A while ago I wrote about my (negative) experience with the Flickr moderation process. I guess I am not the only one uncomfortable with it – Thomas Hawk touched this topic several times (“Use a Swear Word in a Private Email at Flickr and You Get Your Account Deleted“, “Flickr = Censorship“).

And then I saw this “question” by Aya Rosen, aka lilly1975 on Flickr. But don’t click on the Flickr link, because there is nothing on the other side. Flickr closed Aya’s account.

Full disclosure: Aya is a citizen on Yedda. She’s earned her citizenship long ago – she’s been a helpful, kind and knowledgeable citizen. She’s been helping lots and lots of people with her knowledge and yet down to earth candid answers.

And an even fuller disclosure: Aye is a personal friend. I know her to be an original, free thinking artist, and one of the sweetest, most candid, most kind-hearted person I know.

From Aya’s letter to Flickr:

Your site gave so much and by my account being deleted, took so much from me.

I’m thinking back on my photo stream and remembering so many important moments of my life, which the documentations and interactions of are now gone and all is left in my own memory.

How many web services out there have users that feel that strongly about them?

But Flickr is not the issue. We all do that. Bloggers approve or delete a comment on a whim. Digg promotes or hides news – news! – on an algorithmic whim. Even Google sends web sites and companies to stardom or oblivion due to an “Index Update”, aka The Google Dance.

And Yedda. Let’s not forget Yedda – the company I co-founded – which deletes questions & answers if they don’t adhere to our terms of use. Which, as much as we try, may sometime amount to no more than a whim.

Aya is right, she is “breaking the rules” and her not-a-question does not adhere to the Yedda terms of use, but there is no way we will delete it. Because respect to the people who made the community comes before terms of use.

From: Flickr Support

Subject: “Marked as restricted”

*sigh*

Here we go again. Flickr restricted my photostream again (3rd time). No, they won’t say why.

There are 2,944 pictures on my Flickr photostream, 1,073 of them public and the rest are private (e.g. 1,073 pictures of my nephews and extended family that I’d rather bore only specific people with).

There are also 55 pictures on my photostream which contain nudity in one form or another. While I am not fully comfortable with this definition, all of these pictures most likely fall under what most people will define as “artistic nudes”. As far as I know, they are all properly flagged as safe, moderate or restricted, according to the Flickr community guidelines.

Now, go figure which of these 1,073 photos offended someone and why.

I do consider Flickr a community, and I do try to be a good citizen of this community. Because that’s the right thing to do.

But I when I am not wearing my amateur photographer hat, I am wearing my other hat, which is a designer of a community-based social experience, driven by people and the content they create.

We tend to think of the net, and specifically on the user-generated-content-Web2.0-social-pastel-colored crop of sites in it as an expression of democracy and free speech. I have a gnawing suspicion that what we’re in fact creating here is a “brave new world”-like tyranny.

An ever-growing part of our lives is carried online, on web sites that are free for users, but are actually paid for by companies, big and small. We create content, but this content actually resides on these companies web servers. And when they decide to remove this content, or close our account, or cancel our email access – effectively they eliminate our ability to express our opinions. They don’t need a court order, and there is really no one to appeal to – they (or is it “we”?) are completely within their rights, and after all, you did agree to the terms of use, right?

They call it “moderation”. I call it “moderation” too. I practice this on a daily basis. It’s legitimate, it’s lawful, and it’s necessary. No, I do not have a proposal for a viable alternative model. But there is something very wrong about this model, and I have a hunch that as an industry, we’re going to regret it and wish we were more responsible.

And my Flickr account? Oh, I will write them another email, asking to receive more detailed information on why was my account restricted so that I can fix whatever I did wrong unknowingly. And probably, like they did before, they will not respond but the restriction will be magically removed. And I will continue to pay Flickr the Pro fee, and generate page views and ad impressions for them.

But we *are* going to regret this model.

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