Free Republic

Without any warning, Flickr.com suddenly eliminates entire account, without requested specific explanation, or offer of recovery. Without any prior warning or specific explanation afterward - despite attempts for any - about 3 weeks ago flickr.com (owned by SmugMug and headquartered in San Francisco, California suddenly eliminated my entire account, with no option to recover images.There was nothing even close to porn, or violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity... among my pics, or known violations of copyrighted material (that would not qualify as "fair use"), and I mostly used Flickr for my garden photos. But the purgation occurred after I had uploaded images...

Archivists who bought a stash of CDs at a house clearance sale found 2,400 photos of Ground Zero in New York taken following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. They appear to have been taken by an as yet unidentified construction worker who helped to clear up the wreckage of the World Trade Center towers and surrounding area. The CDs were in poor condition but the data was ultimately retrievable. The archivists have uploaded the photos to Flickr. The digital albums include images of Ground Zero itself taken both at ground level and from above, construction staff at work and the...

The venerable photo-sharing website will for the first time since 2005 be run by a photography-focused company. Here's what'll change and what won't.

Germany is set to start enforcing a law that demands social media sites move quickly to remove hate speech, fake news and illegal material. Sites that do not remove “obviously illegal” posts could face fines of up to €50 million (£44.3 million; $60 million). The law gives the networks 24 hours to act after they have been told about lawbreaking material. Social networks and media sites with more than two million members will fall under the law’s provisions. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will be the law’s main focus, but it is also likely to be applied to Reddit, Tumblr and...

After 'Obama Joker' debacle, Flickr changes takedown policy September 2, 2009 Flickr came out looking like the bad guy when it removed an image of President Obama portrayed as the Joker from "The Dark Knight." Onlookers accused Flickr of having a "political agenda" and being a "bully." For the most part, Flickr has stuck to a retort along the lines of: Sorry, kids, but that's the way the law works. But the Yahoo-owned photo-sharing site has since retreated, at least in one respect. Flickr revised its takedown policy Tuesday to be more clear when something has been removed as a...

The White House is hiring a contractor to harvest information about Americans from its pages on social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. The National Legal and Policy Center, or NLPC, revealed the White House New Media team is seeking to hire a technology vendor to collect data such as comments, tag lines, e-mail, audio and video from any place where the White House "maintains a presence" – for a period of up to eight years.

President Obama's White House does not exactly have a stellar record when it comes to personal information and the Internet. In less than one month, the president's new media team has come under fire for asking citizens to report "fishy e-mails" about Obama's health care reform plan and for e-mail messages from David Axelrod that somehow went to people who did not sign up for them.So when the Executive Office of the President seeks a contractor to archive the usernames and possibly other data from social network users, it is certainly worth asking them why. We did. We have not...

NLPC has uncovered a plan by the White House New Media operation to hire a technology vendor to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites. The information to be captured includes comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video. The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House “maintains a presence.”In the course of investigating procurement by the White House New Media office, NLPC discovered a 51-page solicitation of bids that was filed on Friday, August 21, 2009. Filed as Solicitation #...

The popular photo sharing website Flickr has taken down the original version of the now famous Obama Joker poster that’s been sweeping the nation. Apparently, management is concerned about a copyright infringement issue due to the appearance of the Time magazine logo in Firas Alkhateeb’s parody that ended up being reprinted with the word “Socialism” at the bottom. Oddly, a quick search of Flickr identified a number of Bush parodies with Time’s logo present (vulgarity alert below the fold).

It's rarely a good PR move when a social Web site decides to remove a politically-charged image--the InterWebs get angry. One such case came to light today: A Photoshop mockup of President Obama as the Joker from The Dark Knight, superimposed on the cover of Time magazine, has been removed from Flickr. The 20-year-old Chicagoan who made the photo got an email from Flickr, which is owned by Yahoo!, saying the it had been removed due to copyright concerns. Plenty of tech pundits are saying Flickr was strong-armed by Time, Inc., which didn't like its brand associated with something so...

Note: The following text is a quote: National Guard Embraces Social Media By Army Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill Special to American Forces Press Service ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 12, 2009 – Even in the 140-character brevity demanded of a “tweet,” the enthusiasm National Guardsmen have for communicating through Twitter software is evident. “Just shot my first rounds from a M1A1 Main Battle Tank. Killed 3 of 4 targets. Best Tank on the planet!” And it’s not just the rank-and-file who are communicating, although among Twitter’s millions of users -- the company won’t say exactly how many -- one stands out: He...

Old news about the Whitehouse starting an Official Whitehouse Photostream on flickr a photo sharing service of Yahoo! Comments are welcome for each photo, so I thought this would be a great way to let the Whitehouse know how displeased we are with Obama and the way he is running things into the ground. http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/

The White House is on Flickr, allowing anyone to download and share White House glamour shots.The photos are even open to comments which is a brave move. Judging by some of these shots, Obama has found plenty of time for R and R in between dealing with pirates, stopping swine flu, and saving the world economy.I've highlighted some of the funnier ones below.

I saw this sign on my way to my parents' house yesterday afternoon. I thought the irony was poetic. Enjoy http://www.flickr.com/photos/9342558@N08/2286898088/

A photo set.