Flickr, Scientology and Censorship 17 December 2008 - Flickr deleted my photo sharing account without notice today. I had over 500 photographs that I took relating to Scientology including photographs of special events in Los Angeles, Sea Org members and staff members. One of my photographs was the lead photo in a Los Angeles Television broadcast on Scientology street closures and another photograph of shipping containers stacked along Sunset Blvd made into Radar Magazine's website. I have received several thank you messages from family members and former Sea Org members who have seen photos of long lost family members and friends who have been cut off from them because of Scientology's Disconnection policy. I have also received thanks from current Scientologists who have appreciated seeing photos Sea Org members who were served with their founder L. Ron Hubbard during the early days of the Sea Org. In response to my email inquiry, a member of Flickr's Customer Service Team replied, "Flickr account "ml_99" was deleted by Flickr staff for violating our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines". I deny violating any of Yahoo's Terms of Services and I have asked them for clarification and to restore my Flickr account. Flickr has yet to respond to my request for clarification.
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship Harp the manpoons! Mark's pics are incredibly useful in many different ways!
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship Flickr: Report Abuse >Other Concerns Code: I'm reporting abuse on the following page: http://flickr.com/photos/ml_99/ ---- GOGOGO
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship Wait, doesn't that say that you have a problem with ml_99's account? like, you're offended by it, instead of the other way around?
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship The correct account URL would be: http://flickr.com/photos/10235811@N07
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship Flickr staff hate the word censorship, yet the word comes up a lot in their help forums. Accounts get killed there often, sometimes with good reason, sometimes not. Once an account is deleted there, its gone, unrecoverable. What would be the objective of harpoons or raids? Could raise hell in their 'help forum', might lead to other Chanology photos getting zapped.
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship hmmm, yes, . . . flickr also that bending robot is becoming one of my favorite brain dumpsters
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship Absolutely for sure, but what? Flickr accounts can't be restored, harpoons won't change that. As a strict policy, they'll only communicate with the account holder about such issues. Flamethrowers might be the correct response, depending on the explanation they give Mark. Could unleash an army of sock puppets in their help forum to address the issues with some added Chanology PR at the same time. I want to see the answer they give Mark, and what TOS violation they claim was made. Curious thing, usually when accounts are deleted there, they can be somewhat recovered through Google's cache. But... Flickr: ml_99's Photostream all the pictures the are gone already. Rather strange. Flickr sucks at free speech and customer relations, always have.
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship Reading through the descriptions from the cache, I predict flickr will say the violation was: Flickr tends to delete accounts that have slightest chance of being viewed as 'stalking'.
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship new spin on same old dirty tricks. perhaps this is worthy of reporting to gawker tips email/hotline listed on the home page? there's a larger slice of human interest angles to this story than other stuff they ran, plus mention could be made of the other recent vid squashing crusades over armstrong on moxon and AO getting manhandling. adding Flickr censorship into the mix makes it even more interesting.
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship set up a picasa account then, this is the one with google http://picasaweb.google.com
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship As I've already said, I'm definitely interested in seeing where this goes. On the other hand, looking at my groups and how many users/photos are in them, I don't think they're really terminating anyone without reason. We do have supporters in both Yahoo and Flickr staff, you realize. * Evil Scientology (372 members) 3,618 items * Anonymous Global (132 members) 7,818 items * Anonymous Worldwide Raids and Shenanigans (207 members) 10,194 items * Scientology Protests (134 members) 6,783 items * Anonymous San Francisco (43 members) 1,509 items * Scientology (18 members) 1,639 items
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship If no reasonable resolution: 1: Make torrent/upload archive of all photos, including information about what they show 2: Make licensing clear 3: Spread on the internet 3.5: Run a program which makes the image hash different for everyone on all photos. 4: Everone Streisands it on Flickr. Does that sound good?
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship Photobucket sucks balls, and besides, all you fuckwits are getting bent out of shape over nothing so far. I've not heard a single other report of Anon photos being taken down- and mere speculation as to why this account was taken down. Don't be retards.
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship Yeah. Waiting for confirmation first. These companies have emails, phones and faxes. It's just a matter of escalating the complaint in a polite and timely manner until you get an answer.
Re: Flickr, Scientology and Censorship Flickr censorship made big news last year. Just a google search for the two terms brings up plenty, including German censorship of the site. It's happened before unfortunately.
