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Flickr Censors Egypt Police Photos

Posted by Soulskill on from the state-of-de-nile dept.

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."

20 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Shame by mr100percent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Shame by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I grow tired of the evil enabled by fools. Let us together remove it, and breathe once again the fresh, honest air.

    2. Re:Shame by grcumb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Shame on you Flickr....

      Shame indeed. I live and work and write occasional newspaper columns in the tiny nation of Vanuatu, Last week, our Minister of Infrastructure and Public Utilities arrived in the offices of our national newspaper with a gang of 8 thugs and proceeded to beat the crap out of the publisher. His sin? Telling the truth about a litany of crooked dealings the Minister was involved in.

      This prompted people from all walks of life in the Pacific Islands region to stand up and make themselves heard. The staff of the Daily Post newspaper - and contributors like myself - were defiant in the face of overt coercion and threats.

      Why, I would like to know, is it easier for pipsqueaks like us to stand up to government coercion than for large corporations with a stable of capable lawyers on hand and not a fear in the world for their own safety?

      Of course, we already know the answer.

      --
      Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
    3. Re:Shame by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 3, Informative

      Congratulations. You've just defined the Streisand Effect.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  2. How many services are this misguided lately? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:How many services are this misguided lately? by MoonBuggy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How many services am I going to have to boycott before they get a damned clue?

      Unfortunately, unless you're particularly rich and/or politically influential, you're going to end up living in a cave and they still won't notice.

    2. Re:How many services are this misguided lately? by jd · · Score: 3, Funny

      I dunno. Live in a particularly nice cave and you might be good for a reality tv show.

      --
      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)
  3. Not censorship, clear TOS violation by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Not censorship, clear TOS violation by penguinchris · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're being disingenuous. They would never take down a photo in a situation as you described. They don't normally take down people's stuff that isn't their own anyway, because no one complains about it. They only look into these situations if they get complaints (typically), and usually those complaints are from the copyright holder. Presumably, your wife wouldn't complain to flickr if you posted her photo to your account.

      Seriously, flickr is not the place to host the photos you found on a CD you stole from the secret service headquarters. Flickr is not Wikileaks and doesn't want to get involved in that sort of thing. Flickr regularly takes down photos that are "stolen" in the sense of being blatant copyright infringement. In this case it's both copyright infringement and legitimate theft.

      Flickr *does not* remove politically charged, graphic (sex and/or violence), etc. images, either - they're neutral on such issues. You can find tons of stuff like that on flickr, including photos from protests around the world showing government officials committing crimes and violent acts against unarmed citizens (as an example). But typically you should have taken those photos yourself, or gotten permission, before posting them to flickr.

      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.

  4. Re:Tough call actually by mr100percent · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  5. Flickr pulled a dick move by Chaonici · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  6. "Ripped off", he says by Chaonici · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:"Ripped off", he says by ScentCone · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As TFA points out, this is selective enforcement

      And the selection criteria is: the infringing posts were very high profile. It rises to the level of being noticed by not just a few people following some guy's Flickr stream, but by possibly very large numbers of people.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  7. Re:Oh, I see by Draek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Flickr isn't part of any government, and I see nothing that suggests they took the photos down under the orders of one. So, dick move? yeah, reprehensible? sure, but censorship? not really.

    --
    No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
  8. Photos have been republished by Thomas+Hawk · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

  9. Re:Tough call actually by mr100percent · · Score: 4, Informative

    Quite right. Gawker has some

  10. Re:Oh, I see by tsm_sf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't understand why censorship is always seen as something only a government can do. If you alter or remove something based on it's content (i.e. not because you need the disk space or similar) you are literally a censor. That's the definition of censorship.

    --
    Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
  11. Re:lol libertard by Bobakitoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What happened here is censorship. What you describe is merely legal censorship. Because it is legal, it dont mean it is the right thing to do.

    There is no recourse against legal corportate censorship. But peoples are free to complain and presure them anyway they see fit. Bloging, writing articles, posting comments are all acceptable way for the public to communicate its disagrement. It is up to them to see if, considering the shitstorm, that unpopular move was worth it.

    No one sued Flickr over some "VIOLATE MY FREE SPEECH AMENDMENTS! OMG!" claim, WTF is your problem?

  12. Re:Oh, I see by toriver · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  13. Re:Tough call actually by Jiro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, putting up photos of torturers has ethical problems that are just as bad, Saying "this guy is a torturer" and spreading it around the world is like saying "this guy is a terrorist" or "this guy is a pedophile" and spreading it around the world. It's not as if Flickr has any reason to trust a random guy off the street accusing a third party of a serious crime.

    If I posted a picture of you and said "my neighbor is a terrorist", shouldn't you hope that Flickr would remove it?

    (And if you say, well, these guys really are torturers, but you aren't really a terrorist, tell me how Flickr is supposed to know that?)