It seems that South Koreans have another layer of censorship other than the Ministry of Communication (MIC). Flickr has just created a new “Safesearch” policy that “prohibits users in these places from turning off content filters” thus censoring what one may see on flickr sites from South Korea. Apparently this idea was from Yahoo.com, which has steadily been in the process of becoming king “Tokebi” in Korea and has been a hand to censoring flickr in China as well. I guess this is all per the wishes of Yahoo shareholders who do not seem to care about censorship and do not care even when they wrongfully help put people in jail for the sake of censorship.
There is more on the flickr censorship issue here.
Here are a few more blog discussion groups on this. and this synopsis and this explanation.
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The lack of comments to this post is depressing evidence that there’s little outrage to be found, even among expats who might be affected by this turn of events.
For the record, I find the global trend toward censorship, and the collusion of big names like Yahoo and Google, despicable. “Don’t be evil,” forsooth.
Kevin
To be fair, it doesn’t seem like Flickr/Yahoo is a willing partner to the block in China. That responsibility seems solely to be held by the GFW.
You are very much correct, IMHO “bighominid”. We can all start by giving Yahoo the gasface and not using their flickr service. I am not sure but the machinists’ blog about this seems to be gone from Salon and the “404″ notice has a search Yahoo graphic up top . . . not a good sign. Here are a few more blog discussion groups on this. and this synopsis and this explanation.
I would also add that a Yahoo mail account I once had in Korea was suddenly deleted after I sent spam complaints to yahoo, from my yahoo account, for spam that they were giving hosting to. Yahoo in Korea is not cool to begin with, not to mention the parent company.
They really have two choices — comply with local laws, or pull out of the market. Yahoo and Google are not going to liberate the whole world by opposing crappy local rules on censorship. That’s for the people themselves to do.
“That’s for the people themselves to do.”
I agree. Alas, the people don’t seem particularly incensed.
Kevin
boycott yahoo, boycott flickr.
Use qnext.com or http://www.bubbleshare.com/ — both viable alternatives, without censoring.
I’m a bit baffled by all of this – first, I was unaware that SK had such strict “decency” laws.
Maybe I’m misinformed, but Korea doesn’t have a ban on porn that I’m aware of – maybe it does on the more hardcore stuff. But even if there were a ban, that still doesn’t seem to follow; though I’ve never really looked, I’ve never come across anything remotely risque on flickr.
Is this more so over political imagery? I know China has recently had some issues with images on flickr, but I was unaware of such political stifling in Korea. Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware of the National Security Law and its abuses to silence dissidents – but sensoring the Internet?
Can anyone point me to some good background links about Korea’s free-speech laws? Or perhaps explain Yahoo’s motivation to self-censor?
Damn, I knew when Yahoo bought Flickr it was bad news.
auto spell-check has made me stupid.
the above should be “censoring,” not “sensoring.”
BTW – the link to the Machinist blog above didn’t work.
here it is.
sucked like hell when google bought youtube. The quality and quantity in youtube has declined. What’s the big deal? You can’t own the video. It just created a bigger pocket to sue.
Thanks “dailytransit” for the link update.
WTF can’t believe anybody still uses crappy Yahoo to do their searches. Just use Google (Canada or UK, not Korea). Type google.ca or google.co.uk instead of google.com and you’re off!
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