Slashdot Mirror
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."
No, they weren't torture photos. Some were photos of empty jail cells, some photos of bags of shredded documents, others were stacks of VHS tapes with some 'explicit' Arabic writing (they had sex tapes of some Egyptian and foreign celebs, likely as blackmail). I'd show you, but of course they're down. I'm sure some news articles and twitter posts mirrored a few of them.
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
Quite right. Gawker has some
Congratulations. You've just defined the Streisand Effect.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Because the censorship covered by the First Amendment deals only with the Government.
Your right of free speech does not imply that any third party has a duty to help you spread it. E.g. Hustler can print porn but Wal-mart are free to choose not to sell it.