Toronto Photography Meetup Group

What a pain in the a&! Flickr was today. I apologize in advance for the long post.

First I received this email, which is fine since I neglected to set my recent fine art nude photos to moderate/restricted status:
*********************************************************
Hello ~~~James ∞~~~,

This is a message from the Flickr Abuse & Advocacy team to
let you know that we've changed the safety level of your
photostream to "restricted". Having a "restricted" warning
on your account means we've determined there are items in
your photostream in the wrong categories.

*** If you'd like to resolve this, we ask that you please
read the following email and follow the instructions
completely before writing back for a re-review of your
account. ***

When people browse or search on Flickr, they can filter what
they want to see based on a safety level that they are
comfortable with - either Safe Search is on, set to
moderate, or off. As you upload stuff to Flickr, you need to
make sure that you're applying appropriate filters ("safe",
"moderate", or "restricted"). If you don't apply filters
correctly, there's a very good chance another member will
let us know - in fact that's why we've taken action today.

NEXT STEPS:

You will need to moderate your content before asking for a
re-review.

1) Check out the Content Filters FAQs:
- http://flickr.com/help/filters/

A good rule of thumb is, bare breasts and bottoms are
"moderate." Full frontal nudity is "restricted."

(Please note: Content that you're sharing privately needs to
be moderated as well.)

2) Now that you've read up on how things should be
moderated, please see this FAQ on how to moderate your
images:
- http://flickr.com/help/filters/#253

3) After you've moderated your images you can request a
re-review here:
- http://flickr.com/help/with/review/

Regards,
Flickr Staff
For More Information
Our Community Guidelines:
- http://flickr.com/guidelines.gne

Set Safety Level Defaults:
- http://flickr.com/account/prefs/filters/?from=privacy

All Privacy & Permission Settings:
- http://flickr.com/account?tab=privacy
******************************************************

So I follow the steps and set the images in question to restricted and ask for a review. Everything should be fine right? My nightmare begins. Here's the next email I get:

*******************************************************
Hello ~~~James ∞~~~,

Thank you for contacting Flickr Member Support.

In joining Flickr, our members agree to abide by the Yahoo!
Terms of Service and the Flickr Community Guidelines:

http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne
http://www.flickr.com/terms.gne

"Do upload content that you have created.
Respect the copyright of others. This means don't steal
photos or videos that other people have shared and pass them
off as your own."

"Don't upload anything that isn't yours.
This includes other people's photographs and/or stuff that
you've collected from around the internet. Accounts that
consist primarily of such collections may be terminated."

Upon review, we determined that your content and/or
behavior was in violation and your account was terminated.

-Flickr staff
****************************************************
THEY TERMINATED MY ACCOUNT!! Holy cow - I was so ticked off but I responded calmly. Here's my email reply:
***************************************************
Please can you tell me what images are in violation? I have been a member for 5 years and have done nothing wrong except for forgetting to set my last few images as "restricted" because it was the first fine art nudes I have uploaded to flickr. I don't understand this termination without indicating what I have done in violation. Please explain.
******************************************************
This is their reply:
******************************************************
Hello,

Your photostream was full of content that you yourself did
not create which is a violation of the Flickr Community
Guidelines.

www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne
www.flickr.com/terms.gne

"Do upload content that you have created.
Respect the copyright of others. This means don't steal
photos or videos that other people have shared and pass them
off as your own."

"Don't upload anything that isn't yours.
This includes other people's photographs and/or stuff that
you've collected from around the internet. Accounts that
consist primarily of such collections may be terminated."

-Flickr staff
*************************************************
Garbage. My reply:
*************************************************
Hello,

I do not have any pictures on my flickr that I have not taken personally. Please provide an example because I think this is a gross mistake on flickr's part.
**************************************************
I was ready for Flickr staff to not even respond but eventually I got this reply from Flickr's incompetent staff:
**************************************************
Hello,

I have reactivated your Flickr account. Your profile page
was some sort of confusing and it made it seem like you were
uploading content from other Flickr members. We apologize
for the mis-understanding and have added 6 months of pro to
your account. we ask that you please do a better job of
moderating nude content in the future as that is why your
account came to our attention.

Regards,
-Flickr staff
*****************************************************
It's a half a$! apology if you ask me. And I don't really care about the 6 months of pro account they gave me. I'm glad my mini-ordeal is over and I didn't lose any images but I still can't believe how incompetent the Flickr staff are to act this way. Anyway, sorry to rant .. just had to get this off my chest. I feel better now.

have your own website

stop taking pictures together with other members I don't see anything wrong with their actions, they probably saw someone else upload a set with the same nude model/lighting/etc and figured something was fishy. You have a lesson to learn: abide by the rules

You didn't read my post carefully did you PE? They assumed I was uploading other people's pictures because they mis-read my profile page where I say I blog mine and other flickr member pics on my blog page.

I always knew you were trouble

I do have my own website. Flickr, for me, is not really about posting pictures. I mainly use it for organizing/participating in strobist events and reading/discussing about different subsets of photography.

I can't argue with that one.

Wow... flickr really dropped the ball on this one.

Glad you got your account back but man, they did seem incompetent

It's a sad tale that just goes to show why flickr is not a place for long term storage of photos.

You made a mistake by loading nude content without flagging just think of all those people that were traumatized by seeing your photos . You ended up being compensated for your mistake so what more do you want?

oh, sorry, must have missed it.

I saw that your account was deleted and thought your wife made you delete your account because of the nudie pics.

wow, i woulda been pi$sed. glad to hear it worked out 4 ya.

the guy who wanted to terminate your account probably got up on the wrong side of the bed, they should probably put more effort in their apologies.

Yikes! Thanks for sharing this...I just finished adjusting all my safety levels for the Yana set...