Slashdot Mirror
Flickr Yanks Image of Obama As Joker
An anonymous reader writes "An interesting article yesterday about the unmasking of the recent creator of the controversial and iconic Obama/Joker image that has been popping up around Los Angeles with the word Socialism under it. The Los Angeles Times has identified the images' creator as Firas Alkhateeb. Even more interesting though is the fact that after getting over 20,000 hits on the image at Flickr, Flickr removed the image from Alkateeb's photostream, citing 'copyright' concerns. The image in question is clearly both an independent derivative work and unquestionably a parody of the President and Time Magazine which would be covered under fair use. It has appeared on many other sites without issue on the Internet." According to the same reader, "Flickr also recently nuked a user's entire photostream over negative comments on President Obama's official photostream."
What I love is that the creator of the image, Firas Alkhateeb, has seen his work *cough* borrowed by the Republicans as an anti-Obama anti-Socialist campaign, but his actual intention with the image was to protest about Obama not being liberal enough. (And the fact that Alkhateeb is a Palestinian makes me smile, too.)
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
But why stick with more obvious motivations when you can turn everything into a retarded political pissing match, right?
Yes, because it's not like we experience that kind of politcal bias here on Slashdot all the time where people get modded down because someone of the other party had mod points......
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Actually, they never could take a joke. Not with good grace and humor, at any rate. But that's okay, it's often hard for people to do that when they care passionately about the subject in question. That's kind of basic to the vast majority of humans, really. The rather unfortunate part of it is that people degenerate to such infantile gestures. These gestures, in turn, can probably be traced to back to being incapable of holding a rational, respectful conversation with someone of differing viewpoint, whether because of their own inability or the opposition's inability. Eventually it degenerates to a useless shouting and cockmongery that does not help the democratic process in the slightest. It's most unfortunate, but in a democracy, even the retards get their say. I suppose what's most unfortunate about it is that retards tend to be much louder than the thoughtful types, though your mileage may vary.
Perhaps you're right, but I don't think this is a liberal thing. I think it is an Obama thing.
People had no difficulty making fun of both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Neither did they have difficulty making fun of Al Gore. Even in the late 90s when the internet was comparitvely small, parodies, insulting comics, and distorted likenesses of President Clinton were quite common.
Obama just has more charisma. People who like him take greater offense to slander against him. This is probably what the 30s and 40s were like with FDR (the only president to be elected 4 times BTW).
I know we all like to complain here, but Slashdot is one of the most even handed moderation systems I have ever seen. Have you ever posted to Reddit or Digg? If they even suspect you're related to somebody who once voted Republican, you get down-modded by over 300 people and banned within minutes.
I see comments of all flavors that get modded up here - Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Populist (well, maybe not those). I do love it here.
Why? Flickr can take down any picture it wants due to the agreement made when signing up to the site.
So what you are saying is that Flickr is exercising their right to support their political party of choice throught he media that they own. Kind of like the opposite of Fox right.
That still doesn't make it right. Furthermore, there is a difference. Flickr is a "community". By manipulating the "real" content in the "community", you do this little thing called shaping the perception of public opinion. Fox News can soapbox the radical right opinion until Bill O'Reilly is blue in the face, but they can't make it seem like nobody hates Obama compared with Bush.
For a fun exercise, imagine what would happen if for the previous election, Google just ignored/down-ranked McCain hits in favour of Obama or even Hillary.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
I can't just take a harry potter book and slap a picture of Bush boxing with Obama on the cover and call it fair use due to its political interpretations.
Flaw with your post: The flickr user did not publish the whole magazine. Try this: Take a cover of a Harry Potter book, and slap Obama's head on in place of Harry's and proceeded to add a message saying, "Magical spending will save us all!"
This a much more apt comparison.
In fact, something similar was done. Does that change your opinion?
I'm not entirely sure this wouldn't be unlawful. At least in the flickr case. Flickr as well as several other internet sites have government contracts and government agencies use them to their benefit. When those sites show their political leanings in more then a "I support this guy" and turn it into a "You can't criticize the guy I support", it's as if the government who is rewarding them is actually saying it.
If that doesn't violate a law as in no campaigning from government offices, government rewards or the use of government services for particular political speech, or a violation of the first amendment by the government who is in control of the services they use, then it should be.
Please understand, when I say the first amendment, I understand that flickr is a private company, however, when the US government contracts with and used a private company that imposed a particular political speech and forbids dissenting views, the government has effectivly taken the first amendment away from the people. This is the theory behind all the controls on costs, message, and all with other media like radio and TeleVision. The US government should be bared from doing business as essential services with these companies as long as those types of policies are in place to avoid conflicts with the first amendment. Currently Flickr is one of the main places to view administration photo's and such. I see it as no different then taking ads out in only politically biased media outlets in order to fulfill government disclosure in some misguided attempt to expose people to a particular political view.