Censorship and Harassment at Flickr.com: My Personal Experience

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Censorship at the Individual Level: My Own Personal Experience with Flickr.com, Harassment and Censorship

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uploaded by dysamoria

i was a member of flickr from June 2006 to September 7th. i renewed my membership in June 2007. Flickr deleted my account. They owe me reinstatement or refund.

 Why did they delete me? i embarrassed them. Or, more specifically, i embarrassed one staff member, so it seems. Michelle. My original intent in posting the material that Michelle deleted, without warning, was as a public service to the victims of one "dave sewell" also known as "angelfishsolo" on flickr. This is a man who has harassed several other members, especially women and the men they associate with. This is a man who brought his hate-fest to me, a complete stranger, because he seems to have felt that antagonizing me would be a great way to continue harassing his other victims (who i had been flickr friends with for some time). i posted the entire exchange between sewell and myself via flickr and private email into one of my photos, demonstrating that sewell is a liar and uses his flickr account for harassment and intimidation of other flickr members, which clearly violates the flickr Terms Of Use "agreement." My posting broke no such rules, but it was deleted, without warning or contact. No discussion. No questions asked, just deletion. POWER over others, demonstrated by flickr staff Michelle.

 So i reposted, including Michelle's "after the fact" messages to me, as well as the email address for the "case number" of this event. i also criticized her choice of actions. She didn't like that. She deleted my text again, but this time left the photo. Why? Maybe because i was RIGHT in stating that deletion first is a BAD policy. Especially since flickr founder Stewart Butterfield, just 6 months ago, stated that flickr would be erring on the side of caution from there on (there was a massive event of censorship that earned flickr a black eye in the media, though i do not have the 450+ supporters that the flickr member of that event had, i fully intend to publicize my experience just the same).

When Michelle deleted my latest content, i decided to push it up a level and made a public posting in the forums. This earned me deletion.

For the FULL details, including comments by sewell's other victims, comments by sewell that he tried to hide after the fact, and the case numbers, emails, etc, see my blog. (rather than duplicate it all here).

 The story starts here: http://dysamoria.com/blog/2007/08/the_microcosm.html
BROKEN LINK AND I DON'T KNOW WHY

continues here: http://dysamoria.com/blog/2007/09/flickr-has-deleted-me-instead-of-real.html

and then here with my open letter to Stewart Butterfield:  http://dysamoria.com/blog/2007/09/open-letter-to-stewart-butterfield-of.htm

and then on to here: http://dysamoria.com/blog/2007/09/flickrs-continued-censorship.html 

Be forewarned: It's long, but that's why things like this get passed over and ignored. It's not really that complicated, it's just not in an easy-reader format. It all happened as i said above. i do HIGHLY recommend reading all the comments at each post. You will get a good perspective of the reality as is presented uncensored, instead of as is presented by those who would have you see their own distorted reality. dave sewell's statements speak for themselves, just remember that 1 in 25 people is a sociopath and have your sociopath handbook with you as you read his comments (especially noting his deletion of comments he posted and his general behavior).

EDIT: BBB Yahoo-flickr Complaint.rtf