Do you allow access to flickr?

[reggiep]

Does anyone have any opinions on whether to allow flickr for students?

Our new LA filter blocks it by default where we used to allow it.

 

Not sure if they have anything inappropriate on there!

[X-13]

At the moment it's allowed here.

 

 

It may be blocked where you are because it's user-generated content.

 

There's no way of knowing what's going to pop up.

[LosOjos]

Not sure if they have anything inappropriate on there!

 

There definitely are some inappropriate images, but 99% of the time they're marked as such and hidden in any previews (see this guy's stream for an example: Flickr: Jonathan Frings' Photostream) As you'll see, the risque images will still show, but the ones with "real" nudity (i.e. nipples or more) are filtered and only available to logged in members.

 

If you can block pages based on phrases and you're happy to trust them with regards to the risque stuff, each restricted photo will pop up with this message before you can see it

 

"This photo falls outside your current SafeSearch filter.

You can click through to see it if you want."

 

Of course if they have their account setup to show restricted images, that won't show, but there are still phrases you could check for - restricted will say "This photo is marked as Restricted" and I believe moderate will say "This photo is marked as Moderate", so you could block based on those.

 

Might just be easier of course to leave it blocked!

[Duke5A]

We block all user generated content for students too. So no access to Youtube, FB, Flickr, etc. What we do allow though is teachers to have access to those sites. If there is something out there in user generated content land and it's worthy of making available/showing to a class, the teacher can present it.

[glennda]

A quick question that @tom_newton might be able to answer! Can Smoothwall do the filtering as mentioned above? and pickout the ones which could be dodgy?

 

Sorry to Hijack!!

[Sylv3r]

We don't allow for KS3 and KS4 but allow for KS5 students similar to youtube etc.

[nile_c]

Hi glennda,

 

IIRC Flickr's safesearch (equivalent) will restrict access to that tagged content and we enforce their safe search. But rather than rely on my memory, I'll get someone to review it again today