Flickr case 982056
The impressive flickr account of blogger and friend Hossam el-Hamalawy is facing censorship by flickr themselves! First they disabled pro-palestine photos he had taken in Ireland, then they started searching their old drawers for reasons to un-list his account from public search.
Shame!
I was just awarded Human Rights First 2008 award. I am quoting HRF here: “One of the few well-known women bloggers in Egypt, Younis, 31, represents a growing movement of young activists who use new media technologies -blogs and websites like Flickr and YouTube- to expose and document human rights abuses.”
In my award acceptance remarks I said – referring to the sexual assaults of female activists in May 2005 – “I also took my complaint and photos to the General prosecutor but the file was closed. They said no perpetrators could be identified. So no one was held accountable. I decided from this point forward, to take my photos to blogs and flickr instead”. Of course, the 1000 top notch New York audience got so excited about flickr.
But the truth is, free speech is now struggling several battlefields: Twitter suspended their services in Egypt. In 2007, YouTube suspended Wael Abbas’ channel while his facebook page was recently deleted. And now flickr is censoring Hossam el-Hamalawy. Instead of the growing dependency on those companies we need to develop our own Arab Social Networks!!
If flickr case 982056 is not promptly solved; I – a 3 years FlickrPro user, photojournalist, and internationally recognized human rights activist- will migrate too.
Meanwhile, I urge you to support Hossam by e-mailing (case982056@support.flickr.com):
Dear Sir,
I voice my opposition to your decision to censor Hossam el-Hamalawy’s account.
Thank you
[…] El Hamalawy and Noura Younis wrote about Flickr censoring Hossam's Flickr account. Posted by Lasto Adri Print […]
Pingback by Global Voices Online » Flickr and censorship — 2008/11/05 @ 15:36
[…] In all cases, Flickr turned out to be just a big screw up like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube… […]
Pingback by Social networking tools failing social justice work at 3arabawy — 2008/11/05 @ 16:00
[…] latter was not necessarily on the agenda of the founders of these “social networks,” Flickr (and its sisters) should also be grateful for the promotion and publicity given to them by those activists. And […]
Pingback by Update on the flickr debacle at 3arabawy — 2008/11/08 @ 14:08
Firstly congratulation for your award…
hmmmmmmmmm
I am programmer and web developer, and I own and manage an online startup which is an entertainment social network, and it’s based in Dallas, TX, U.S.
I thought of establishing another startup here in Cairo to be a social network community for Arabs, and to provide blogging and video sharing features for them free of chagre…
I looked at the arab websites, and all of it just suck and just a copy of other american websites.
Although I am Stanford University student, and own and manage startup based in U.S., I never been in U.S. and I never been granted the visa
In each time I apply for the visa, the fucken idiots at the stupid American embassy in Cairo treats me like an animal and without any respect or dignity and they never grant me the visa
U.S. is making lies about the freedom, democracy, and human rights, and freedom of speech values, and they don’t really allow anyone to be free
I hope to see the end of the U.S. soon, as I hope that the Ameriacn financial collapse to be a reason to destroy the U.S. and it’s stupid people
I wish that the bitch margaret Scobey goes to hill soon with all the American embassy staff
Comment by ahmedaly@stanford.edu — 2008/11/14 @ 20:31
There is an error in your blog…
Someone has changed the code, so you can’t receive comments anymore!
I can send you comments because I am programmer and I know how to pass such things 🙂
Comment by ahmedaly@stanford.edu — 2008/11/14 @ 20:32