I am temporarily putting the contest on hold due to health issues

to Flickr or not to Flickr

This post had dramatically turned from what I had intended it to be. But like all great twists there's a beginning to this story. First of all. Let me post the highly offending photo from where it all began...

Within seconds of posting this photo I got a notice from Flickr that an automated "Moderation Bot" changed the safety setting on my pictures. If you haven't seen them yet. They look like this...

Now... lets also see how Flickr offers to users in an effort to help it's members now how to moderate their own content.

This is lifted directly from Flickr which you can find at this link

Photos and videos should be categorized as:

Safe - Acceptable to a global, public audience
Moderate - Partial nudity, like bare breasts and bottoms
Restricted - full-frontal nudity and sexual acts; photos only–videos cannot contain restricted content and are deleted if reported

This is where things get interesting. Even though it is incredibly poorly explained in their site documentation there are two levels of moderation. Account Moderation, and Picture Moderation. And moderation happens in two different ways. Way the First: A user reports your photo as "unsafe". Way the Second: There is an automated app named "Flickr Moderation Bot" that uses machine learning to identify potentially unsafe pictures. I had never seen this before? Was this new? Where did it come from? After digging through article after article on how to appeal if your entire account had been moderated I finally found a blog post from a Flickr Developer that explained the new and now in-use Flickr Moderator Bot. If you have time I highly recommend reading about it here.

Now I know some of you may automatically be suspicious of magic technology being able to correctly identify all the nuances such as the very broadly interpreted Flickr rules can be. It really doesn't bother me. And I'll tell you why.

Normally I don't like to share too many RL things about myself as I use SL like many others a getaway from being... well me... and exist as an idealized version of myself. In real life I'm a very shy quiet person and through SL I can for reasons I don't even fully understand be the kind of extrovert I wish I could have been in high school or even college. Also in RL I work in the accounting team of a software company that develops a ton of Machine Learning code for use in the real world to solve real world problems. I would never call myself a developer or coder but you do begin to understand a thing better when you're around it as much as I am. I understand full well that the key part of Machine Learning is the "Learning" bit. And if you took the time to read the Flickr blog post about Machine Learning hopefully you caught the part about using False Positives to teach the code to be more accurate. Machine Learning quite simply is code that learns from its mistakes. BUT, and it's a big butt pun intended... It has to know it has made a mistake.

This is where I saw a big problem. As a user, I had absolutely nowhere to go that I could find to inform this Moderator Bot of its "mis-moderation" of the photo I posted at the top of this article. I would hope that we can all agree that using Flickr's defined levels there is no way, no how this picture should have been set to RESTRICTED.

So I sallied forth deeper into Flickr-net and posted to their help forums that I saw the new information about the new Moderation Bot and the bit about false positives making it better, faster, stronger. But that as users we have no way to report these false positives. You can go look at the original forum post here. And I highly recommend you do.

Where it all goes sideways

I had heard of women being harassed in these forums before. There's a lot of "NiceGuys™" that I have been warned about by other women posters. Don't know what a "NiceGuy™" is? Let me explain. It will make abundant sense in just a moment. First... Lets go over what was said in the first post of one of the two "NiceGuys™" that decided to chime in. I won't use their real names here because this isn't about encouraging people to seek them out and to grief them. I will simply refer to them as Incel 1 and Incel 2.

Incel 1:

"I see quite a few photos in your stream that are mislabeled as "safe" by you. Now that you have come here complaining about what they have done, you really need to get your stream in line with the rules before someone reports your improper safety flagging. "

The 'reading between the lines'

Incel 1 pretty much opens with a straight up lie. Anyone who keeps up with me, this site, or my photography knows I only do topless photos if asked for from my subject. I'm also fond of saying the best part of Christmas is unwrapping the presents. Translation being, I think its far sexier and playful to tease at what is beneath rather than outright show something. I've also made it very clear in my section on this very website about this history of Pinup and what it means to me that I clearly say my definition doesn't not include porn, or sexual acts of any kind. That's not to say there isn't art to be had there. Its just not for me. Now... The second part of Incel 1's threat. "Get your stream in line before someone reports you". Niceguy™ speak for "That's a nice flickr you got there... it'd be a shame if someone came along and messed it up, by the way... I'm going to do my best to mess you up"

Why the first line is such an obviously lie. There are a total of 13 "Moderate" photos in my Flickr using the measure provided by Flickr themselves. At the time this threat was leveled towards me I had 12 marked as "Moderate" I had missed one. And I did legit miss one. I own up to it fully. Out of a total of 365 photos in total he found one photo he could call foul on (he had to go back all the way to October to find it) and translated it into "quite a few photos in your stream so get your stream in line" And wouldn't you know... Minutes after Incel 1 made that threat... my entire account was moderated. All 365 pics.

