Saturday, May 19, 2007

Yahoo Chief Terry Semel : Please Read: Flickr's new censorship system

The following are the comments that I adapted from Malingerlin Site:

Yahoo Chief Terry Semel : Please Read: Flickr's new censorship system



Rock On Malingering*

Yeah having Photos deemed Unsafe kinda Sucks or having 1 Photo Deleted like Rebekka did - but these Pale in comparison to the Travesty of Gail Orenstein*

Yeah it's Sad n Pathetic*

Twits + Hypocrites are Flickr!!

Whattabout Gail Orenstein + Flickr Deleting her entire Account & amazing Body of Work of over 3,400 Photographs + over 1 Million Views + over 20,000 Comments from all her Flickr Fans!! A bloody outrage!!

Gail's Work incorporated behind the scenes Photos of Strippers in their Work environment so yes that meant shots of bOObies but nothing Pornographic* She would post the Top World Headlines of the Day concerning things that All People should Care about like Bush's Illegal War in Iraq + the Pope banning Condoms for African Women etc. Like Rebekka said - this sparked lively Political + Social Discussion - some of the Smartest insights to be found anywhere on Flickr & poof it's all gone!!

A bloody outrage!!

Even Professional Recreationalist who tried to setup a Flickr Customer Union had the Group Deleted + all the comments!!

ridiculous*

It goes right to the Top of Flickr with Stewart ButterMyAsshole + his SheWolf of the SS sidekick Heather Chump! Their Arrogance knows No Bounds!!

I was actually gleeful with scheudenfreude to hear Miss Chump got the Boot from JPG Mag!! Pompous Twit!! ;))

atanyrate i've been NIPSA + none of my Photos show up Publicly on Flickr for over a year - yeah i've posted about 12 Nudes (fer a Joke) but I also Speak my Mind - last I heard Freedom of Speech was still a good thing in America!!

The ONLY reason any of us still stay at Flickr is cuz all our Friendz our there & frankly it is still an awesome Web2.0 website*

Otherwise people would be over to Zoomr in a heartbeat*

Cheers Hawk + Malingering + Everybody fer having the Courage to SPEAK UP!! Billy Warhol ;))

SILENCE IS NOT AN OPTION*

Peace*

[24] Posted by: BillyWarhol | May 19, 2007 11:42 AM

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@



[I am CEO of Zooomr]

Malingering,

Thanks for telling your story as well. Even though higher profile cases like yours and Rebekka's, Kris Krug's (Flickr took down a cease and desist letter he got from a photographer who was ripping him off), mine etc. get attention, just imagine how many people this happens to all the time at Flickr who have no recourse.

The problem is that Flickr just does not take their responsibility of censoring seriously. They censor willy nilly and your case is but another example. When it's a high enough profile case they fix and issue but another hollow apology as they have done in your case.

Flickr says that in the future that they will err on the side of "caution" with regards to censorship but refuses to outline what steps they will specifically take to ensure that they follow through with their promises. Heather Champ, Flickr's Community manager says that because you agree to Flickr's terms of service that when they delete your stuff that it "is not and cannot be viewed as censorship."

Heck, they refuse to even admit that they censored me despite sending me a threatening email threating to shut down my account.

What makes it worse is that rather than have a serious debate about how to make Flickr a better and less censored place, Flickr Chief Stewart Butterfield would rather write PR spin comments on my blog "challenging" me to write that child porn would be ok into Zooomr's TOS.

You know I have a blog on blogger (owned by Google). I'm sure somewhere in their TOS I've agreed to give them some power over my blog. But you know what? If blogger ever came and deleted a blog post I wrote I'd be just as pissed. Blogger is every bit a platform for ideas as Flickr is.

Thanks for blogging your story and raising more awareness on this important topic.

Power to the people.

Thomas Hawk

[29] Posted by: Thomas Hawk | May 19, 2007 5:58 PM

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Yahoo-to-announce-closure-of-yahoo-photos-tomorrow/



In my opinion, Yahoo acquistion of flickr & integrating flickr into Yahoo Business is inevitable.

I have commented earlier on the need for Yahoo to consolidate its Business unit's.

It is a natural process yahoo need to take to clean up the house & change it business & operating structures from time to time.

