Flickr photostream marked as moderate
Last week, I got an automated message from the folks at flickr stating that my photostream was too racy for public consumption and was therefore marked as ‘moderate.’
My initial reaction was to call bullshit and shake a few trees to see who I may know at flickr or Yahoo! HQ. After all, I take photos of people, food and cars – all done in a public space, not some sort of bedroom antics.
The original message:
From: Flickr Support <caseXXXXXXX@support.flickr.com>
To: Urban MixerHello Urban Mixer,
We’ve changed the safety level of your photostream to “moderate”.
As per our Community Guidelines, content like that in your account is not considered “safe” for everyone to view. You may or may not be aware that Flickr has a Safe Search system. When people browse or search on Flickr, they can filter what they see based on a safety level that they are comfortable with – either Safe Search is on, set to moderate, or off. In order for Safe Search to work, we relying on *you* to filter your content appropriately. As you upload stuff to Flickr, you need to make sure that you’re applying appropriate filters (safe, moderate or restricted) and telling us what sort of content it is (photos, video, screenshots, art & illustration). 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. (No need to be upset – it’s every member’s right to let us know if they ever feel uncomfortable. Yours too.)
We want Flickr to be a place that everyone can enjoy. That means making sure that potentially offensive content is filtered from public, safe areas of the site. If you read our Community Guidelines, you’ll see the key points are:
play nice, upload things that you have created yourself, and respect the fact that there are millions of people visiting Flickr who may not see the world the same way you do. Use your common sense about whether or not your content is suitable for a global, public audience. If the answer is no, you need to filter it from public view. <br><br>You should also know that if we receive another report about your content or conduct, it’s very likely we’ll terminate your account.
So, please take a moment to find out how to work with safety levels, use ‘em, and everybody’s happy!
Regards,
Flickr Staff
What was most irritating about this message was that firstly, I wasn’t really aware of the ramifications of being marked as moderate; secondly, I wasn’t aware of how to remedy the situation. It felt like some idiot at flickr decided to flip a switch and forever cast my profile into the abyss.
In the original note, there wasn’t any mention on how to remedy the issue nor was there any indication as to what was considered ‘not kosher’ by the flickr folks. Talk about frustrating. What’s worse is that after a couple of replies to the original email, I received no response.
What’s worse is that people started to email me, telling me that they had to log into flickr to see my photos and the viewership counts on my photos were severely affected. Others told me they couldn’t see my photos (unbeknownst to them, they had their safety filters set to the default – high) and the straw that broke the camel’s back was that I missed a photo publish opportunity with 24hrs news. Talk about a smack in the face.
After that, I decided I needed to call upon someone but first I did my research. After some digging and serendipitously, I got a reply to my original message (only five days late).
From: Flickr Support <caseXXXXXXX@support.flickr.com>
To: Urban MixerHello,
Thong bikini images need to be classified as “moderate”.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/me/popular-interesting/
Female breasts, bare/thong bottom, see through topless nudity, pasties, etc.. images need to be marked as “moderate”.
Genitalia/pubic hair images need to be marked as “restricted”.
(marking the content as private is different then moderating the content as “moderate”/”restricted”)
You can bulk moderate your “moderate”/”restricted” content using the organizr tool.
(Do not worry about moderating your “safe” content)
www.flickr.com/photos/organize/
Load your images into the organizr tool, pull all(public, private, and friends/family) images that need to be marked as Moderate”/”restricted” into the main window, choose the “moderate”/”restricted” option from the “permissions/set safety filter” pulldown on top, click save and you’re done.
Because your account status is set to “moderate”, all of the images will appear as “moderate”/”restricted” in the organizr tool. This may seem a little confusing at first but if you take the required action of moderating your content as “moderate”/”restricted” where appropriate, that will show on our side when you request a re-review of your account status.
Regards,
-Terrence
Okay, it wass a hint but not a really firm answer on what but at least I had direction so I got to work, found every swimsuit, pasty, lingerie and other similar type of event that I’ve shot (out of my almost 40,000 photos) and marked them all as moderate. Since I haven’t shot any nudity, I knew I didn’t have to worry about marking things are restricted. An hour later I was done. I then requested (under a new case) a review of my flickr photostream and something miraculous happened, they came back in a little over an hour and opened up the floodgates on my flickr account again.
Hello Urban Mixer,
We appreciate you taking the time to bring your account in line with the Flickr Community Guidelines. Your account has been classified as “public”/”safe”. Please keep the Flickr Community Guidelines in mind in the future.
http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne
http://www.flickr.com/help/filters/
Thank you again for contacting us. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reply to this email.
Regards,
Terrence
Hindsight? The flickr uploadr allows you to set the ‘scariness’ level of your photos. I suggest you use it.
