esp. if you come at them from a position of offended self righteousness (doesnt matter if you are right!). That's why I am always a supporter of smaller, indie, open, distributed options whenever I find them - Iphigenie

You have totally disarmed me. ;-) I will think about trying that, and any indie, open, distributed options you have would be welcome. - Rick Powell

I have a lot of thoughts on this as some might expect. May have to break them down into a few posts. I saw this letter from Stewart well before it appeared in Valleywag. It first appeared in the DeleteMe Uncensored group that I admin on Flickr. My first problem with the letter is that I don't think Shepherd should have posted it there or anywhere at all. It was private correspondence between him and Stewart and I don't think Stewart necessarily meant this to be a public representation of him or his opinions. I thought about blogging it originally because Shepherd's publishing it made it part of the public record but then decided against it because I didn't think it was necessarily fair to Stewart. - Thomas Hawk

Had Shepherd asked Stewart for permission to post it and Stewart said yes I think that'd probably be ok then. But I don't think Shepherd did that and I don't think Stewart gave permission for it to be published. While I support Shepard's fight against Flickr, I did tell him that I didn't think it was right that he published this email. I know that I personally won't publish emails people send me unless they've given me permission or unless it's clearly some sort of an official response that I've requested from a PR person or company official in response to an email from me stating that I'm asking because I'm writing a story on it. - Thomas Hawk

Stewart and Heather are friends so I'd think it fair to assume that he'd stick up for Heather in this case without admittedly knowing many of the specific details. I think a lot of us might as our first reaction stick up for our friends. Unfortunately, I think Stewart's response turns this debate more into a personality thing than it should be. I think there are three problems with the way that Flickr handled the Shepherd Johnson case. - Thomas Hawk

1. Obama campaigned on a platform of transparency in Govt. Deleting critical comments is not transparency. Obama is using social media to enhance his transparency. Deleting critical comments doesn't add much to his credibility in that department. This is not an Obama campaign photostream. It's the official Whitehouse photostream produced by your and my tax dollars. The Obama administration shouldn't delete comments and they shouldn't now shirk from the question of whether or not they do this as they are doing now. - Thomas Hawk

2. Shepherd Johnson should not have had his account deleted over the comments that he posted. He linked to a photo (not his but from another photostream as allowed by flickr that was also nuked) depicting detainee prison abuse with a message protesting Obama's support of a new law to suppress additional photos from being released. Of all speech political speech should be given the widest berth of all. At a minimum he deserved a warning from Flickr before they nuked him. They or the Whitehouse also could have simply blocked him from the President's photostream and left his personal photostream intact. I suspect that a large part why this was done was because 1. Flickr staff personally supports Obama and 2. Flickr didn't want to be embarrassed over this very high profile account that they were very proud of. It was overkill to nuke the guys entire account without warning. - Thomas Hawk

3. Flickr should not be deleting *any* accounts permanently and irrevocably. To be so arrogant that they would assume that they will never make a mistake in an account deletion is mind numbing. The fact that they refuse to address this issue and simply dismiss anyone who suggests otherwise is an equally horrible position of arrogance. Instead Flickr should change their policy with regards to account deletion and instead issue a one week suspension (which could look just like a deletion) where a user might have an opportunity to appeal any deletion decision as well as get their photos off Flickrs servers. It is wrong that Flickr will not implement a system like this and that they will not even offer any sort of rational defense for why they won't do this. The fact of the matter is that they just don't care enough about their users to give them this sort of respect. - Thomas Hawk

+++ @TH - Nils Sandin

Scott, this is not just about a Flickr account deletion. According to Shepherd, Heather was not aware of some of the comments that were deleted on the President's stream. The only way those comments could have been deleted (if not by flickr) would have been by Shepherd himself or someone who controls the President's stream. I've personally written to the White House on it and posted a public open letter on their stream as well asking them if they delete comments or not and they've not responded to either. Flickr did delete a photostream but I also believe that the President's staff may also be deleting critical comments on his photostream. It is not in the spirit of transparency to delete political comments that are critical of your administration. - Thomas Hawk

And there is no political bias on my part in this one. I voted for Obama and support him as my President even if I might not vote for him again. I'm a Democrat who believes strongly that censorship is wrong, even if it's done by a popular Democratic President. - Thomas Hawk

Political speech does not and should not deserve a wider berth if the guy was breaking the rules. That should be entirely content agnostic. - Richard Lawler

When are you going to realize that Obama and Bush policy wise are one and the same? - John Blanton from twhirl

Richard, the problem with that position is that the "rules" at flickr are very, very subjective. According to Shepherd, Heather told him his account was deleted because he posted a link to a detainee abuse photo and because he was "spamming" flickr, and yet Heather refused to define what "spamming" was and there is definitely no specific rule about not linking to detainee abuse photos. Think about this rule. Flickr says you are not allowed to have photos in your stream not taken by you. And yet millions of these photos exist on Flickr. Heck, Heather has photos in her *own* stream that were not taken by her. I have photos not taken by me in my stream. Should my stream be deleted because I've got a photo in it that my dad took of me and my mom when I was 6 months old because I'm breaking flickr's rule? - Thomas Hawk

so in Flickr's subjective implementation of their rules? Yes, I do think that political speech should be given a wider berth. Not directly relevant, but U.S. Courts have consistently given political speech a wider berth when dealing with First Amendment issues. - Thomas Hawk

If you think flickrs rules are bad then thats great, but its not censorship for them to have and enforce rules on their own website.This is not a first amendment issue and flickr shouldn't treat it as one, that amendment does not give you the rights being implied here. If your Dad sent a complaint to flickr about you posting his photo and you continued to repost it, then sure your stream should be deleted. - Richard Lawler

