In response to Nouri al-Maliki's slaughter of a sit-in in Hawija Tuesday, April 23rd, which Alsumaria noted, left 50 dead and 110 injured according to Kirkuk's Department of Health (Hawija is in Kirkuk) and to claims that Nouri ordered in the assault on the request of the Iranian government, Isaiah drew "The Bride of Iran."
Hosted on Fotki
"No peen, no vag, no insertion," Isaiah notes and so he felt that the comic would be fine. No doubt, Emily Post would rule it vulgar but it was an editorial cartoon that followed the limits.
So imagine the surprise when, at first, the image completely disappeared from Flickr after it was posted to The Common Ills. As Ruth observed at her site, "I am so glad Isaiah did that comic. Flick is not. Tough."
In an e-mail reply to C.I., Flickr noted "the government" asked that the image be taken down. When C.I. responded with a lengthy e-mail about First Amendment rights, the image was back up and a e-mail reply stated that the first Flickr response (citing "the government") had been mistaken so disregard.
That was strange but could have been the end of it.
However people clicking on the comic at The Common Ills to go to Flickr were then told they had to sign in to see the image.
What was going on now?
The image was "offensive," Flickr informed in an e-mail. Offensive to whom was not stated. But Flickr noted a supposed policy they had in place. They sent the policy to Third Estate Sunday Review as well as to The Common Ills. C.I. had been the one in contact with them but the image was part of The Third Estate Sunday Review Flickr set.
Maybe if we hadn't earlier been told that "the government" had complained about the image and that's why Flickr took it down we'd have been less upset.
But it's a mild editorial cartoon. As Isaiah noted, "No peen, no vag, no insertion."
Ty and C.I. had been dealing with Flickr up to now. At this point, Rebecca got involved.
Rebecca, "Ty and I had been working on something personal, a thing for a family, when he mentioned what was going on. I said, 'Read that rule to me'."
He did. Flickr wrote Third: "A good rule of thumb is, bare breasts and bottoms are 'moderate.' Full frontal nudity is 'restricted'."
They were saying that the comic above was "moderate" and that people looking for it on Flickr would have to sign in to see it. Below is the message an attempt to view "The Bride of Iran" would be met with.
Rebecca, "I said, 'Woah-woah-woah! T, my friend, just told me Monday about these Flickr images a lady had pulled up at T's beauty salon. They had all been shocked. And they didn't need to sign in to Flickr to see them. So that's when I got involved."
Ty, C.I. and Rebecca tested what T had seen and found it to be true. You can find anything on Flickr that's not been made "moderate" or "restricted."
We found images of butts, for example, like the piece of art below.
We've used the "eraser" function in Windows Paint to cover the penis and testicles. 'Well that's art!' Who gets to judge art and say that's art and an editorial cartoon (which does not show penis or testicles) is outrageous? An editorial cartoon by its very nature is political speech which is the most legally protected form of speech in the United States.
So we looked further and found many images of butts including these three.
The first two may pass for art or 'art' but the third photo isn't and on that third one, if you look to the side with really good eyes you'll be able to see a completely nude stripper is part of public collection. It's so small that we're not going to use the eraser.
The same will not be done on the next one with photos to the side.
We've used the eraser to cover -- in the first two -- vagina entrances -- and in the next two -- erect penises.
Keep it classy, Flickr.
We found so much more.
That wasn't all we found. We found beastiality. We found what looks like kiddie porn.
And none of this was flagged, none of this was under "moderate" or "restricted" guidance. You could see it all.
But an editorial cartoon they wanted to censor?
Kiddie porn?
Yeah. On that, we've notified the authorities.
Rebecca found it first and sent it to Ty and C.I. and said, "Am I wrong or is she under 18?"
They agreed she looked to be.
At this point, they were all contacting Flickr.
But Flickr stopped replying to Rebecca and C.I. once they both raised the issue of kiddie porn.
They were still replying to Ty. At least up until he e-mailed them the following:
You have refused to answer any question.
I believe you were informed by Rebecca Winter that not only are photos of vaginas on Flickr currently but so is what appears to be kiddie porn.
With or without your statement, we will be publishing an article.
We will demonstrate that you are censoring political content while displaying vaginas, penises and apparently kiddie porn on Flickr.
Your failure to address this issue properly with us will be noted in the article.
As will be noted how easy it is to find porn on Flickr and how Flickr has no excuse for not knowing it was up.
Ty
A silence followed. The next day, more e-mails from Flickr.
These did not address the issue and Ty noted that in his replies and noted that it was very interesting that, when informed they had possible kiddie porn up at their site, their response was not ask for a URL but to instead return to the issue of the cartoon and then to announce their decision to mark the entire Third Estate Sunday Review Flickr folder as "moderate."
Flickr has no excuse for not knowing that the above images are up and available for all to see. Rebecca, Ty and C.I. found them by using "nude" as the search label for the sets and using "nudity." In other words, if Flickr even bother to police their site in the most rudimentary way, the above images would all have easily been found by them. (As well as the possible kiddie porn.)
Was Isaiah's cartoon originally pulled because of a complaint from "the government" as one Flickr employee noted? (For the record, that's the only Flickr employee who ever signed an e-mail. He signed that e-mail and the one where he retracted the claim.)
We'll never know.
But look at the above screen snaps of what Flickr does allow up with no restrictions and ask yourself why Isaiah's editorial cartoon caused any problem?