It is not in the process of my thoughts to censor myself. This word is not in my vocabulary. To censor is to quiet; to quiet is to utterly contain, restrict, and muffle the expressive authority that every voice carries. Who sets that fine line between “safe”, “moderate”, and “restricted”? And yet a better question: why do these categories exist? With every idea I intend to present there is someone waiting to stifle it, undoubtedly.
My flickr photostream was recently “reported”, according to flickr staff. What is more, flickr decided to set my entire photostream as “restricted” rather than “moderate” even though they could not give a single example of all my photos of a photo that fits into the category of “restricted”. I sent in several emails to the flickr staff, as did a few friends on flickr. I eventually received an email saying that they were thankful that I moderated my own photos and that they had set my site back to “safe”, even though I had not touched my photos. I feel certain that the flickr staff never reviewed my photostream in the first place. They linked to this photo, and said that it was the “worst” photo of my entire stream and should be marked accordingly as “moderate”.
The point of relaying this information is not to complain or to get sympathy votes. It simply raises the question of where censorship comes from. There are many paths that we can trace the censorship from in this flickr scenario. First, there is the person who “flagged” my photos and wrote to flickr in the first place. Who is this person? Were they truly offended by me, or was it out of maliciousness? Is it in me to be that person? And secondly, how does flickr make their guidelines? Do they purposefully make them completely unclear and subjective in order to allow for less censorship? Or is the fact that there are guidelines an attack on freedom itself?
The “definition” of a restricted image on flickr is as follows: “Restricted – This is content you probably wouldn’t show to your mum, and definitely shouldn’t be seen by kids”. Not only is this sentence incredibly vague, but it is also insulting in the way that the flickr staff imposes and thereby moderates what content is allowed to be showed to certain people. A flickr staff member responded to my question of “what would a restricted image contain?”. The answer to my question was “genetalia and/or pubic hair”. I wonder what the answer would have been had it not been Terrence, a flickr staff member, who answered my question. What if it had been flickr staff member X? Would they have said “any image that contains graphic violence”. Or perhaps an answer would have been “any image that is pornographic in nature”.
The point is, that any answer that anyone could possibly give me is subjective. There is no correct answer to the question of what the phrase “…content you probably wouldn’t show to your mum, and definitely shouldn’t be seen by kids“ means. If I asked the general question of “should flickr impose guidelines” I am sure that I would get many different responses. Someone recently said to me, when I asked that question, that flickr must present guidelines, or else everyone could post anything they want. My response to that answer: so what?
Why must we censor ourselves for the sake of others? Why can’t we be responsible for ourselves, moderate our own lives and be influenced by what we want? To that person who censored me, to those who might want to, I ask you why you feel the need to do so. I challenge you to look at yourself and question your fears. If you are trying to censor me, it is probably because you are too afraid ask yourself why you are offended by my images. To censor someone is to restrict others from hearing what they have to say. What have we all missed because of censorship?
{ 9 } Comments
Right on! I agree with everything said. Who is Flickr to apply their vague and impossible set of “modesty” standards on the artistic community. You should put this in your coffee table book.
xo, (Intern) Kate
I recently had the same experience with flickr. In my case it was about photos shot during the World Bodypainting Festival (WBF).
The festival was open to the public, quite a number of kids have been on the festival ground, and I even showed some of the photographic results to my mother. Nonetheless flickr thinks it might be offending.
That’s absurd.
Anyway, it seems that people must be protetcted from other people (or other people thinking, art, statements, etc.). I doubt that there is censorship without the will to guide the opinion of people in a certain direction. The only thing that might differ from country to country is the extent of censorship.
I prefer politically mature people, that are able and willing to decide what they like and dislike.
I think most censors underestimate what people can cope with. Censorship does not protect people, it only declares them immature.
I just read your comments about flickr censorship. A grotesque misunderstanding of your work, which shows the beauty in all things. Censorship has always been the haven of the small-minded (to put it gently). Look at Hollywood, censoring directors like Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and Stanley Kubrick. At least you’re in good company, joining the ranks of the censored artists everywhere.
