magikquilter July 27th, 2008
I had a disturbing experience on the Flickr help fora a few days ago. I had clicked on an interesting looking black and white photo which was in a group I belong to. Flickr TOS states that only the photos taken by the photographer themselves must be on their photostream but I have seen a few interesting looking old photos that look to me like family photos so I often have a look. I saw a photo of two darling little girls and the style of the photo reminded me of photos taken of my sister and I when we were young in the fifties. There was nothing in the photo description which is directly below the photo to show when it was taken. I typed in something like lovely photo…cute girls or something and clicked the comment through then as I was leaving the page I saw gestapo and concentration camp and various other tags and I felt absolutely sick.
I deleted the comment and checked the name of the girls under the photo…simply said Margot and Anne and there was also a link to a Wordpress blog. I clicked that and read that it was a photo of Anne Frank and her sister Margot. I had read the diary when I was younger and my son was deeply affected when he read it in school. I went back to the photo and looked upon their dear little faces and felt such a deep sadness and sense of loss and also absolute abhorrence at a world where such a thing could happen.
My son was in the room when I recoiled from the computer when I realised that I had left such a flippant comment on these darling girls images. He felt even more strongly than I that the photo should have some description directly under the photo…not just names and a blog link. I am familiar with this blog, it is a well intentioned young person who is trying through poetry to draw attention to various things in the world. I do wish however in their urge to draw attention to their poem and to the plight of these children that they had shown a little more forethought in how they went about this.
After a few hours I decided to ask in the forums how it came about that these type of photos are there as it is against the terms of service and I tried to convey the impact of this upon me. I was not allowed to show where the photo was or even the photo itself and so nobody on the help forum was able to access what I was talking about. And it would not have mattered anyway judging by the response I received. I was initially told by a reasonable though extremely concise person to report it as abuse if it bothered me that much. I was then lectured by someone else that if I get so outraged about things on the internet that I should not renew my connection and invest instead in books or yoga…and that was the nice part of what was said! Then I was labeled as being one of the many who are trying to sanitise everything and further vilified. All the while telling me to “smile and click away”
Well I was astounded that they seemed to perceive it only as an internet usage issue and the lack of humanity in not even trying to hear what I was saying and the subsequent savaging I received astounded me. I tried to explain that I was outraged all right at myself and that I felt those type of photos should be on reputable sites or groups where they can be respected like the ones where the Wordpress user found them. well naturally then I was accused of censorship…even bringing the Natzis into it! Then he turned it around and started to attack me and my photostream and said I was in breach as I had a photo up of a quilt from one of my books.
I find it hard to comprehend that these people could not for one minute put themselves in the shoes of another ….to understand how it feels for someone to be sickened by the thought that they had disrespected the dead…particularly dead children of such a horrendous time. Throughout this the no nonsense forum member continually stated that the issue was a TOS violation and at this point she stepped in and said that it was not a censorship issue and said my photostream was fine.
I was quite disheartened by the total lack of humanity by this point and as it was about five in the morning I went to bed for a few hours. The person who had attacked me earlier had posted another long rant about censorship and my photostream and who was I to say what was wrong when mine was obviously wrong. Then at the end of all that he said out of nowhere...great quilts magikquilter, you do lovely work.
My perceived copyright infringement was discussed for about six more posts and then another guy came on who ranted and raged at me saying I was seriously freaking out and to chill the fuck out. Well that did it for me…I went back on and told him that what he had said showed more of who he was than it did me and so did the callous indifference to the suffering of those girls who were slaughtered. Is this the way we are headed today….. that its all about not interfering with the enjoyment of the public? They are so afraid of censorship in all its forms that they crucify anyone who tries to express their feelings about something?
I eventually had two people come onto the discussion and they were civil and they addressed my photostream issue which was okay after all…big surprise you are allowed to photograph books if its obvious they are a book. Well duh. After the chill the fuck out rant I left a final post saying that due to the vindictiveness and lack of compassion for the issues that were raised there I would not be asking for help again there as I was not a masochist.
Sorry if this was hard to follow but I am trying to show how it went in a linear fashion. Not once during the whole debacle did I feel that I was heard and incidentally that meant that the issue was not heard…so much for the intent of the blogger. I looked afterward and there are many groups on flickr that are holocaust related….if the blogger had posted to those I would have immediately known what the picture meant and could have had a respectful dialogue with others. But the blogger did not put the photo there, they put it in a writers group without saying that it was about a book or identifying it in any way. So in my mind that blogger was also not sensitive to the issue…they were purely driving people to their blog so that people could read their poem…instead of putting the poem on the photo page as the group prefers. So really it reinforces the insensitivity I found throughout all this and it was an insensitivity largely from youth …which really disturbs me……obviously my son is an exception as he is an old soul….and he was deeply offended by this…really angry.
So where do I go now? I received an email [as soon as I posted back about the insensitivity there]from the concise member of the forum telling me that she thought I handled him really well and not to let him put me off. But it was not that guy that put me off...it was the selfishness and callousness I saw there. After a few hours though I thought I would go on as a helper for people who need help with groups etc…I have had quite a few people email me asking for my help in setting up their groups etc so know I can handle that and there is the thing about having one friendly voice there if all else should be hostile…believe me it has happened before. My son is concerned though as he said one wrong word and I would be savaged so shall see how I go. He is also concerned that the one person who emailed me was obviously not comfortable doing it in the forum where everyone could see it. i would love to know your thoughts on this and if you speak civilly to me I will respect your opinion even if it is the opposite of mine so please do feel free!
For all those who like to fact check the thread is here...it will not take long to read.
Tags: Anne Frank, beware the flickr help forums, censorship, Diary Of Anne Frank, flickr help forums, have you been savaged on help forums?, holocaust, insensitivity, poetry, sanitising the world, wordpress blog
