If you’re in Germany and a Flickr user, you should know that Flickr has made it so that “sensitive” content is not accessible by users in Germany. This is so that Flickr complies with German censorship law (which requires age verification for the content in question). Now, here’s the ironic part: German users of Flickr are campaigning against Flickr! They’ve set up a group against censorship (link). But, their main target of criticism is Flickr, not the German law. It seems that the more proper thing to do would be to criticize the law that Flickr is adhering to (so that they, nor their owner Yahoo, gets fined in Germany). This seems to be yet another reactionary movement that isn’t thinking critically on the issue.
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Hi Christopher,
The whole point of the protest is that there seems to be no legal reason whatsoever in German law that requires Flickr to do this.
In general German law, and EU law as well as laws are being ’synchronized’ more and more across the continent, is way more liberal and relaxed towards anything that might be considered ‘moderate’ or ‘restricted’ in the US or Flickrs TOS e.g.
The reason Flickr, after long days of silence and hesitation and then more implicit than explicit, gives is age verification. The thing is, age verification isn’t a new requirement and there are loads of ways that Yahoo Germany could use (as e.g. the whole on-line x-rated business in Germany do) other than locking everybody’s filters in the Safe setting.
On top of that, not a single word on rolling out this new ‘feature’ for German users that want to use the German version of Flickr was communicated by Flickr. People were just cut off. That in itself coincidentally IS illegal under German consumer law. Unilaterally changing services without announcement and the option of consumers to opt out with a refund is a breach of contract.
Not even to mention the fact that Swiss and Austrian users that keep Yahoo.de ID’s (as opposed to Yahoo.com ID’s) because then they can use a German language interface find themselves also unable to change their filter settings.
So the whole uproar is about
1 Flickr doing something nobody sees a reason for (no other webservices operating in Germany see the need to take this step, except Yahoo/Flickr)
2 Flickr not communicating at all about the reasons why, nor giving information about what they are currently trying to do about it.
3 Flickr not consulting the community they’re so proud of to see whether German customers see other solutions that might escape Flickr staff trying to interpret German rules through an American culture filter.
What I myself find most schocking is that apparantly Flickr/Yahoo management actually believe that it is really possible that European and German law are so draconian that the only feasible option is blocking all filters. They must have never seen the amount of nudity that passes for advertising on tv and public transport this side of the Atlantic.
best,
Ton