Since I had so much fun adding speech bubbles to images in my last post, I figured I’d use this approach for something a little different, this time.

The setup: April this year I went to a funeral in Germany. Something that’s more than just a little bit personal to me, something that I – as we do in this here digital age – documented. Flickr staff can easily verify this by scrolling a few images up and down from the one in question, but that’s not the knack here.

In the process of this, I shot a video. A very, very, short one. It contains about two naughty words and a off-screen barely audible reference to doing things with things where the sun rarely shines. It was shot outside the funeral home, mostly in an effort to relieve some of the stress and sadness inherent in such an event on both sides – mine and the people smiling into the camera.

As such, and because both the act and ocassion are a private manner, I made the video available to friends and family only on Flickr. And because I know it’d upset my mother and some other family members who are on Flickr to see me recklessly brandish a video camera outside a funeral and us “youngins” cussing, I marked the video as “moderate” for them.

So far so good… or not.

It appears that I have Friends and Family in high places. Namely the Flickr staff. Whom, after reviewing my video decided to mark it as “safe”. Thankfully they didn’t consider a bunch of pictures of the open grave to be for the public good, but the act itself is … confusing.

Now, I can understand Flickr taking measures to up the safety level of things that are flagged as “safe”. I can understand Flickr kicking people for repeatedly posting such content without the appropriate settings. But to enter my restricted photo stream and take it upon themselves to watch a video I clearly labeled as only intended for friends and family, come to a conclusion that it’s safe (despite the language spoken in it being Yiddish) in video and audio regards, and to lower the safety level in spite of my judgement, is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Flickr, you made a unilateral decision on the safety of one of my videos. Which is understandeable if you felt the safety level was too low. Instead, you showed true hypocrisy by violating your own argument, that something I might find inoffensive might be offensive to others. Hey, guess what, what you found inoffensive – I fear might be offensive to some. Understand context and audience next time, please, kthxbye.

The plot thickens even more. This change wasn’t made right away but likely more than two weeks after I posted the video. Without a mailed notification. How the hell am I supposed to monitor 1,200 images – taken over the course of four and a half years (I posted my first image during Etech when Steward showed off Flickr for the first time and all the site was, was a chat/image Flash frontend, I bet I am one of the oldest Flickr users out there) – for changes you feel are safe choices?

In a nutshell, to say it with Pink Floyd, leave my shit alone unless I violate your ToS. And flagging things that are potentially offensive to part of my audience (which I know way better than you, thank you very much) should be a decision you leave to me, at least in one way – the way of safety over sorrow.