Lutz-R. Frank's blog/

The Official Answer to the "censoring" of German users, make your own mind ...

¨ Stewart Pro User says: name reply / icon reply As of a short time ago, we changed the way the content filter setting works for German members, allowing them to turn SafeSearch off to allow photos flagged as 'moderate'. As we’ve stated before, Flickr’s intent is never to censor content, but rather to comply with local legal restrictions. In Germany, local law (Jugendmedien-Staatsvertrag JMStV) requires stringent age verification in order to display online content that could be considered harmful to minors. After further researching our available options, we decided to adjust our policy in Germany to enable pictures rated as “moderate” to be visible for our users starting today. We've received plenty of feedback from our members on this and hopefully this change helps address some of the desires expressed while still complying with legal requirements regarding age verification. We are still limiting access for users in Germany to the "restricted" category on Flickr, which applies to pictures not considered appropriate for kids and teenagers according to local law. At this stage, pictures rated as "restricted" can only be uploaded and viewed privately, but not displayed publicly. We are continuing to actively evaluate various technical options, including exploring whether there is a way we can verify users' age which would meet the very high standards set by German law, and which would offer additional choice to our members in Germany. ¨

Ouch - that's rather unsatisfiable ... it doesn't touch the core of all the reasons for the users being upset. Sorry, that's not sufficient, flickr ...

Have you made a similar experience? I confess, I'm running currently on both platforms, but found that my "Recent Photos" List of my Contacts Friends/Family - which I normally monitor and comment on - has been shrinking today from five to six pages to less than two pages. (And even within those are a few who live a double life between ipernity and flickr at the moment...)

Could this be a first sign for the flickr-e-migration?