flickr updates TOS...

[Brooke51]

On 3/25/2022 at 8:55 PM, colleen Criss said:

A lot of talk about the porn side of SL. Question, is tasteful nudes or provocative clothes the same as porn? The Flickr bot often gets it wrong.

it's so subjective that it depends who you ask. in terms of flickr's standards, they are reasonably clear (just don't discuss them with flickr staff, i did once, and i still regret it).

moderate  - partial nudity like bare breasts or butt (in practice, this also includes a sheer top through which you can see nipples)

restricted - full frontal nudity (including glimpses of pubic hair) and/or sexual activity

the best advice i can offer is, if in doubt, bump your photo up a rating. for example, you make a "safe" photo of a pretty outfit that happens to show a hint of areola peeking out of a low cut top, bra or dress. if you think it might be a little risqué, bump it up from safe to moderate.

the bot is often wrong and just meant to fix the worst aspects of the problem flickr has with people ignoring ratings and posting explicit pics. follow their guidelines studiously and you should be fine, or as fine as you can be.

[Cristiano Midnight]

The more I've read discussions about this, I think part of Flickr's move has to do with the massive amount of porn on the platform, posted anonymously. That is problematic on several levels. With pro accounts, they have payment info on file, which at least provides some form of identity. Hosting user posted pornographic content is a challenge for any site. I am surprised Flickr has gone this long without locking it down more. Keep in mind, it is not just SL porn we are talking about - and not just naked pics.

That said, I do think it is a mistake to include moderate images for pro only. The guidelines around moderate are pretty mild. By locking those down too, it is just alienating users.

Also, with the ridiculous jump in price of Pro over the past 4 years (188% increase or something like that) with no added value at all, Pro cannot be justified for a lot of users. This move is not going to do much to increase their pro subscriptions. It's actually going to decrease the user base of Flickr, which affects Pro users as well who care about engagement.

I do hope they rethink some of these changes. I doubt they will back off completely, but as they stand now, they've gone too far.

[DalNiente]

43 minutes ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

The more I've read discussions about this, I think part of Flickr's move has to do with the massive amount of porn on the platform, posted anonymously. That is problematic on several levels. With pro accounts, they have payment info on file, which at least provides some form of identity. Hosting user posted pornographic content is a challenge for any site. I am surprised Flickr has gone this long without locking it down more. Keep in mind, it is not just SL porn we are talking about - and not just naked pics.

That said, I do think it is a mistake to include moderate images for pro only. The guidelines around moderate are pretty mild. By locking those down too, it is just alienating users.

Also, with the ridiculous jump in price of Pro over the past 4 years (188% increase or something like that) with no added value at all, Pro cannot be justified for a lot of users. This move is not going to do much to increase their pro subscriptions. It's actually going to decrease the user base of Flickr, which affects Pro users as well who care about engagement.

I do hope they rethink some of these changes. I doubt they will back off completely, but as they stand now, they've gone too far.

I believe adult content is more of a perceived problem than the actual problem. One of the main themes in the letter to the community about the new terms of service is the cost of digital storage, which would indicate perhaps smugmug, inc. might have some sort of financial issue. I’ve been curious about how Flicker has been advertised and the means of monetization though ads both on and off site. When turning off ad blocker I still don’t see many advertisements from other companies. They seem infrequent. The ads I see for the company point more towards Smugmug’s which revolves around printing and hosting portfolio websites rather than Flicker. All that being said Smugmug still makes 10 – 25 million in revenue a year.

 

The passionate discussion about adult content is coming from the user base. Mainly free accounts. People are losing their ability to post content and it’s understandably quite upsetting. You make some excellent points about moderate content @Cristiano but for creators who make more risque clothing moderation seems to be “odd” some ads contain a percentage of nudity and remain safe while I’ve seen people have issues with a bare male chest (belleza, legacy, ect) being “safe”.

 

Several people are of the opinion that Flicker is cleaning up it’s image not only to be more profitable but maybe they plan on selling that part of their business or merging with another social media giant. @Rowan mentioned people posting things which violated TOS such as adult gifs, webms, and mp4 files but perhaps there is a lot of content which moderation isn’t catching, which falls in various gray areas concerning law. Thus banning adult content for free accounts makes moderation “easier”.

 

If we knew what the actual issues were I feel like we could have a proper conversation. Discussing these new rules are like poking at a raw wound. We only read text and without context we can easily take something the wrong way and see it as a personal slight. No matter what sort of content you make it’s a finical and emotional investment no matter how silly it might sound. And that’s not to say this isn’t a proper conversation but some creators are going to have to retool what they do or find greener pastures.

 

I can’t see a plus for Flicker as a whole or “pro accounts” as you mention but time will tell. Excellent post.

 

[BelindaN]

A few years ago I had an archive of my professional photos (NOT porn) on Photobucket. Suddenly Photobucket changed the terms and conditions, and unless you paid the subscription, photos on Photobucket could no longer be linked to outside sites. So they held photos to ransom. I seem to recall they demanded around £70 per year.

