Shields is asking Apple to continue their motto of “thinking differently” and transfer that mentality over to protecting the laborers who build their products. In the petition he urges Apple to hear his point of view:

“….I want to continue to use and love the products you make, because they’re changing the world, and have already changed my life. But I also want to know that when I buy products from you, it’s not at the cost of horrible human suffering.”

Tim Cook, CEO at Apple claims that apple has made great strides in the fight against work place abuse in China, more than anyone else in the industry. He’s outraged about the claims and denies the incidents are the result of any policies at Apple.

As perceptions of Apple begin to change in the eyes of consumers, Shields reports that his petition has gathered over 162,000 signatures. Perhaps this petition will be a catalyst for change over in Asia but I have my doubts about whether this is anything more than just a fleeting interest for the American public. The recent abuses at Foxconn are just part of a long heritage of exploits by American companies in foreign lands.

I believe, and so do those who have signed this petition, that every human being is entitled to safe working conditions at the very least. The down side is, I don’t believe the American consumer is willing to sacrifice low costs for improved worker safety. Don’t be fooled, that’s what it will take to make change in this area. Safety costs time and resources; signing pieces of paper will not get the job done. If Tim Cook was being honest, he would admit that improved safety translates to higher costs and that’s something shareholders will not like.

Considering the rate at which the signatures more than doubled from when we previously reported on the petition — in less than a week’s time — it’s clear people don’t want their Internet to be regulated.

Currently, the Stop ACTA petition is near the 1.5 million mark for signatures, and judging by the speed the “recent signers” list is scrolling at, reaching the 2 million signatures goal is a formality. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising if the petition exceeded 3 million signatures, as more and more people learn about the potential damages ACTA can cause to an open Internet.

Word of mouth about AVAAZ’s petition appears to have helped the cause. As of this article, there were 452 thousand Facebook shares, 19 thousand email shares, 66 thousand Twitter shares and 13 thousand on Tumblr’s network. As for AVAAZ’s stance, the petition’s introductory paragraph makes it very clear:

As concerned global citizens, we call on you to stand for a free and open Internet and reject the ratification of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which would destroy it. The Internet is a crucial tool for people around the world to exchange ideas and promote democracy. We urge you to show true global leadership and protect our rights.

If you’d like to sign but haven’t — yes, U.S. residents are welcome, too — make sure you check out AVAAZ’s page.

There’s plenty of information explaining their position.

We can all thank a service from Lego, called ‘Lego CUUSOO‘, where people can share set concepts and rally to have them become a reality. The Lego Minecraft set garnered so much support, over 10,000 signatures, they officially announced the start of product development.

When you sit and ponder upon this concept, it leaves your mind swirling. For people that play Minecraft, will they buy enough Lego’s to see their virtual creations become reality? As big as Minecraft worlds can get, it seems improbable. However, I bet we’ll see a YouTube creation video soon after the set release.

Enjoy these concept photos, and get to thinking about how you’ll split your time between Minecraft and Minecraft Lego’s.

A new group started on Flickr called NO VIDEO ON FLICKR!!! has already seen over 4,000 Flickr members join the group. The group already has a petition going with over 1,000 users signing a petition opposing video on Flickr. The petition language is below.

"We the undersigned members of Flickr, free and pro, agree that video has no place on Flickr. Other sites on the web accept video already, but do not accept photos. We all joined Flickr because of it’s dedication to photography and photographers, and we want Flickr to remain true to this dedication. It is our request that this feature and addition to Flickr be removed."

If you agree with this statement, type /signed followed by your username/full name in a reply to this thread."

While there are some advocates for video and some Flickr defenders in the official feedback forum on Flickr Video, here too the comments by many of Flickr’s most active users are largely negative.

Some typical comments from the Flickr Help Forum:

Richard Carter: "It’s frankly disgraceful that you have not allowed users the option of saying (by default) "I don’t want to see videos". Especially in search results.

I know you’ve invested too much in this awful feature to turn it off, but PLEASE MAKE IT GO AWAY!! "

fofurasfelinas: "I just HATE having videos on flickr.
Flickr is a place for PHOTOS.
We pay for a photo service, if I want to see videos, I go to youtube.

I think Flickr is getting heavier everyday, and videos are going to make the connection busier."

skasper (off working on a project…be back soon): "Wow…check out all of the sentiment against this!!!! I too am opposed to video on Flickr….at least the Flickr that we currently know and usually love. While I acknowledge that many people use Flickr as a depository for their snapshots, many of us are here to improve our art. We are photographers! I also acknowledge that videography is an art….but give them their own space and don’t muddy our waters!"

dadodedos: "Sorry, but i’m angry for this last news…….
I think this is a really bad move for Flickr, why video ??? there’s a lot of sites that you can put video…….Please !! This is a photo site !!!
Put your video on youtube or others……

NO VIDEO ON FLICKR
NO VIDEO ON FLICKR
NO VIDEO ON FLICKR
NO VIDEO ON FLICKR
NO VIDEO ON FLICKR
NO VIDEO ON FLICKR
NO VIDEO ON FLICKR "

Fighting the criticism in the official help forum mostly seems to be being done by long-term Flickr member Striatic and Flickr Community Manager Heather Champ.

It will be interesting to see if the anti-video sentiment on Flickr continues to grow and gain momentum and if Flickr will actually take action on its community’s largely negative reaction to the service thus far.

About a year ago Flickr made a decision to cap Flickr contacts at 3,000 for users. After a lot of protesting from Flickr users over this decision Flickr reversed their decision and allowed unlimited reciprocal contacts.

Personally I don’t see Flickr reversing their decision on adding video to the site. Video is a fast growing service on the web and certainly Yahoo wants a piece of this pie. With the huge user base that Flickr represents, the opportunity to promote video to this group from a dollars/cents standpoint probably means more to Yahoo! than how a small but vocal group of hardcore Flickr photographers feel about the service.

What’s more, prior to their Yahoo takeover announcement, Microsoft had indicated that they would be launching a photo/video combo site to compete with Flickr. If/when Microsoft takes over Flickr, I would assume that they would rather the site contain both video and photos rather than a photo only site.

Perhaps the simplest answer in the short-term for Flickr would be to offer filtering technology to filter video out of your Flickr experience. They already have filtering technology that allows users to opt out of seeing screenshot images, for instance, on Flickr. They also have filtering technology allowing people to opt out of adult content on Flickr. By creating an option to allow users to opt out of video on Flickr this would alleviate some of the concern from some of the early critics of this service.

On the other hand, if too many people opted out of the video experience on Flickr, it might lose momentum and not achieve the success that promoting it to the entire Flickrverse might have.

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