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"From Here 2Ipernity" - Flickr Censorship2

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Beating flickr's censorship

NOTE: This is a cross-post of my article from the group "Against Censorship At Flickr". I have cross-posted it here so it is out of the reach of flickr and Yahoo employees (just in case).

First of all, read what Cornelio (cgc0202) has said. His two threads are here, and here.

Cornelio uses figures from Yahoo's reports to show that even if every single pro member of this group refuses to renew, that will NOT affect Yahoo much - they have revenues of over US $6 BILLION a year, and they have over US $ 1.5 BILLION of cash on hand.

However, as Cornelio also points out, Internet giants can fall.



It seems to me that we need people to commit to a long-term campaign of spreading doubt about flickr.

The reason I originally joined flickr is that when I finally got regular Internet access at home (about 1 1/4 years ago), flickr was the site that kept being mentioned as the place to store and share photos. It was the 'market leader', so to speak, the site that first came to people's minds.

So the first obvious thing is that flickr needs to be criticised whenever there is a chance to do so. Say you see an article on Digg that links to a discussion on flickr. You could put a comment on Digg and on the story that Digg links to saying "Flickr has some good features, but ever since they starteed censoring users, I have not trusted them - I moved my account to X".

Or, if you like flickr and want to stay, you could say "flickr has some good features, and I am still there, but you might want to be careful and make sure they don't censor you".

You could link back to this group so that people can see more.

So, we need people who are ready to start watching parts of the Internet. Any volunteers? You could watch digg, or create a Google Alert, or anything like that.

Do you have a blog, or do you comment regularly on a blog where you might be able to raise this issue. Please speak up and say what you are willing to do.

I am willing to create a simple blogger/blogspot website that can be a discussion place for these ideas. We have to assume that this group might be closed down by flickr.

Someone has already created a story on Digg that links to this group. If you are willing to help in a campaign, please go to Digg and digg the story. If you are not a member of Digg, then join.

This will be a useful way to see how many people are willing to spend a few minutes helping a campaign. At the moment, the story has 37 diggs. With 10 000 people in this group, if the story can't get at least a few hundred diggs then I would think we don't have enough serious people to put up a fight.

SOLIDARITY AND DISCIPLINE

Solidarity and discipline will be crucial. To me, 'solidarity' means that we unite around a publicity campaign to create doubt about flickr, and we do NOT attack other members of the campaign for their decision to either leave flickr or stay.

I plan to scale back my flickr presence a LOT, and will not renew my pro account. If you agree not to call me a 'Rat', then I will agree not to attack you for making a different decision to me.

'Discipline' means that we do not do stupid, counter-productive things like flooding groups or going off on crazy rants. Anyone who does will be helping flickr and yahoo, and should not be trusted.

Anyone who says 'but it's the fault of the German laws' should, the first time, be pointed to the reasons as to why this is incorrect. On the second time, they should be treated as someone in the pay of flickr or yahoo, and not trusted.

Please speak up now and say what you are prepared to do to help.


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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.

This means that you may use any work by me, David Jackmanson, that you find on this site for any purpose at all, as long as you give credit to Let's Take Over and include the site's web address.

It's your responsibility to check that the work is created by me and not somebody else. Accounts on sites like flickr or Odeo that are listed as belonging to 'Let's Take Over' or 'djackmanson' will probably be mine.

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Censorship @flickr makes people angry



For more info on flickr's latest act of censorship, click here.


If you'd like to try a simple way to get all new stories from Let's Take Over (and many other sites) sent to one place, click here for info on the Let's Take Over 'news feed' (sometimes called an 'RSS feed' or 'XML')

 If you have a fast connection, use this feed instead - it takes longer, but you can read the full stories in your newsreader

Click here to get all new stories from Let's Take Over sent to your email address

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.

This means that you may use any work by me, David Jackmanson, that you find on this site for any purpose at all, as long as you give credit to Let's Take Over and include the site's web address.

It's your responsibility to check that the work is created by me and not somebody else. Accounts on sites like flickr or Odeo that are listed as belonging to 'Let's Take Over' or 'djackmanson' will probably be mine.

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T.I.S.M's "Morrison Hostel" - cover version by me



If you'd like to try a simple way to get all new stories from Let's Take Over (and many other sites) sent to one place, click here for info on the Let's Take Over 'news feed' (sometimes called an 'RSS feed' or 'XML')

 If you have a fast connection, use this feed instead - it takes longer, but you can read the full stories in your newsreader

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.

This means that you may use any work by me, David Jackmanson, that you find on this site for any purpose at all, as long as you give credit to Let's Take Over and include the site's web address.

It's your responsibility to check that the work is created by me and not somebody else. Accounts on sites like flickr or Odeo that are listed as belonging to 'Let's Take Over' or 'djackmanson' will probably be mine.

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Brisbane Thugs - two bullies ruin bus ride

Nasty incident on the West End (Brisbane) bus tonight, when the bus couldn't get out of the bus stop because a car was parked inside the bus zone. I didn't see the start of it because I was sitting up the back, but the driver appeared to be talking to someone who refused to move the car. When the driver asked loudly if there had been 'any witnesses' to an threat by someone I walked up to the front of the bus, just beside the driver, with my camera out.


I tried to take a photo of the people who appeared to be hassling the driver, but one of them threatened to 'shove the camera up your arse', so this story is text only (I'm in no condition to fight aggressive testosterone-ridden thirtysomethings).

One of the thugs claimed he was a lawyer, and also tried to pretend that I had committed some offence by breaching his privacy in trying to take his photo. (A complete lie, which I'm sure he knows if he really is a lawyer). I decided to wait until the cops came, partly because every other passenger had bailed out long before. I wanted the driver to have some backup for his side of the story, and I wanted to let him know I was on his side.

While we were waiting for other people (security guards etc) to arrive, the thugs smugly opened the bonnet of the car and pushed it forward a few metres. The driver had already called for backup so he had to stay and explain. I think the thugs were going to try to claim that the car had always been there and that the driver was lying. They also took some cameraphone pix of the bus.

The situation defused - the cops asked what was happening, they asked me a few questions and the usual name/address/DOB stuff, and the driver drove off.

I got off at the next stop and gave the driver my phone number - the thugs had threatened to complain about him (!) and so I said he should call me if he needed a statement to back him up.

It makes me pretty angry that these blokes - who, by the look of them, were a couple of quite successful bullies - are able to ruin things for at least five or ten people. Anyone who gave a damn wouldn't park in the bus zone (how else did a broken down car get in the bus zone near the coner of Vulture St and Boundary St if it hadn't been parked there when it was working in the first place).

Mongrels.

If you'd like to try a simple way to get all new stories from Let's Take Over (and many other sites) sent to one place, click here for info on the Let's Take Over 'news feed' (sometimes called an 'RSS feed' or 'XML')

 If you have a fast connection, use this feed instead - it takes longer, but you can read the full stories in your newsreader

Click here to get all new stories from Let's Take Over sent to your email address

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.

This means that you may use any work by me, David Jackmanson, that you find on this site for any purpose at all, as long as you give credit to Let's Take Over and include the site's web address.

It's your responsibility to check that the work is created by me and not somebody else. Accounts on sites like flickr or Odeo that are listed as belonging to 'Let's Take Over' or 'djackmanson' will probably be mine.

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