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Flickr Censors Egypt Police Photos
An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday Flickr removed a photoset of Egyptian Secret Police photos which had been posted to an Egyptian journalist's Flickrstream. The photos were obtained when the journalist acquired them from what he called 'one of Mubarak's largest torture facilities.' Flickr cited the fact that the photos 'were not the user's own work' as justification for the censorship, even though Flickr staffers themselves frequently upload work that is not 'their own' to their personal photostreams."
Shame on you Flickr, they're not even explicit.
Hope someone has a mirror, and this time posted elsewhere on another site. Let's not reward them with more traffic.
It's hard to comment without knowing what we're talking about. If those were pictures of people being tortured, then if you were one of those people would you want your suffering and humiliation shown around the world? There are ways of getting the word out without harming the torture victims again.
On the other hand if the faces were blurred, or the photos were just of implements of torture, than I don't see the need to remove them.
Who has a copy of these photos? Time to widely distribute them!
I grow weary of this. PayPal, Amazon, card companies, and others over their BS decisions regarding WikiLeaks. Flickr protecting despots in Egypt. Where will it end? How many services am I going to have to boycott before they get a damned clue?
Flickr is very clear that you are sharing your OWN WORK. These are images taken by someone else.
Regardless of how you feel about breaking into government files and sharing things you find there, a place like Flickr with a very clear TOS about not publishing other people's work has every right, and should be expected to take these things down. Flickr is not Wikileaks. Find somewhere else to put the images.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Corporate is as corporate does.
So where else were those photos hosted?
So just because a corporation's terms of service were allegedly violated means it's not censorship to take down someone's speech. Particularly as it pertains to a government.
Okay.
Here's reality, you don't have free speech rights on some corporation's website. If you want to host your own site and put your free speech up there, don't think anyone's going to interfere.
This could have been handled a bit more gracefully. I am defending the right for an individual or business to be able to dictate the terms of content that is hosted or stored on their property. Call it whatever you want. There's a multitude of sites that will host those images no questions asked. So, why not do it?
Big business protecting big government...protecting big business...protecting.... Nothing to see here. (big) business(/government) as usual...
I only post when im drunk.
Is it possible that these facilities were sites used in the war against terror?
I agree. If the company allows this publishing, it can wreak havoc on the company in terms of being the host of those pictures. Many here do not understand what they speak of and the ramifications that are a result of it. It is called LIABILITY people. They can be sued here in the U.S. for it. Duh!
You're the one who brought up free speech, not me.
Their policy might be fine when it comes to actual creative works. Deleting pictures like these based on the justification that you must upload your own work is valuing the letter of the rule above its spirit.
They will now get the backlash they deserve.
Flckr IS yahoo, so you shouldn't be surprised. What is surprising is that Yahoo didn't give up all information about the Journalist. Maybe they since Yahoo enjoys having journalists killed and not protecting free speech.
This is what happens when you love rule of law so much that you follow laws, rules, policies, terms of service, and end user license agreements over basic ethics.
Whether or not Flickr is justified in removing the images at all, the manner in which they did it is unacceptable. It would be very easy to accuse them of using their TOS (their rule of law) to hide behind the fact that they just don't like the content of the photos themselves.
As TFA points out, this is selective enforcement.
Come back when you can provide an argument that doesn't rely on personal attacks for support. Or at least don't randomly throw epithets at people about whom you know nothing.
earned the photoset a much larger viewing audience than it would have had if you'd done nothing.
And you, Brutus, I mean Flickr!
Flickr boss seems to have protected his cosplay photo. Maybe the dinosaur turned out to be a Secret Service agent?
It looks like Anonymous has republished the photo and has tweeted that they are a gift to the Egyptian People. You can see the photos here: http://www.pdf-archive.com/2011/03/13/egyptofficers-rev-840/egyptofficers-rev-840.pdf and Anonymous' tweet on the subject here: http://twitter.com/#!/Anony_Ops/status/46799870304071680
Seems to me that this is more likely to draw attention to it than leaving it to be.
So should you be:
Flickr is just another company. It has no purpose other than to be profitable. Companies are not concerned with freedom, morality or social responsibility, no matter how they care to portray themselves. Do I disagree with what Flickr did? Yes. Am I surprised? No. When it comes to profit, corporate censorship is the policy, not the exception. Don't expect anything less.
Exactly, and now it's not even big business, it's just business. Gone are the days of the "military/industrial complex". Now it's just about any business. Profit is king, and anything that doesn't result in profit is just serfdom. Censorship is the policy, not the exception. Where does it stop? The answer, sadly, is it won't stop. When it comes to corporations, the laws protect the perpetrators, not the victims. When injustice becomes the law, then resistance becomes a duty.