I think what annoys me is that the censorship doesn’t make sense. We could talk forever about what should and should not be seen as offensive, and how nudity and the human body itself is natural and beautiful. But, as you said, you don’t even have any nudity in your stream. Flickr have seemingly restricted you because someone complained, but surely they should judge your stream according to the rules by which they judge everyone else, not jump to restrict you without noticing that you have no nudity anyway!
It’s bizarre, and very worrying, that Flickr seem to be making such irrational decisions; that they have TIME to make such silly mistakes in their judgement, that they can’t even keep consistent rules in their treatment of members – PAYING members. It’s almost like they are unnecessarily panicking.
This is not the first time they have made an error, and not the first time they have failed to recognise it or apologise for it (all the more worrying). For example, they have told certain members to remove links to blogs and personal websites from their photostreams, whilst ignoring others’ blatant commercial agendas.
Thanks for blogging about it. I shared the link on Facebook, hopefully we will have the power to make our voices audible on this matter!
My wife recently had this exact thing happened to her. According to the clarifying instructions they sent, this photo could be considered safe. And it is brilliant.
That being said, there is a lot of things on Flickr that are not suitable for children and perhaps some others. Flagging photos is a way of showing respect for other people’s values. I don’t have a problem with having a content rating system like we have with movies. The offense that Flickr doesn’t publish clear guidelines. However, if someone complains, they put you in Flickr jail until they sort it out. How about a warning for first offenders? How about not reacting unless they see a pattern of complaints, instead of just one?
Every Flickr star I know has been slapped into Flickr jail for pushing the limits. These are the people that make Flickr interesting.
What I find incredible is the image they showed you as “should be moderate”. I don’t know about ads in the US but in the UK we have billboards with naked bums and TV commercials with naked bums in them so it begs the question of “why is your underwear offensive?”
As far as I’m concerned, moderate means nipple out in the open and restricted means genitals out in the open. I say “out in the open” because I don’t think implied nude should be “restricted”.
Basically, some hater somewhere has a personal grudge and decides to try to (you might wanna put your kids to bed now) fuck with your account and flickr success.
I liked the way you address the issue. I have been unfairly restricted by the Flickr staff myself -even though I do have some nudes in my stream, but none that could fit into the category-, which is why I decided to leave the site almost completely. I haven’t deleted my account, I just stopped uploading, at least for now. When I decided to leave, I didn’t explain much besides the fact that I had been marked as restricted, but I had -and still have- many of the things you say here in mind. I had something to say, and they wanted to shut me up. All kind of censorship pisses me off, and above all, it makes me feel impotent…and I hate that feeling. I guess some would say I’ve given in by retreating …I’d say I don’t see the point in fighting back and I’ll go where I can speak out loud without restrictions.
See you around Brooke :)
I find it particularity recockulous that it’s ok to watch or see images of people getting their heads blown off but to see an image of a naked person is abhorrent??? Thanks for you bringing this issue that a lot of us has experienced to light.
Although I’m only a recent visitor to your blog, I was aleady well aware that your style doesn’t suite some, but perhaps in a rather more restrictive fashion than was applied by flickr. In a sense they are only just the thin end of a particularly thick and insidious wedge.
You may not have noticed yet Brooke, but I spend a large proportion of my time working and living in Saudi Arabia, that bastion of free speech, openness and liberal tolerance of the views of others… actually, scratch those last 14 words.
You may be pleased to hear that your flickr stream is censored in total, or at least to those who don’t have the means to work around the country’s rather draconian restrictions. I’m going to put a URL in here that I hope you will be able to see. What’s instructive in not so much the page itself, but the make up of the URL and the categories under which the censorship has been applied.
URL here (hopefully) –> http://84.235.120.56/blocked.html?basictype=block&epochseconds=1275246552&requestedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fbrookeshaden%2F&categorylist=149&categorydescriptionlist=Pornography&useripaddress=85.194.127.10&username=&actiontaken=block&actionreason=by-category&actionreasondata=149&reputationdesc=&replayhash=csCe4tbpvsxqdoZOl12TGA%3D%3D
Whilst flickr is making a right royal ass of itself at times, it’s a long way from behaving on this scale and long may it remain so.
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