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."
Flickr is a company, not a government. You have no constitutional right of free speech on Flickr.
Sucks, I know, but that's the way it is.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Why is flicker taking this issue so seriously?
Or maybe jumpy business people worried they'll get in the middle of a legal mess they'd rather not get involved in.
But why stick with more obvious motivations when you can turn everything into a retarded political pissing match, right?
It's ok to have a picture of Bush as Hitler/Joker/Satan, but Obama is clearly off limits.
Sig? No thanks. I don't smoke.
Flickr is a company, not a government. You have no constitutional right of free speech on Flickr.
The issue is slightly more complicated when the government turns corporate websites into official media distribution channels.
Examples: The White House flickr page, twitter page, facebook page, etc.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
My friend told me he saw a few of these and he was very upset. Not about the portrayl of Obama, but that they don't understand the Joker at all. Anarchy is more his flavour than Socialism.
This is Flickr (a US based company) telling its users that they aren't entitled to express political opinions
Actually, this is Flickr telling it's users that oppose Obama that they are not entitled to express their political opinions. There's still tons of GWB photos out there that make this Joker image look rather tame. Don't take my word for it. Go onto Flickr and search for George Bush and look at the pictures. Then search for Obama and compare those to the GWB pics. I could not find a single negative Obama pic. I had a difficult time finding a positive GWB pic. And please don't try to tell me that 100% of Flickr's users love Obama and hate Bush.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
"the neocons would have had pitchforks in hand"
Really ? Then where are those pitchforks ? Where was the BusHitler backlash ? There was absolutely no shortage of anti-bush rhetoric, imagery, or anything. Blatantly racist imagery, faked imagery, faked evidence, death threats, ... no shortage at all.
Of course pointing out that as far as policy comparisons go, it's Obama's policies that resemble those of the ("early") Hitler : govt. healthcare, govt. takeover of car companies, stimulus money on creating his own civilians corps, ... all those policies were implemented by both. Now pointing that out, no matter how true (and how irrelevant), is racist.
I want MY America back! This isn't Nazi Germany!
Well, lets take a look really quick.
on the home page for flickr, I simply types Bush in the search box and found these results in the first few replies.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bar-art/1549247793/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/inkvision/43028237/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrwaldo/309309512/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eduardo_dacosta/511117225/
I think the one that probably shows the most evidence of this is this one.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmj/5799991/
Notice the caption "it's true, photo's don't lie".
Yea, it's obvious that they are protecting Obama. Probably because Obama has decided to steer a bunch of government money/usage their way with making the government sites on Flickr.
BTW, when I searched for Obama, it was about 10 pages in before I found the first photo criticizing him.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/3834570613/
It's nothing more then a re-posting of the pulled photo with a story under it about the action. I wonder how long it will stay there?
Sloppy fail. From the very tippy top of Yahoo's Terms of Service:
A little later on, this gem:
There's more!
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. If not, print this out, take it to your lawyer, and he'll explain it to you using hand puppets and bright crayon drawings.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Search for 'joker' then, there are thousands of pictures of the Joker, some straight from "The Dark Knight". If it was truly for copyright violations they'd take these down as well wouldn't they?
*DrugCheese rants*
I know you're just trolling, but I'll bite.
whiteface is not "criticism" -- it's racism
How can you seriously attempt to claim that this parody is racist because the face is white??? Was the original joker racist too because he wore white makeup? Are mimes racist because of their makeup? If the only photoshopping done was to paint his face white then I might agree. But quite clearly the intent was to relate him to a well-known character to get the artist's point across. Why must every criticism of Obama be related back to racism?
I know this is hard for you to fathom, but maybe some people just don't agree with his policies. And I bet if someone of a different race had the exact same policies, that group still wouldn't like them. Not everything is about race.