Over the last couple of days I have been caught up in the thread about
Flickr censoring their German users by not letting them turn off safe search. There is a
long thread about the topic in the Flickr Help Forum. This story has been picked up a
little by the media. It has
made lots of blogs. It has gotten a lot of attention from Flickr users.
I understand that people are upset about their photos being blocked and not being able to see some pictures. I know as a user of Flickr I think the protest is good. I think it is good for people to put the heat on Flickr and Yahoo. In the end we are their customers. That is an asymmetric relationship. The customer's power is our ability make noise and leave Flickr.
There is a lot of energy on the Flickr Germany discussion. There are a lot of passionate people. I would love to see these people channel this energy to more serious Censorship issues. I know that some people will say that all censorship is serious. Honestly I think that journalists who are
jailed or
killed because of their work is more serious than people having photos blocked on flickr. I would love to see that energy transfered from Flickr to larger issues of Censorship.
Thomas Hawk said the he was going to put his money where his mouth was for
Zooomr and adopt standards that Yahoo would not adopt. I invite Thomas Hawk, every blogger out there who has made a post about this, and every Flickr user who has protested about this to actually put their money where their mouth is. I would like to challenge all these people to donate money to
Reporters without Borders or
Committee to Protect Journalists. I would suggest that you donate a $1 for every blog post, forum posts, and protest picture you posted and five cents for every time you used the word 'Censorship' in this conversation.
I am not letting Flickr off the hook either. I think the company and the staff of Flickr should open up their wallets also. I think Flick
should donate at least a dollar for every post on this thread. On this thread Heather said,
In fact, we're all getting really uncomfortable that the words "flickr" and "censorship" are being jammed together with increasing frequency because that is _so far_ from the direction we're trying to move in. Putting down some cash to Reporters without Borders is one way to address that.
I have already donated $25 dollars to Reporters without Borders. I doubt that anyone will join me. I think that we should be able to raise $4000 for them, but I doubt that I will be able to raise $100 dollars. Tell me if you donate money in this effort.
Labels: censorship, charity, Committee to Protect Journalists, flickr, flickrpost, journalist, photo, Reporters without Borders
