Flickr goes creative for SOPA blackout

Flickr goes creative for SOPA blackout(techcrunch.com)

109 points by rometest 14 years ago | 32 comments

mcherm 14 years ago |

The approach is particularly creative: drive home the feeling of censorship by allowing some users to "censor" other users.

artursapek 14 years ago |

I 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 14 years ago | |

The 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 14 years ago | | |

But 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 14 years ago | |

Seems 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

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 14 years ago | |

You better not darken my photos if I'm paying for the service.

deanproxy 14 years ago | | |

Just 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.

belthesar 14 years ago | | |

Pro members are not exempt from the blackout.

brlewis 14 years 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/

ggchappell 14 years ago |

All 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 14 years ago | |

Isn'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.

ggchappell 14 years ago | | |

Well, 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?

yuhong 14 years ago | | |

Yea, read the entire article please!

maurits 14 years ago |

To bad the Whitehouse photo-stream is exempted.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/

ascuttlefish 14 years ago | |

The photos are darkened for me.

maurits 14 years ago | | |

Interesting, 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_ 14 years ago | | |

Must've been a temporary mistake. The whitehouse's flickr account is definitely opted-out. None of their photos are darkened.

rbanffy 14 years ago |

My 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.

akadien 14 years ago |

I like this feature.

I changed my Gravatar, g+, and FB images to black squares today to solicit whys from my networks.

ceejayoz 14 years ago |

The wording on this was confusing enough that I thought Flickr was claiming I'd opted-in to black out my photos.

maeon3 14 years ago |

We are no doubt pissing off Congress to no end. I wonder what the approval rating of Congress will become after this stunt? 5%? 2%?

jarek 14 years ago | |

Do 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 14 years ago | | |

Congressional support is something like 13.3% with 83% disapproval.

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.

evan_ 14 years ago | |

Yeah, 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 14 years ago | | |

I'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.