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Troubles with flickr


Last Sunday, flickr suspended my (PRO) account, saying that it included "a large amount of content marked with the incorrect safety level." 

Although I try to moderate my images, I have had messages in the past from flickr telling some of them were wrongly labelled. A list was usually included and the system automatically changed the moderation. Not this time. 

When I asked support why that was the case, how I was supposed to physically review nearly 80,000 images(!), and why I couldn't be given a list, I repeatedly received boilerplate responses copy/pasted from some script that didn't answer my questions at all. 

The representative dealing with my case specifically quoted those two sections of the flickr's Guide to Safety Levels (nothing else):

- Sexually suggestive poses and attire intended to arouse the viewer or that would generally be unacceptable to a general, public audience; 
- Full frontal nudity (exposed or visible genitalia, anus, etc…); 

Some of the examples they sent did include images that matched those descriptions but others were of models in their underwear with a hand in the front of them, or the one above. Another was two fully dressed men holding a fan with the word "Cunt" emblazoned on it. This seemed overly zealous. 

In the end I restricted about 30,000 of my club images, as batches without distinction, and that seem to satisfy them (my account is back on! YAY!) but the email informing me of the fact also states that flickr "may not have reviewed all posts in [my] account." So how did they decide things were suddenly fine, then?! This makes absolutely no sense! It certainly feels highly arbitrary. 

I've been a loyal user of Flickr for nearly 20 years, during about 10 of which I have held a Pro account. Nothing of the kind has happened before (though FB did delete my photopage without warning some years ago).

Is this part of the moral backlash against LGBT+ people currently blowing from the US (this includes LGBT+ club accounts being deleted without warning on IG)? I don't know. The shoddy way in which this matter has been handled by flickr, however, is seriously making me reconsider that loyalty. Be weary this doesn't happen to you too...

As a result all my content will henceforth be marked as "restricted".
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