Yahoo! Verifies: Adult Profiles to be Eliminated
On Writing (and/or Media), Telecom Comments (1)
Update: It’s now April 10 and Yahoo has apparently not yet taken down adult profile photos or eliminated adult profiles. Nor have they said if they changed their minds. Though they have issued a clarification of their original clarification, neither of which clarified anything …
And … April 11. They did it. Rachel’s photo is gone, Debi’s is now PG. No more Yahoo adult profiles.
(original post below)
I almost feel bad for for Jami, the Groups Community Manager at Yahoo. Over at the Yahoo Groups Blog, she gets to sign her name to the “clarification” about yesterday’s announcement to members that Yahoo is doing away with “Adult” profiles. (This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post.)
First of all, as we said yesterday: The e-mail is/was NOT a hoax, despite anything else you may have read elsewhere. Second, Yahoo says that eliminating adult profiles will NOT affect Adult Groups. But Jami, meaning Yahoo, hasn’t yet responded to a lot of follow-up questions and comments. (Check the comments yourself here.)
Here’s what we know:
1) Yahoo, on April 9, is deleting ALL photos on Adult Profiles. It doesn’t matter if your photo is of a lovely sunset, or of a puppydog. They deleting them all. You can upload another one if you want, but it cannot have “Mature Content” or it will be deleted. So yes, Yahoo is going to censor profiles, which is a line they need to be VERY careful of … because if they are getting into the censoring/deleting game, a judge, somewhere along the line, could hold them responsible for user content and they’d be more liable, not less, than they are today for all the webcam girl photos on their site.
2) On April 9, if you have an Adult Profile, it will not be an Adult Profile anymore. Besides losing the photos, the adult designation will disappear. Your Adult Profile will be just a regular ol’ profile, even if you’ve described in detail every single sexual fantasy you’ve ever had or want to have. As long as there are no “mature” pictures, you’re OK. For now, at least … though Yahoo isn’t defining what it thinks might be “mature content” yet, other than saying that all the photos are gfoing to be scrubbed on April 9.
3) Jami says:
Adult groups themselves, including their photos, will NOT be affected in any way.
That’s their story and so far they are sticking to it. Anyone buy it? Not me, not so far. Yahoo has a long history of, to use the technical phrase, “fucking around” with groups, including having deleted adult groups from its search directory in 2001.
More as it develops …
Minor Update: I’ve unchecked “adult” on my own profile. I’ve managed to ascertain that having an adult profile is *not* necessarily a prerequisite for being a member of an adult group — though some have required it. So … we’ll see what happens.
jss @ March 28, 2008
[...] 1) For many of us who use and frequent Yahoo! groups to keep in touch with the burlesque community: Yahoo! still set to delete/censor profiles, but so far the groups are safe. [...]