Flickr is like a Stalinist Regime

Flickr really pissed me off today. Flickr has a mechanism for users to "flag" their photos as either safe, moderate, or restricted. My interpretation of these flags are:

safe: photos of flowers, sunsets, trees, buildings, cars, food, chairs, puppies, rivers, urban scenes, etc.

moderate: any photo with nudity, like breasts, bums, flaccid male appendages

restricted: sex acts, pornography, graphic displays of genitals, etc.

So, I have dutifully flagged any photo with nudity as moderate. Since I have no photos of people crashing the custard truck, I have nothing flagged as restricted. A couple of my photos, from a recent Toronto Pride Day parade, do feature male frontal nudity. I flagged these as moderate.

It's important to note that Flickr allows people to alter their search preferences. So, if you only want to see safe photos, you leave your preferences as safe. There are three settings:

SafeSearch on: You'd prefer to see photos and video that is safe for a global, public audience.

SafeSearch moderate: You're OK seeing the odd "artistic nude" here or there, but that's the limit.

SafeSearch off: You're over 18, and take full responsibility that you're comfortable to see whatever turns up.

As far as I am concerned, I flagged my photos appropriately. But, like the good old days of Joseph Stalin, when someone turns you in, you get punished. Someone, who had changed their search settings to moderate, reported me to the Flickr secret police, who then flagged two photos as restricted without any consultation with me. These are photos that have been viewed more than 22,000 times and 5,000 times respectively, and only one person complained.

I am upset because Flickr has a means for people to self-moderate photostreams, but they can intervene at any time to dictate morality. Here is the guidance Flickr offers when flagging photos:

Safe - Content suitable for a global, public audience

Moderate - If you're not sure whether your content is suitable for a global, public audience but you think that it doesn't need to be restricted per se, this category is for you

Restricted - This is content you probably wouldn't show to your mum, and definitely shouldn't be seen by kids

This sounds like my original interpretation and like the description in the safe search settings. So, why the hell did the Flickr Politburo change my settings? Because 0.0045% of the people who have viewed one of these photos was offended. In the USSR, under Mr. Stalin, all it took was one person out of millions to point the finger.

The thing that really bothers me is that my mother would have no problem seeing either photo, and neither would my kids. In fact, they saw the real thing at the parade. It's the freaking puritanical US of A that pisses me off. You can watch someone's head being blown off on prime time broadcast television, but show a breast and you have a date with the FCC.

I think we should all adhere to local standards. In Ontario, for example, it is legal for a woman to be topfree in public. She need not fear any oppression from the patriarchy (well, she might suffer some sexual oppression, but legally, she can bare those breasts). Of course, in the puritanical USA, it is illegal for women to be topfree in most states. So, if it is legal for a woman to exercise her topfree rights, then these photos ought to be permitted as safe or moderate. If the city permits men to march nude in a parade, then these photos ought to be considered as safe or moderate, and certainly not resticted.

End of rant.

P.S. My flickr account is not listed under my Zydeoc Fish alias, but my real name.