Anyway I transferred my photo archive to a small independant provider, and deleted every one of my photos on Photobucket.  I think the business model planned didn't work out and nowadays you don't hear much about Photobucket.

This time around, I'm currently flickr pro and almost all my images are safe, so it doesn't really impact much on me either way.

[LittleMe Jewell]

On 3/26/2022 at 7:07 PM, AnnabelleApocalypse said:

Does anyone know when this comes into effect btw? April 1st? TBH I am pretty convinced 90% of the Flickr-using SL crowd are blissfully unaware of these changes.

The blog post just says "upcoming changes" and also says that as they begin to roll out the changes, they will communicate directly with the free account holders that are affected.

As of today, the actual TOS still hasn't changed.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

well, this is the Shift show of f*^$% yous lately.. 

 

I did always wonder how users with just a few photos have 9k followers though.... (new accounts and all)

 

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by LittleSparrow Skydancer

[Maitimo]

On 3/29/2022 at 3:16 PM, Brooke51 said:

the best advice i can offer is, if in doubt, bump your photo up a rating. for example, you make a "safe" photo of a pretty outfit that happens to show a hint of areola peeking out of a low cut top, bra or dress. if you think it might be a little risqué, bump it up from safe to moderate.

 

Except now, you can only do that if you pay for Pro. Free users can't bump it up.

 

On 3/29/2022 at 6:51 PM, Cristiano Midnight said:

The more I've read discussions about this, I think part of Flickr's move has to do with the massive amount of porn on the platform, posted anonymously. That is problematic on several levels. With pro accounts, they have payment info on file, which at least provides some form of identity. Hosting user posted pornographic content is a challenge for any site. I am surprised Flickr has gone this long without locking it down more. Keep in mind, it is not just SL porn we are talking about - and not just naked pics.

That said, I do think it is a mistake to include moderate images for pro only. The guidelines around moderate are pretty mild. By locking those down too, it is just alienating users.

Also, with the ridiculous jump in price of Pro over the past 4 years (188% increase or something like that) with no added value at all, Pro cannot be justified for a lot of users. This move is not going to do much to increase their pro subscriptions. It's actually going to decrease the user base of Flickr, which affects Pro users as well who care about engagement.

I do hope they rethink some of these changes. I doubt they will back off completely, but as they stand now, they've gone too far.

I agree, they should have left it at just Restricted. Moderate is already far too mild. 

I think that Smugmug is setting up to sell or close Flickr - they already have another site for pro photographers and it makes no sense for them to be competing against themselves (despite the huge SL content on Flickr, its really not the majority).

Drive free users away and convince the rest (with RL photographic content, not SL) to move to Smugmug's other site.

[Nikita Neuman]

Well until now still the new TOS arent rolled out it seems, cause i saw, istill could load up 900 Photos, weird.

[AnnabelleApocalypse]

Looks like the hammer just dropped. Just got this email - 

"Beginning May 1, 2022, Flickr will start enforcing our recently-announced Free account changes regarding Restricted and Moderate content.

What this means: Free accounts with Restricted or Moderate content will be considered in violation of our terms of service and subject to removal. Accounts found in violation of our terms will need to either subscribe to Flickr Pro or remove the content in violation.

These changes don’t affect your ability to view or hide moderate or restricted content. See our FAQ video for more details.

Flickr Free members who want to upload or continue to have Restricted or Moderate content will need to upgrade their accounts to Flickr Pro by May 1."

[Orwar]

17 minutes ago, AnnabelleApocalypse said:

What this means: Free accounts with Restricted or Moderate content will be considered in violation of our terms of service and subject to removal. Accounts found in violation of our terms will need to either subscribe to Flickr Pro or remove the content in violation.

   They want us to manually remove any content that their broken bot decided was restricted because it can't differentiate between a chin and a pair of gonads? 

   Yeeah. Let them ban me then.

[AnnabelleApocalypse]

Yep, I'm leaving my minimal collection of stuff up too. let them sort out the mess they created. If the account gets banned I'll just make a new one. 

I understand websites need to make revenue. But pay walling existing functionality is just lazy cash grabbing. From what I understand they have constantly jacked the price of pro while adding nothing.

I wonder what will happen with the adult groups. If the owners dont upgrade to pro, do they get wiped too?

Edited April 19, 2022 by AnnabelleApocalypse

[bigmoe Whitfield]

do we have any alternates?  

[Aiyumei]

5 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

do we have any alternates?  

Currently the alternatives that are still on the table to my knowledge were newtumblr and twitter.

Ideally you can also switch to imgbb as it kinda offers the same features as flickr minus the groups and commenting.

[Love Zhaoying]

18 hours ago, Orwar said:

it can't differentiate between a chin and a pair of gonads? 

 

See: Movie 43, Hugh Jackman scene.

[JeromFranzic]

On 4/19/2022 at 12:31 PM, AnnabelleApocalypse said:

Looks like the hammer just dropped. Just got this email - 

"Beginning May 1, 2022, Flickr will start enforcing our recently-announced Free account changes regarding Restricted and Moderate content.

