Take a look at this photo (not the one above). It’s a picture of a child prostitute in Congo and it won 3rd place in the category “Contemporary Issues” at the World Press Photo Award 2007. On Flickr it would have been deleted because the child is smoking a cigarette.
Among the responses of Flickr staff in this thread was this gem from Heather: “[…] we as a team can decide if this is something that we want to see on the site […]”. So, basically, the Flickr deal is this: You pay them to host your photos and if they’re something they want to see they won’t delete them. Of course they won’t tell you what they want or don’t want to see. The good news is that no photos of flowers or sunsets have been deleted. Yet.
Mostly Software 
sad to watch flickr shifting from an interesting photography community to a pseudo-clean family album something…
i’m finding that flickr is staffed and owned by people who think they are the center of the universe and entitled to play god in their own little sand box. they’ve only been emboldened by their get-rich-quick buyout from Yahoo, and they go wacko if you suggest that they censor anything or that Yahoo is running the show.
i have been targeted for special censorship and abuse…
Here, if you’re interested: http://members.nowpublic.com/dysamoria
or my blog at http://dysamoria.com/blog
here, here, great photo and they will delete sunsets if strange x-rated clouds appear.
As an American, the concept of censorship is something we just don’t fathom. I guess we need to realize that there’s a big world out there, and we are really just small pieces in it.
That picture is heart breaking. Such a small child, in fact, she looks about the same age as mine.
That is sad that flickr is doing that. Just go ahead and do what you do best…. thake the shot!!!
The good news is that no photos of flowers or sunsets have been deleted. Yet.
LOL. Thats coming next.
Absurd. I mean I do understand some censorship to an extent, like of child pornography or whatever, but the picture here was censored because the girl was smoking a cigarette? As if that was even the offensive part of the picture.
I am really wondering where the picture of the young girl smoking the cigarette is from I have seen it in multiple different places and i have searched for information about the picture online with no results will someone please let me know thanks Louis
This picture was the cover of a Dinosaur Jr. disc called Green Mind (1991) and can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Green-Mind-Dinosaur-Jr/dp/B000002LO1
Oh and Jim, there are lots of instances of censorship in the U.S. There’s censorship of music, movies, art, photography, and information regarding what our government does. I’m not saying it’s not a great place to live. But it’s certainly not without censorship either.
This is a great picture though, isn’t it.