7 ms·
Flickr goes creative for SOPA blackout
- mcherm 15y agoThe approach is particularly creative: drive home the feeling of censorship by allowing some users to "censor" other users.
- akadien 15y agoI like this feature. I changed my Gravatar, g+, and FB images to black squares today to solicit whys from my networks.
- artursapek 15y agoI wish they had followed through strongly on this. There's a hard-to-miss link that lets you opt-out of having your photos censored, and if you're visiting a blacked-out photo flickr gives the anti-PIPA spiel and presents a button to "show it anyway." If they were trying to demonstrate what SOPA/PIPA would make the internet like, shouldn't they just bite the bullet and make these photo black-outs permanent for a day? The idea is great but its implementation is pretty weak, it won't actually get people worked up.
- gfodor 15y agoThe goal isn't really to get people "worked up", it's to raise awareness. You've completely missed the point, and Flickr's method is brilliant because it brings intuition to the impact of what SOPA may actually do.
- artursapek 15y agoBut if the demonstration is just for a day, why does it still have to be so wishy-washy? It's imaginary. People would take it more seriously if it was really out of their control.
- goatforce5 15y agoSeems to be having exactly the desired effect: "Hey @flickr, if you want to let members blackout their own photos as a protest, great. Letting anyone blackout anyone else's photo? Stupid." https://twitter.com/#!/fraying/statuses/159702033971150848 https://twitter.com/#!/fraying/statuses/159702033971150848 fraying == Derek Powazek == someone with close connections to Flickr who, besides that, is a really super smart guy who i'd assume would have got what they were trying to do.
- smackfu 15y agoYou better not darken my photos if I'm paying for the service.
- belthesar 15y agoPro members are not exempt from the blackout.
- deanproxy 15y agoJust think how you'll feel if the SOPA or PIPA bills pass and there is no "Show my website anyway" button... 'Cause you can say that all you want, but if one of these bills pass and if the idiots deem it necessary, your content will get "darkened" regardless of how much money you paid to host it somewhere (maybe not the same way flickr is doing it, but still... to the same point). I think everyones photos shouldn't be exempt, including the whitehouse photos! This is just a small taste of what is possible.
- smackfu 15y agoIt certainly highlights one downside of using a paid-for shared service over your own self-hosted version. Flickr could be blocked due to another user, whereas my own hosting can only be blocked due to me
- brlewis 15y agoIf an accuser makes a mistake and you're unreachable for 5 days, your own self-hosted version could be blocked.
- maeon3 15y agoWe are no doubt pissing off Congress to no end. I wonder what the approval rating of Congress will become after this stunt? 5%? 2%?
- evan_ 15y agoYeah, those Congressmen are all trying to read Reddit and Flickr and shaking their fists at us all! No, I don't see that happening.
- hvs 15y agoI'm pretty sure he meant that all of these sites drawing attention to SOPA and PIPA are upsetting Congress. Not that they were trying to get to Reddit.
- jarek 15y agoDo you really think 95% of the population either already disapproves of the Congress or has been on the internet today and ran into a darkened site and thought about the issue?
- Natsu 15y agoCongressional support is something like 13.3% with 83% disapproval. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_... HuffPo has a funny take on that, saying that more people approve of "Porn, Polygamy, BP Oil Spill, 'U.S. Going Communist'" than of Congress. So no it's probably not unreasonable to suppose that somewhat less than half (12/27) of the ~27% people who approve of or are neutral to Congress saw a darkened site and thought about the issue. I know that I got questioned about it at work by the less technical folks.
- maurits 15y agoTo bad the Whitehouse photo-stream is exempted. http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/
- ascuttlefish 15y agoThe photos are darkened for me.
- maurits 15y agoInteresting, I am not in the US, so perhaps that is the reason. Slightly odd though, because I can darken and see darken pictures in other streams.
- evan_ 15y agoMust've been a temporary mistake. The whitehouse's flickr account is definitely opted-out. None of their photos are darkened.
- unfasten 15y agoAt least all the photos on the first page of the photostream are darkened for me. Here's a screenshot of the first picture: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24903613/ss/flickr-whitehouse-sopa.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24903613/ss/flickr-whitehouse-sopa.p... Are you located outside the U.S.? It could also be possible that it changed in the last few hours.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- rbanffy 15y agoMy biggest complaint is that it's not easy to automate blacking out every photo of every SOPA supporter. It is, but it involves YQL, API keys and more time than I want to dedicate.
- ceejayoz 15y agoThe wording on this was confusing enough that I thought Flickr was claiming I'd opted-in to black out my photos.
- ggchappell 15y agoAll these positive comments are surprising. I find this to be a very bad idea. Flickr is a service (unlike HN) that some people depend on, and that some people pay for. So Flickr is saying that, even if I pay for their service, they might deny it to me, at the whims of other users? Flickr is showing themselves to be untrustworthy -- and possibly in breach of contract. I would suggest not relying on them.
- khwang 15y agoIsn't there an opt-out mechanism so that your photos won't be darkened? I assume they put this in here because there are professional photographers on the site.
- yuhong 15y agoYea, read the entire article please!
- ggchappell 15y agoWell, that's nice. But still, having told them I want a service, and having paid for it, I am now required to notify them that I still want to get the service that I already paid them for?
- mikeash 15y agoThese sites believe that they face an existential crisis due to this proposed legislation. Slightly impacting the service today to save it for the long term is clearly worth the tradeoff, if it's necessary.
- ggchappell 15y agoWell, I guess a number of people disagree with me. And I can accept that (although I still disagree). But I think I should point out that "worth the tradeoff" is not the issue I'm talking about. For example, suppose I pay for something at a store, but the store refuses to give it to me, because they're protesting something. We can certainly ask whether the store's policy is "worth the tradeoff", but is that really the question we should be asking?
- brlewis 15y ago"Update 9:27am January 18, 2012: We removed the 10 limit, you can darken to your dark heart’s dark desire." http://blog.flickr.net/en/2012/01/18/pipa-sopa/ http://blog.flickr.net/en/2012/01/18/pipa-sopa/