What this means: Free accounts with Restricted or Moderate content will be considered in violation of our terms of service and subject to removal. Accounts found in violation of our terms will need to either subscribe to Flickr Pro or remove the content in violation.

These changes don’t affect your ability to view or hide moderate or restricted content. See our FAQ video for more details.

Flickr Free members who want to upload or continue to have Restricted or Moderate content will need to upgrade their accounts to Flickr Pro by May 1."

Well then... I have barely a dozen eggs worth of le n00dz. Thanks for the reminder! Still on the fence about upgrading my SL Flickr account... My RL one has all the goodies.

[Nalates Urriah]

On 4/19/2022 at 10:17 PM, bigmoe Whitfield said:

do we have any alternates?  

I wrote a short article on the change and linked to articles listing alternatives to Flickr: Flickr Changes 2022.

I would appreciate those trying alternatives posting about their experience.

[Robberinthemuseum]

On 4/23/2022 at 11:19 PM, Nalates Urriah said:

I wrote a short article on the change and linked to articles listing alternatives to Flickr: Flickr Changes 2022.

I would appreciate those trying alternatives posting about their experience.

Oh thank you. I'm going to check it out

[MalibuBratz]

I'm really gonna have to pay 8 dollars to post a dick pic of my avi i'm tight lol

Edited April 25, 2022 by MalibuBratz

[Princess Desire]

Hey cuties!

 

I'm posting here to say I'm working on a Flickr alternative for secondlife. 

It's a bit "basic" - but it's getting there.

You can check it out here: Https://slexy.me

You can also check out the discord here:

https://discord.gg/kyCzSMgCrD

 

My goal is to make a safe haven for people, artists, creators and photographers alike.

 

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to hit me up in world or on Discord.

 

Once it's out of "beta" and testing phases, we will be implementing new features based on user request/interest. 

 

For creators, by creators.

 

♥

 

[Karl Herber]

I've discovered a new option; www.slushe.com.

It's primarily a site for people making high quality 3d renders, but since the change in Flickrs TOS they have updated theirs to allow SL content, provided that you put it in the Second Life cateogory, which they have recently created so that non-SL users can filter out SL content. You have to opt-in to see the SL category.

NSFW? Oh yes, that's it's speciality.  It's not really a place for blogging, though there is a SFW category it doesn't get a lot of use, and it seems that regular snapshots and pics that are not of an avatar aren't the kind of content they want. This is for high quality avatar art ranging beteen "sensual" and "hard-core pornographic".

The only downside I can see is that the overall quality of content here is so high, it's intimidating.

Oh, and the annoying captchas every single time you log in.

Edited May 21, 2022 by Karl Herber

[Rowan Amore]

Should be interesting...

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

On 5/21/2022 at 10:10 AM, Karl Herber said:

The only downside I can see is that the overall quality of content here is so high, it's intimidating.

Hmmm. The downside that I see, and that I'm sure others will too, is this:

On 5/21/2022 at 10:10 AM, Karl Herber said:

NSFW? Oh yes, that's it's speciality.  It's not really a place for blogging, though there is a SFW category it doesn't get a lot of use, and it seems that regular snapshots and pics that are not of an avatar aren't the kind of content they want. This is for high quality avatar art ranging beteen "sensual" and "hard-core pornographic".

I don't mind erotica, and occasionally delve into that myself, but I don't do explicit sexuality or porn, and I'm not interested in seeing it. In fact, I'll usually unfollow anyone on Flickr whose stream is focused on sex. If that's your thing, great, but this doesn't sound like the place for those who aren't into that.

Yeah, I get that there's an SFW category, but if it's not getting a lot of use, then there is going to be little to no community there, and that's the main reason I'm sticking with Flickr, at least for now. I've made dozens of friendships there that have, in some cases, extended in-world, and there are some terrific artists who I follow on Flickr as well.

I deeply dislike the approach that Flickr is taking to this -- I've no problems with paying for an account, but I don't like censorship being used as a club to beat people with. But until there is sufficient critical mass of like-minded photographers somewhere else, Flickr is where I'm staying.

[Love Zhaoying]

On 4/25/2022 at 10:38 AM, MalibuBratz said:

I'm really gonna have to pay 8 dollars to post a dick pic of my avi i'm tight lol

Maybe you can finance it with an OnlyFans.

[Alana Eberhardt]

I am trying out newtumbl - so far I like it, though I really liked being able to share directly from Firestorm to flickr. If any one wants to exchange follows on NT, I will be happy to do so - I am at https://alana-eberhardt.newtumbl.com/ 

Really bummed as so far I cannot find most of the pics I had on flickr - I have replaced computers a lot over that time and probably a lot were lost. Though since I just recently changed to BOM and upgraded my head, it's probably time for new ones anyway. 

[Charalyne Blackwood]

The Suicide Girls site, while a nice place for images, isn't really much for SL models, so I'm on Instagram as mrscharlieblackwood