Flickr just removed the photos from its own site. The people who uploaded the photos are free to host them on Picasa, Imageshack, Yfrog, etc. etc.
This is not censorship. Flickr is not saying that they (users) can't host the photos anywhere; they're just saying that, for whatever reason, these photos are not welcome on Flickr.
When we throw words like "censorship" around willy-nilly, we weaken the real meaning of the word.
On the one hand, journalists have a responsibility to report the truth (even if they rarely do) especially in matters of corruption. On the other hand, they also have a responsibility to the public interest (even if they usually ignore it) and tensions in Egypt are sky-high right now.
It is right and proper that the public have evidence of torture by the former Secret Police, and that documents are being destroyed, as this puts pressure on the military there to crack down a bit harder on said Secret Police. However, it's got to be done with an eye to not provoking mindless violence - something Egypt has been fortunate to avoid so far. This isn't about the fringe groups - they've never mattered. Rather, it is about the attitude of those participating in general. What you do during a regime change is usually a good indicator of what you will do afterwards. Thus, keeping your cool and helping others keep theirs is probably a good policy.
I am bothered by the fact that the military even allowed anyone near the Secret Police buildings - including members of said police. Given how much potentially incriminating evidence said police will have on the military and any budding politicians, you'd think that allowing the former regime access to such material might not be the smartest move. Even if the military didn't particularly want a fair democracy, they'd probably want something less likely to take reprisals for the military's inaction in the uprisings.
That the military are relying heavily on the police is less surprising. Absolutely no military is trained in law enforcement, the Egyptian army is way too understaffed to manage something the size of Egypt even if they had the training, and shutting down a heavily armed organization that is used to having power is not for the faint-of-heart. Especially if said organization likely outnumbers and out-guns the army. The options were always going to be limited.
That the police are using their reprieve to shred everything and anything that can be used against them (unless they can use it for them) is no surprise at all but makes it more and more likely that all the options left will be bad ones.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Flickr (or Twitter or Facebook or gmail or any web service) "isn't part of any government" until the moment it is considered to contain evidence that are being used against you.
Flickr is just a business, like any other. Profitability is it's motivation...nothing more, nothing less. Freedom, morality or social responsibility are meaningless to a company like Flickr. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo or Facebook are no different. Corporate censorship is a policy, not an exception. Flickr is full of images that are not "of the users own work" or contain copyrighted content, but the photos of the Mubarak regime's torture of it's citizens is singled out and deleted immediately. Why? Political controversy is unprofitable, but violating copyright laws, when it can, is profitable. Even though Flickr would have been protected under the DMCA act's "safe harbor" provisions, which is how it gets away with it's current copyright violations, the company chose to remove the images even before a complaint was lodged. What Flickr did was deplorable from a human rights standpoint, but business as usual from a corporate standpoint. You shouldn't be shocked or surprised by Flickr's response. If you were, your faith was misguided. This is the reality of the world now. Now that corporations control the vast majority of communication on the Internet, come to expect censorship as the norm. People used to say the revolution will not be televised, but in today's age, it won't be posted, emailed, blogged or tweeted. Welcome to the 21st century.
yes but large media corporations have veto power on A LOT of expression.. this is no good either..
....the photos have been republished in several places, which the Piggipedia author, @3arabawy, has seen fit to broadcast on his Twitter feed. The URLs for these are as follows:
http://anonymiss.imgur.com/
http://ge.tt/4LaxiU0
http://cryptome.org/info/eg-ss/eg-ss-01.htm
The dude behind this is one of the main voiced of the Egyptian revolution. History will not look kindly upon Flickr for their cowardice here.
Finding God in a Dog
Opinion in of itself != whining, get a dictionary and shut the fuck up.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
This site is totally fucked up. Rather than censoring, Flickr should better fix their javascript-bloated interface which never worked since it was forced online, despite the users' negative feedbacks.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/we_want_our_old_photo_page/
No it isn't censorship if I ban you from posting on my commercial service because any other commercial service is still available to you. Oh they censor too? Not my problem.
you are the kind of person who thinks signs like "Geine Juden" or "Whites only" are perfectly okay because they can go somewhere else don't they? You disgust me.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I urge people to switch away from FlickR, to other photosharing sites like SmugSmug or others.
:
IPernity is a community-oriented photo-sharing site, with an interface similar to the original flickr interface.
Here is a Monkeygrease script to automatically import your flickr photos to Ipernity
https://www.ipernity.com/apps/gm
I am uploading my new photos to both site, and when Ipernity community is large enough, I will definitely close my Flickr account.