And here is the photo that Incel 1 found. Funnily enough... I actually fretted hours over this pic. Its my first full on topless pic of ME I ever posted. Even though its SL me I agonized over showing it. And... I have to say.. the amount of support I got from it was... it was just nice to hear people applaud it for it's playfulness, its sexyness, it's play on Halloween themes without being necessarily lewd.

My response, you could tell was a bit agitated at this very super passive aggressive threat. It couldn't have been more off topic. I was talking about a new automated tool Flickr had setup that was moderating individual pics using machine learning that needed a bit more learning. And this guy was attempting to shame me, make my stream seem like something horrid to look at. As if I were the naked gender swapped Socrates of my time corrupting the youth. Before I get on to comments of Incel 2 I would like to acknowledge that I did censor here since Incel and Friends can easily find this blog. I don't wish to harm their psyche any more than I have already. But... on to Incel #2

I ended my reply to Incel 1 with this "This new system specifically has a blog post from Flickr talking about False Positives and I was letting it be known there's no clear way to report those. So... Mind your own business please "

Incel 2:

"So you want the Help Forum to be closed?

If everyone minds their own business, there will not be any Flickr users helping others, so Flickr might as well close this forum and hire some more staff to deal with the increased activity at the Help Center. "

The 'reading between the lines'

My referring to someone who went WAY off topic, misrepresented my stream, and then threatened it in the most unsubtle passive aggressive way possibly would obviously read has "want everyone shut down" keeping in mind I never objected to anything that another person wrote (I even answered a question he asked) or anything about the Flickr Staff's response. I really only objected to the NiceGuy™ that threatened me. Or... are they from another country where "threat" means "help" I have no idea. Oh... I looked at Incel's 2 photo stream. He's got lots of creepy pictures of random women jogging down the beach. I highly doubt he's related to ALL of them and it would seem super unlikely that he got consent to post their pictures in swimsuits on the web. You'd think in the age where consent finally and at last matters... the person that claims they are here to only help you would take that into consideration. He's also got some really weird photo of like 20 or 30 barbie dolls lined up on a sheet all in various states of undress. Talk about super creepy. He's also got a photo marked as 'moderate' of a painting of a woman that is full frontal nudity. Her vag is right there for all to see. Full frontal nudity is clearly defined as "Restricted" by Flickrs definitions. It'd be a shame if someone came along and "helped" him. Speaking of help... Check out how Incel 1 responded to Incel 2.

Incel 1 again...

I regret using the word "complain" in my original post, I now think it set a bad tone and that was not my intent. On the other hand, some one comes to a forum where I have helped so many over all these years and asks me to mind my own business, well ... I think it is best that I just bow out of this one and hope I succeed in helping the next one without offending anyone :-)

The 'reading betwee... you know what. This one doesn't even require translation on the double speak. He regrets that he said I 'complained'. Lying about the content of my steam is okay. And underhanded threats reporting me are okay. Silly me. He has spent all these years apparently threatening... err... I mean... HELPING so many others. Why... That's the kind of man I want to sleep with. Any gal would sure be lucky to land that special beau who conflates and exaggerates after completely ignoring what she really said. I feel ashamed for being a sexual being. I must right myself so a guy like that would want a whore like me.

So why is this very long post titled "To Flickr or not To Flickr"? Well. It wasn't up until this moment I realize that these very loosely defined terms almost feels tailor made to give NiceGuys™ the ability to police the activity of women they don't know and don't like. Why do I put it like that? According to Flickr a 'Moderate' photo general rule of thumb is partial nudity, like bare breasts and bare bottom. But... We all know what that really means. Bare women's breast. I very seriously doubt I would be taken seriously if I reported a pic of a guy on a beach in swim bottoms only. And it was men who fetishized women's breasts to begin with.

Why does this effect the Feb. contest? Quite honestly. I started a Flickr group to handle a lot of the contest content for the Pinup Passions photo contests. But now that my entire library of 365 photos are marked 'Moderate' I can not edit the header pic of my own group. And there's no photo I can upload until I'm out of moderate jail because one man found the one pic he could punish me with. Its as plain as that.

Bonus Content: I really wish I had invented the "NiceGuy™" A friend of mine did. She put it as "The kind of guy that puts "nice-coins" into a vending machine expecting sex to fall out." In other words. Guys who pay you compliments that are actually back handed and only slightly engineered to almost make you feel guilty for not repaying their "kindness" to the point you'd actually sleep with them. And the reason you'll know you are not treating them with the due respect they feel they deserve is because they will then tell how much of a NiceGuy™ they really are and just how much they are helping you. It's a power move. Because these men think women should be filled with gratitude whenever they are there to help shape them into fine upstanding young women as THEY see it.

And here's the biggest tip of all to anyone. If you have to tell someone you are a nice guy. Or you're a helpful guy. You're not. People tell you when you are nice to them. Or helpful.

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