As I noted in comments, I can certainly understand Flickr's dilemma. In a puritanical society that tends to have knee jerk reactions to nudity, Flickr-YaScrewed, needs to protect itself from legal ramifications. There is no age verification mechanism for the company. All of which I could respect if we were just discussing pornography. However, the Flickr-YaScrewed community guidelines declare all nudity to be unacceptable. Nudity is treated like pornography. Nudity is NOT pornography.
Perhaps a protest would be appropriate to make this point. Nudity is a primary feature of lots of artwork throughout the centuries. I propose that people go forth and take pictures of nudity in art and post it on Flickr. Pictures could even be taken of nude models in photography and posted. Dare Flickr-YaScrewed to take them down and then ignite the debate. Show the Puritans for what they are and point out that pornography is definitely an issue we can discuss protecting minors from, but nudity in legitimate art forms is not a problem.
Thoughts?
Update: YaScrewed has issued a statement regarding it's policies in China this morning. Only, the statement doesn't mention China and is open ended.
Private industry alone cannot effectively influence foreign government policies on issues like the free exchange of ideas, maximum access to information, and human rights reform, and we believe continued government-to-government dialogue is vital to achieve progress on these complex political issues.Hm, how about a little freedom of expression in the U.S. when it comes to the arts?
We will work with industry, government, academia and NGOs [non-government organisations] to explore policies to guide industry practices in countries where content is treated more restrictively than in the United States, and to promote the principles of freedom of speech and expression.
1 comment:
It is hard to find traditional definitions for pornography, as the puritanical agenda has insisted it applies only to sexual or sensual content. I was taught in school that was just one area, that it was intended to arouse actue emotion or arousal of many sorts. Something from dictionary.com that is closer...
Lurid or sensational material: “Recent novels about the Holocaust have kept Hitler well offstage [so as] to avoid the... pornography of the era” (Morris Dickstein).
Given the more inclusive definition of the word it seems to me The Passion of the Christ is one of the most explicitly pornographic productions in the last century.
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