WARNING: "Objectionable" (at least, in the opinion of the operators of Photobucket) photos below. May not be suitable for viewing in a democratic society.
A couple of days ago, I discovered to my annoyance this image showing up repeatedly on this diary:
I was at first simply puzzled, figuring there must have been some kind of honest mistake, one that could be simply corrected. After all, being the dutiful Kossack that I am, I had just a few weeks earlier sprung for a Photobucket Pro account, figuring that given the number of diaries I wrote using images, I didn't want to run into an embarrassing "bandwidth exceeded" situation.
Also, a month or so back, Kos had instituted a policy allowing only images that were hosted by a short list of sites - among those, Photobucket - so I figured I was covered. I felt particularly virtuous.
When I confirmed that the images had actually been deleted from my Photobucket account, I sent them an email:
Several images have been deleted from my account.
Why?
Thank you for your assistance.
The next day, I got this response:
We find that the images of Abu Ghraib, which sparked an international
controversy, are inapporpriate [sic] material for Photobucket. As well as the
images of the Holocaust victims and beheadings that were deleted from your
account.
Please see our Terms of Service at http://photobucket.com/....
Thank you!
Your Photobucket Support Team
Wow. Photos of Abu Ghraib are "inappropriate" for my Photobucket account.
Not to mention pictures of Holocaust victims.
Here's what PhotoBucket's Terms of Service state, in part:
2. Restrictions on the use of the Services.
By using the Services you agree that you will not:
. . .
b. Upload, email or otherwise transmit any User Content that is unlawful, obscene, harmful, threatening, defamatory or hateful or that contains objects or symbols of hate, invade the privacy of any third party, contain nudity or child erotica, or is otherwise objectionable. Photobucket.com does not control User Content of users' accounts and does not have any obligation to monitor such content for any purpose, however, Photobucket.com may chose to monitor such User Content any time in its sole discretion.
Here, on the other hand, is what ImageShack's Terms of Service say about that:
The following types of files constitute "abuse" may [sic] not be uploaded under any circumstances:
· Pornographic files. This includes, but is not limited to, files depicting genitalia, nudity, or sexual situations.
· Files that are illegal and/or are in violation of any United States laws.
· Files that infringe on the copyrights of any entity excluding the user.
· Non-image or non-swf files. This includes archived non-image files.
· Files intending to harass or spam, or promote anything for commercial profit.
I was able to track down most of the images that were deleted from my Photobucket account. I have uploaded them to my new ImageShack account. One of the "objectionable" photos was this classic shot of a baby crying after the Japanese bombing of Shanghai in 1937:
The others included this shot of a POW about to be beheaded by a Japanese soldier during World War II:
And then there were some shots of Nazi concentration camp victims, including this one, from the Truman Presidential Library:
This one from the BBC was deleted:
. . . as was this one, from JewishGen.org:
Then there was this highly objectionable shot of bomb damage in London during The Blitz:
And, oh yeah, here's the Abu Ghraib shot they deleted:
I guess the old woodcut of The Rack being used was OK, `cause they didn't delete that:
Oh, they also decided to delete from an earlier diary this sketch of the Battle of Lexington (must've been objectionable to see insurgents fighting off King George's occupying army in a war of liberation against tyrannical anti-democratic repression):
So, look - I don't have a problem with these guys doing whatever the heck they want with their website. I don't quite get how the photos they deleted violated their Terms of Service but, hey, it's their website, and if they want to interpret ambiguous language like that, it's their prerogative, and life is too short to chase them down for breach of contract.
But I'll vote with my checkbook. Photobucket won't be getting any more of my business, ever.
And I would hope that Markos would remove them from the "approved" hosting sites forthwith, for their blatant, overt practice of censorship.
UPDATE: Based on comments by peeder and others, I would like to amend what I wrote just above. It would be highly impractical - not to mention unbelievably inconvenient and annoying - to remove Photobucket as an approved image hosting site for dKos at this point, since so many images already are stored there. Rather, perhaps something could be introduced into the "Images" section of the dKos FAQ about Photobucket's behavior of censorship and image deletion; that way, Kossacks can make an informed decision about which site(s) they choose to host their images.
UPDATE II: Okay, so now that my free ImageShack account has exceeded its bandwidth (!), and I can't seem to figure out if/how you can pay to upgrade it, I've opened a free AllYouCanUpload/WebShots account, which I will upgrade ASAP. We'll see how well the folks at WebShots will tolerate photos of war atrocities and Revolutionary Americans . . .