As again terrorists carved another dates to remember in history, the bloggers of India also carved history on the online social networks like Twitter, Flicker, You tube and google particularly google map.

Right after the terrorist sage, pictures of Mumbai were uploaded by bloggers into the Flicker and Twitter websites- they became an information center for inquiring relatives and friends outside the city; information is exchange by thousands of bloggers worldwide before even the International Press knew about the attack.

While terrorist were hurling bullets and bombs all over the city. Bloggers from Mumbai were also busy exchanging witness accounts and information in the Social Network Sites in real-time frame.

Let us take a blow to blow account of the significant roles of these social media sites of the historical Mumbai attack.

Twitter really stood up to its reputation to be able to tweet messages. As the attack was still going on around the city; bloggers in India exchange real-time information in this website at a very fast paced. Thousands of messages from over six million twitters per second (Twitter user) were exchanged during that moment. Twitter became a witness of the unfolding of history… history of mankind and history of the Web 2.0.

An hour after the attack, never before seen pictures were posted in Flickr and was viewed 110, 000 as of Sunday.

Twitter and Flickr became the significant medium of the Mumbai’s attack. Yet, other social media networks also were witnesses of the transcending action of human kind all around the world.

Several videos in Youtube are made available for users to see; though most are news coverage of the Mumbai attack.

A google Map made by a user indicating the locations of the attack was viewed for 40,000 in just a short period of time.

Two days after the first shots were heard, Wikipedia already had created pages about the Mumbai attack. From list of victims to worldwide reactions and more.

Facebook and other social media site even made groups to pay respect to the victims just days after the event.

Web 2.0 changes the way news were delivered. People turn to these websites for information instead of turning on the television.

Indeed, Social Media and Web. 2.0 is not a waste of time. It changes lives. It radically changes the way news were delivered and acquired.

The service from Yahoo censors all of the photo archive from a professional photographer because it showed pictures of nudity.

Fabio Bórquez discovered Flickr (the service to share pictures from Yahoo) in 2005 by chance and got hooked. “When I came to Europe I started from scratch and I saw it as another way to move my work”. Three years later, this professional Argentinean photographer was met with a big problem: to defend himself in a symposium organised by the German association of photographers (DGPh) and Flickr, where he has been banned showing images of naked women.

The battle of Bórquez against Flickr started in 2006. After a year as an active member in the community (more than 5000 contacts, thousands of daily visits, lots of comments about his photos) the access to his profile was restricted completely without communication from the staff of the service. His crime? Publishing inappropiate photos (artistic nudity). The threat? To delete his archive or disappear.

“It is madness”, assures Bórquez in a telephone conversation from Germany, “they can put up violent images and it doesn’t matter but if you see a breast or a nipple it is restricted. It is the limit when a photograph shows hair because it is inappropriate but if the model is shaved then its not”!

A restricted image implies that only those with marked access inside have the possibility of seeing these types of images. “Despite this, I still have 2500 daily visits” says Bórquez.

So he decided to initiate a “war of warfare” and send post to all of his contacts. A little later there was a bombardment of mail from the followers of this photographer and they tried to free his account. When it seemed that the problem had been solved, a new unilateral movement to place the account of Fabio Bórquez as moderate and marked the photograph as newborn restricted. According to his own page on Flickr, the restricted content are those that “you probably would not show to your mum and definitely not to children”.

Fabio Bórquez wrote in the forum and it was closed and deleted instantly. Finally it was vetoed in the forums and action was initiated in a collective protest under the title of Being Bórquez that consisted of 200 images in his parallel account for each user that should be created following the model: to insert his nickname between his name and surname( for example Fabio Aitor Bórquez). In one day 1200 users registered following this man.

Months later after the archive of Fabio Bórquez was deleted from Flickr, there are still various users that support the Argentinean.

Being blocked was the worse thing but now it has passed. Bórquez published his own blog with lots of pages and photos that have stayed on Flickr. Now instead of the photos is a revealing message: This photograph is not available. “I have paid for a service and they have messed up my work”.

Fabio Bórquez will talk at 2 .15pm in front of 600 people about the use of Flickr for professional photographers.

And what is he going to say?

“I will say that Flickr is excellent but it’s managed by idiots”

Despite Elpais.com insisting, Yahoo has not offered its version of the facts.

Source: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internet/Flickr/le/gusta/cuerpo/humano/elpeputec/20081017elpepunet_1/Tes