Case Story: Controlling Flickr Contacts
Case Story: Controlling Flickr Contacts
| Summary | Tell me whom you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group / workshop | Digital Identities | Status | seed | |
| Project details... | Rhizome | |||
Situation
What was the setting in which this case study occurred?
I have a Flickr account, since 2004. I have always used for both personal and professional aspects of my real persona. I also have a Flickr account for my avatar,
Paz Lorenz, since 2006. I use sets and collections to separate personal
and professional content. But also to separate different parts of my
personal life. I don’t want my self-portraits mixed with my kids. In
this first account, I haven’t really engaged in rich conversations with
other Flickr users. I didn’t feel the need to complete my profile, I
have only 33 contacts, most of them real life friends and belong to a
few groups, mainly related with spontaneous and brutal art. Opposite to
Paz who maintains a richer social life and spends her time flickering.
My accounts are frequently aggregated by other users who make me
their contact. Some of my photos are added as a favorite, and
commented. As a consequence, a part of me is automatically added to
other people’s profiles and photostreams: I appear in the list of
contacts of a given user. My photos appear in the users’ favorite
collection, associated, out of context, with other photos, according to
a criteria I don’t necessarily perceive or understand.
Task
What was the problem to be solved, or the intended effect?
My problems started with a photo that my older soon, Sariel, took of me, while breastfeeding my newborn Forest. In one year, ‘Happy breastfeeding’ was seen 3,464 times. My photo started as a project against people who complain because of breastfeeding in public places, after two awful encounters where I’ve been told to ’stop doing that there”, even though it was discrete and I had a scarf over the head of my one month old baby. As an answer, I wanted to replicate a photo that unfortunately isn’t public which title is ‘For you pervs out there. . .’ In this photo a mother of a toddler is breastfeeding her child, while she does a fuck sign straight to the camera. The photo, as many other of the kind, is published in the Go fuck yourself Flickr group. So I wanted to so the same: nurse not so discreetly while looking straight into the eye of those people who condemn breastfeeding in public and be rude and angry. But this was impossible with my little clown taking the photo. We couldn’t be serious and didn’t help but laughing out loud. And the result was this: Happy breastfeeding! Since, the photo has been marked as a favorite by many ‘pervs’ who maintain fake Flickr accounts where they do not post any photo, but where they collect other users photos showing nudity, partial nudity like mothers breastfeeding showing part of her breasts or children without Tshirts playing in the nature by a hot summer. Suddenly my photo and I appeared associated to pornography, among the contacts and in the collection of users who are also member of ‘Mature women nudes’ and ‘Delicious oral sex’, just to cite the less offensive groups.Actions
What was done to fulfil the task?
When I realised that this was happening, I defined a personal rule regarding my content in Flickr: to block any contact or fan of my photos who is associated with pornography: publishes porn photos, belongs to porn groups, has porn favorites or invites one of my photos to a porn pool.Results
What happened? Was is a success? What contributed to the outcomes?
I systematically monitor accounts of people who establish any virtual relationships with me in Flickr, and if not compliant, I block. As a consequence, for those who ignore how blocking functions in Flickr, these users- Can’t comment on my photos (All comments on my photos made by them are deleted)
- Can’t comment on my sets (All comments on my sets made by them are deleted)
- I am removed as theirs (They can’t add me as a contact again)
- Can’t add my photos as favorites anymore (Any of my photos marked as their favorites are removed)
- Can’t blog my photos
- Can’t add notes or tags
- Can’t send me FlickrMail
Lessons Learned
What did you learn from the experience?
Essentially the realisation that there is a time consumption associated with the management of private-public content on the Internet. Most of the mothers who put their children photo on Flickr are subject to this kind of problem, and yet one face the dilemma between restricting photos to friends only or deploying strong policies for control of interaction around one’s images. Hence users develop their own strategy to control these issues, like using FlickrMails in chain between mother to investigate about the good intentions of a certain Flickr user. Ensued by massive blocking and reporting abuse. Or using one’s profile to explain what type of interaction police is suitable for one’s account.Like one of my Flickr contacts who states in her profile:
“my pics tells about love and sharing,I became more aware of certain threats that have an impact of my digital reputation. The ENISA Position Paper No.1 Security Issues and Recommendations for Online Social Networks was an enlightning reading that increased my understanding and awareness of these issues.
proximity between parents and child, nothing sexual in it i precise!!!
i DO NOT wish my pics to be added as favs on people’s account who are looking for erotic or porn aspect , neither be added as contact
i am therefore very happy to share my pics with people respectful to that opinion,
motherhood is pure…
thanx!”
A previous version of this case story appeared at: http://www.margaperez.com/?p=180
Licensing
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