Please read more about the original write up & comments:

Yahoo-to-announce-closure-of-Yahoo-photos-tomorrow/



Yahoo Vs flickr View Rates

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Threats stifle female bloggers!! Sexual harassment on the rise in blogosphere-As women gain visibility in the blogosphere, they are targets of sexual harassment and threats. Men are harassed too, and lack of civility is an abiding problem on the Web.

Threats stifle female bloggers!! Sexual harassment on the rise in blogosphere-As women gain visibility in the blogosphere, they are targets of sexual harassment and threats. Men are harassed too, and lack of civility is an abiding problem on the Web.

Photo-Gail orenstein-Threats stifle some female bloggers
Sexual harassment on the rise in blogosphere
Updated: 1:08 a.m. ET April 30, 2007
A female freelance writer who blogged about the pornography industry was threatened with rape. A single mother who blogged about "the daily ins and outs of being a mom" was threatened by a cyber-stalker who claimed that she beat her son and that he had her under surveillance. Kathy Sierra, who won a large following by blogging about designing software that makes people happy, became a target of anonymous online attacks that included photos of her with a noose around her neck and a muzzle over her mouth.

As women gain visibility in the blogosphere, they are targets of sexual harassment and threats. Men are harassed too, and lack of civility is an abiding problem on the Web. But women, who make up about half the online community, are singled out in more starkly sexually threatening terms -- a trend that was first evident in chat rooms in the early 1990s and is now moving to the blogosphere, experts and bloggers said.


More technology news

A 2006 University of Maryland study on chat rooms found that female participants received 25 times as many sexually explicit and malicious messages as males. A 2005 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that the proportion of Internet users who took part in chats and discussion groups plunged from 28 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2005, entirely because of the exodus of women. The study attributed the trend to "sensitivity to worrisome behavior in chat rooms."

Story continues below ↓
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
advertisement

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joan Walsh, editor in chief of the online magazine Salon, said that since the letters section of her site was automated a year and a half ago, "it's been hard to ignore that the criticisms of women writers are much more brutal and vicious than those about men."

Arianna Huffington, whose Huffington Post site is among the most prominent of blogs founded by women, said anonymity online has allowed "a lot of those dark prejudices towards women to surface." Her site takes a "zero tolerance" policy toward abusive and excessively foul language, and employs moderators "24/7" to filter the comments, she said.

Sierra, whose recent case has attracted international attention, has suspended blogging. Other women have censored themselves, turned to private forums or closed comments on blogs. Many use gender-neutral pseudonyms. Some just gut it out. But the effect of repeated harassment, bloggers and experts interviewed said, is to make women reluctant to participate online -- undercutting the promise of the Internet as an egalitarian forum.

Robert Scoble, a technology blogger who took a week off in solidarity with Sierra, said women have told him that harassment is a "disincentive" to participate online. That, he said, will affect their job prospects in the male-dominated tech industry. "If women aren't willing to show up for networking events, either offline or online, then they're never going to be included in the industry," he said.

The treatment of women online is not just an equivalent of what happens offline, some women say. The Internet allows the content to be seen immediately, often permanently and far more widely than a remark scribbled on a restroom wall.

"The sad thing is, I've had thousands of messages from women saying, 'You were a role model for me,' " Sierra said in an interview, describing communications she received after suspending her blog. Sierra was the first woman to deliver a keynote speech at a conference on the Linux operating system. Her blog was No. 23 in the Technorati.com Top 100 list of blogs, measured by the number of blogs that linked to her site.

Her Web site, Creating Passionate Users, was about "the most fluffy and nice things," she said. Sierra occasionally got the random "comment troll," she said, but a little over a month ago, the posts became more threatening. Someone typed a comment on her blog about slitting her throat and ejaculating. The noose photo appeared next, on a site that sprang up to harass her. On the site, someone contributed this comment: "the only thing Kathy has to offer me is that noose in her neck size."

CONTINUED_SOURCE: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18386900/

Uploaded by gailorenstein on 1 May '07, 12.24pm PDT.


@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@




Posted 2 minutes ago. ( permalink )
view profile
CharlieBrown8989 says: name reply / icon reply

Gail this is what I refered as eGansterism & eHooliganism!!

The Bullies goes internet.

It is the traditional Communities & societies goes on to the dark side!!

The action is just like the triads & Gangsters & Marfias turn to websphere!!I have mentioned these in my peech in the late 80's & 90's.

Therefore, a truely independent governant body need to regulate the internet.