RIP Slashdot. I used to love you. dead account - but slashdot wont let me delete it.
His points were not clear. He misrepresented my position with exaggeration, hyperbole, and caps lock. Then, rather than offering counterarguments, he insulted me (albeit inaccurately, as I am not libertarian). The personal attacks are not a "bonus" - they do not contribute anything meaningful to the discussion. Posts like that are what the Troll mod is for.
Additionally, the fact that I disagree with you does not make me stupid, and does not mean I lack understanding on this subject (such a premise assumes you are objectively correct in the first place).
If Flickr honestly cared about upholding this policy, would they not take down every instance of its violation they found, rather than only going after the low-hanging fruit?
Flickr staff members often upload content that is not, by strict definition, their original work. They may be justified in doing so as it is their service, but not abiding by your own rules undermines your authority to enforce those rules on others.
> As for the examples in the second FA of a flickr staff member posting things that aren't his own work - they're a huge stretch. It's FUD.
How do you know?
If you are invited by a private party to speak or otherwise express yourself, and your speech or form of expression is removed after the fact due to its contents, this is censorship.
Before going ballistic, please read the entire post.
Flickr is a private company.Thus, they are entitled to have their own TOS providing it does not violate the law.
If one of these terms are "You are only allowed to upload your own material, i.e. material created by you or which you solely hold the copyright for." so be it.
The fact that the employers in our cases have been a little more "elastic" in enforcing this does not make the posting of someoneelse's material any less a violation of TOS. The same as other people getting off with a warning for speeding does not make your über speeding any less a violation of the trafic laws.
There is a HUGE difference between the possible consequence of allowing a post of some guys picture he took of a moose and that of people getting tortured. I can easily understand why Flickr employees decided to use the TOS to get them offline from Flickr. In Denmark a cartoonist drew Muhammed with a bomb in his turban, the got published in a newspaper ( and reprinted ) and behold - later 3 muslim jerks planned to shoot all the journalists at the newspaper. The cartoonist was attacked by a muslim with an axe. In my opinion, it was just a stupid drawing - in theirs it was BLASFEMY!
Let's say : I create an online service ( funded by adds ) in which ANYONE can upload ANYTHING.
Soon, the Nazis upload their stuff, Pedophile upload their picture of "gang bang night at the Kindergarten" as well as the "normal" pictures.
What should I do? If my TOS state that anything can be uploaded shouldn't I permit them to upload their data? Or should I be the judge, jury and executioner and delete any piece of info I didn't like? And then, who's to say that my opinion was the right one?
We can also turn the table : Would you be as aggrivated if :
The Egyptian Police themselves uploaded pictures of them torturing people ( as a kind of momentum / brag ) and had those pictures removed? Or the Somali war lords started slaughtering people, called it a "revolution" and uploaded the pictures which were then removed?
I think it's interesting to note that people react very aggressively when then are told that all sites, private companies etc. do not wish to provide storage for any "revolution" everywhere in the world? I have no interest in what's happening in Egypt and I am not affilliated with Flickr in any way. But I don't think that even though something is "ethical" or "the right thing to do" releases any user from the TOS. It is up to the private company to decide when to use the TOS and when not to.
It is not so that the pictures have been withheld from the internet - a private company have only decided to uphold the TOS.
And with these words, I wait for the FUD.
Never buy Sony CDs - they will open up your computer to anyone..
They're a profit focused corporate outfit; this isn't surprising. It's also not a problem. Just use a service like http://bayimg.com/ instead to host the image files, and http://baywords.com/ to publish them.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Exactly. In the US, Republicans and Democrats alike have embraced outsourcing of government services to private companies as a means of saving money.
But what we've lost as a result is accountability, regulation and Redress. No one seems to have considered the consequences of splitting up the Public Square into a million little private squares, each setting its own rules and standards. Or, perhaps, they have considered the consequences and then gone and done it anyway.
-S
If someone with power (Flickr) blocks the speech or expression of someone relatively without power (a random Flickr user), it is censorship.
That is without doubt the stupidest thing that has even been typed.
It is the most completely bone-headed comment I have ever seen in many years of internet use, that reflects an astounding disconnect from reality in any form as we know it.
I would say it's a troll, except that you obviously believe this.
Get used to disappointment in life if you think a place run by a private group is in any way public space, ever, in any universe, in any time.
I won't even reply to you again; you are beyond all hope even I think of self-correction much less education.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Get 'em boys.
when flickr is doing stuff like this... just move to bayimg