Do No Evil – From Flickr: "SafeSearch is a feature that allows you to control what turns up in your searches on Flickr, and it's on for everyone by default. Note: If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service so won't be able to turn SafeSearch off." A full revolt is going on at Flickr over this censorship.
Fabienne:
More news about this censorship can be read here (in German) from Heise.de (auto-translated version in English here). Incidentally this censorship is against German general law which states that censorship is illegal, so this new "feature" is purely Yahoo's doing (Yahoo is Flickr's parent company). The revolt among Flickr members since yesterday has been widespread with members posting anti censorship photos and pushing those photos to the Explore pages on Flickr.
Netscape Anchor Fabienne Updates, 9:26am EST: Heise.de has updated with an English version of their article on this subject, here.
Netscape Anchor Fabienne Updates, June 15th, 6:19am EST: Flickr staff member Heather Champ has written the latest update in the Flickr Help Forums on this subject. She writes: "The central problem is that Germany has much more stringent age verification laws than its neighboring countries and specifies much harsher penalties, including jail time, for those with direct responsibility..." The laws she mentions are those concerning forums and age verification issues (read one of the laws here in German), many of which have not seemed to hamper Germany's own photo sharing sites up until this point.
2007-06-14 07:05:58
Thanks for the insight Fabienne! I would hate to see Yahoo cave in to censorship the way Google did in China. The pressure on the freedom of the Internet is growing every day. I remember one my Tech team back in 1995 when we were doing our first corporate website tell me that "today the Net is as free as it is ever going to get, it will only go down from here." He was so correct!
Fabienne, do you know if there are similar protests from Singapore, HK and Korea users?
Tolchock: I saw some Korean messages today in the protest posters but not nearly as many as the German ones. I also saw one Singaporean asking for answers in the help forums. The German population has been the most outspoken on this issue, at least in the English language help forums and as far as protest photos are concerned.
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All entities, whether governments, companies, organizations, poltical parties, or whatever instinctively move towards censorship. This is just one more example of a company trying to "read the tea leaves" that local laws might require and then somehow "beat them to the punch" to avoid legal problems. Germany has some weird laws regarding what you can and can't read about, think about, or whatever based on their experiences in the 1930s and 40s. I suspect that the outcry will lead to some sort of court ruling to help clarify it. It is interesting that you can look at all the porn you want, but you can't go to a site that is openly Anti-homosexual. I travel to Germany a great deal and all ISP providers in Germany have certain sites or types of sites blocked by law. I am proud of the US for its laws that allow us to even discuss this openly. You can't discuss censorship in some European countries, or should I say it would be unwise to do so if your name is attached.
Mossback: I don't believe this is a Yahoo legal team issue but just a software issue. I have contacted Flickr's PR team and am waiting for a response.