Richard it is actually censorship if Flickr deletes an account. It might not be Govt. censorship (which also may or may not have taken place in this case). Censorship doesn't have to be Govt sponsored to be considered censorship. It may be *justifiable* censorship to you but it is still censorship. - Thomas Hawk

No, it's censorship if they remove it because of the content, which is exactly why whether it is political speech or not should never come into play. - Richard Lawler

Richard, Flickr did remove Shepherds account because of content. That's exactly why his account was deleted. Content of an image (detainee torture abuse) and content of his words (protesting the Obama administration) that they called spam but would not define. - Thomas Hawk

You've decided it was the content based on their lack of a hard definition for spam, but that doesn't make it so. What he was doing doesn't serve for justification for how he went about doing it. - Richard Lawler

Not sure anyone in this long thread has corrected the assumption that this is "censorship." Censorship is inherently a government act. If it's not an act of government, by definition, it isn't censorship. - Jon Lebkowsky

At least, if you folow the strict, original defnition of the term. There's a huge issue here, but I don't see it as an issue of censorship. - Jon Lebkowsky

Censorship by any definition is anyone preventing anyone else from fully using our right to free speech. .this is censorship of the worst kind. - John Blanton from twhirl

Jon: Censorship is not limited to government accts. Your confusing "censorship" with "government censorship," a common mistake that people make. Since you mention the definition of the term, check out the definition in the dictionary. Richard, according to Shepherd, his account was deleted in part for the photo and in part for what they call spamming (without any notice or warning I might add). The photo (which was not even in his stream and which resulted in another account deletion) is clearly and unequivocally content. In terms of the "spamming" I think that was more of a convenient excuse made up after the fact. But do I think that someone ought to have their entire account deleted over a nebulous and subjective case of "spam" that Flickr refuses to identify? No, I do not. If they won't define spam then really now anything can be spam right? And they have complete subjective authority to delete any account that they want to right? While that may be the actual case I don't think it's right at all and I still consider this case basically a censorship issue. - Thomas Hawk

Again, you have a right to free speech in /public/ - Flickr is a /private/ place. Just as you can dictate the speech that goes on in your own home, so can Flickr in their message boards. It may be censorship, but it is not infringing on your right to free speech We are all free to bitch about Flickr in public. So's the guy they dumped. Flickr is free to censor any damn thing they like on their network. The government, however is not free to tell them that they must not allow certain types of speech. I don't understand why you people just can't get this one through. Private company = Private speech = not "protected" . Want to excercise your right to free speech? Go to union square. Or start your own photo sharing and messaging service. You're still free to do that. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

It is censorship, but it's perfectly legal and "fine" for them to do, however offensive and inadvisable it may be - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Rob, I've never said his speech on Flickr is protected. I've never said that what Flickr did her was illegal. Flickr can censor me for wearing a green shirt if they want to. Nobody's disputing that. I'm saying it's bad policy and as one of the most active community members who has put thousands of hours into the site and thousands of pieces of content into the site, I think their censorship sucks. At the end of the day a community is just it's members and I think Flickr should show more respect for their members than they do. While it is in fact perfectly legal, I personally don't think it's fine at all that they do this. Flickr is an amazing cultural jewel. It may be the most significant part of the entire the photographic world now and for the foreseeable future. I'd like Yahoo to be better stewards of it than they have been. - Thomas Hawk

I do wish actually though that the White House would in fact address the question of whether or not they censor comments on their own Flickrstream. I think it's a fair question in light of Obama's oft promised new "transparency" in Govt. - Thomas Hawk

Thomas: no you never said any of those things. And i have to agree that it's bad policy. I think in general censorship sucks no matter who does it. And definitely I think you're correct that the Obama Administration should address that question. It's a fair question regardless of promised "transparency" - it's a fair question because it is OUR government. (of, for, and BY the people, right?)But, we've sen on several occasions already that the Obama White House cannot & will not live up to it's promises. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Thanks Pat :) Well said. - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

Pat, calling it *government* censorship (which in fact may or may not have taken place here) implies that it's a First Amendment freedom-of-speech issue. Calling it censorship is simply stating what it is. If FriendFeed decided to delete a user's account for posting images of prison detainee abuse that would also be censorship. Fortunately for all of us, Friendfeed doesn't seem to be the censor that Flickr is. There's nothing wrong with labeling this as what it is in fact, censorship. Corporate censorship, but still censorship nonetheless. And it sucks. - Thomas Hawk

It does suck, but we do have to remember that this type of censorship is also an exercise of freedom as well. No matter how much it sucks, it is Flickr's right to do it. (no matter how bad it is for their users, or their own company it's still their right -we are all free to engage in our own stupidity) "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -Voltaire - guruvan (Rob Nelson)

"I will defend your right to say it" indeed - but I won't defend your right to yell it, say it over and over right in someone's face, or heckle in a public space. And I wont defend your right to say it by force to people who dont want to hear it. None of these are free speech - As soon as your speech infringes on the free speech or freedom of others, it's no longer free speech. If someone put 10 political comments in my flickr feed, I would complain to flickr. And if they did it again and again, I would expect Flickr to either remove them or lose my business. - Iphigenie

Sorry, Joelle, I can only say you've never encountered an issue where your passion and your politics overrode your sense of propriety, (I have) because that is what you are talking about now. Unless you have suddenly become a public figure at the level of the President of the United States. Free speech as a right protects us against the government, not against corporate assholes, which is, I suspect, one reason why this thread has become so murky. Because: Here, we have both. But that doesn't mean the principles that impel us to resist both aren't the same. Someone renewed my flickr pro account, by the way. - Rick Powell