Many Second Life users on Flickr have recently been hit by platform warnings -- as pictured and explained in this message from Flickr Staff -- with some getting hit by outright bans.
Overall the main issue seems to be that Flickr the company is penalizing users who excessively tag other Flickr users in their images, thereby "polluting" the platform's search results.
But why the excessive tagging? Likely because these Flickr users are actually influencers, promoting various Second Life brands in the images they upload:
"The way views are calculated on Flickr, any time a group loads, you get a view if your photo is shown," as longtime Flickr creator and SL blogger Gogo explains. "It doesn't mean anyone actually clicked on your photo. So SLers are spamming SL groups, and sometimes non-SL ones too, to game those views."
Enforcement against that spamming activity seems to have stepped up recently, and been pretty harsh, especially for Flickr users without a paid account: "I can see why Flickr is cracking down," says Gogo, "but I don't like how they are going about just closing accounts without a warning, or the ability to remove all group/tags/ whatever, in their batch editor."
The underlying problem is likely this: These Flickr influencers are using their images to promote content for SL brands (usually in exchange for free merch), even though the free version of Flickr isn't really designed for posting promotional images at all.
For Flickr influences, there is a relatively easy solution to this:
Get a an actual blog, and post images there.
Flickr is actually not an ideal way of marketing SL content, since it mainly just reaches SLers with a Flickr account. There are far more SLers on Facebook (for instance) where the largest groups (and there are many) have members in the five figures.
Unlike Flickr, a blog is more shareable across the web and on social media channels like Facebook. And if you practice good Search Engine Optimization, you can actually pull in new followers from Google. Your blog will also enable you to build your own brand while charging SL brands for advertising on your site.
It's also more affordable than Flickr. For instance, WordPress has starting subscriptions are $4/month versus Flickr's $9.50 month.
Plus if you create some cool images, maybe our blog will feature your blog.
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