Yafro

OK I’m thinking now I have to publish my Blog. I get the impression from the COOL forums that everyone is well underway, so here I go.

I’ve started by taking a close look into a picture community I’m a member of, based at http://www.yafro.com . The concept is simple – upload pictures, attach a description, people leave comments, essentially a blog system itself but with the emphasis on pictures rather than text content. Also known as a moblog, it was devised as a way of posting photos when mobile, or on the go (mobile-weblog). It allows pictures be uploaded from PC’s, camera phones via picture message, etc.

The amazing thing I find with this site is that unlike a conventional message board or chat room, whereby rooms or ‘meeting places’ were defined by the people that ran the website, people were able to create their own communities by simply posting their pictures to ‘friends only’, creating their own ‘yafro clubs’ with different levels of private and public membership. On surfing through different peoples sites, it also becomes obvious how fire with porn the site is… seriously, this is the place to go if you want to find pictures of average people naked!! Lots of people seem to have healthy accounts, but only one picture visible of them naked or something (when I say people I mainly mean girls), then it struck me – teasers!! Its funny to think, but these people seemed to be releasing one or two pictures into the publis domain, get a few new ‘followers’ so to speak, who would comments on their pictures, then revert back to posting privately! So another use for yafro seems to be to create communities with the single aim of massaging peoples egos!!! Allegedly….

But inevitably, a system like this that is relatively unmoderated breeds its own problems, such as the potential for child pornography, etc. This is partly highlighted in the fact that the most viewed club is ‘Report stalkers and perverts here’ (http://www.yafro.com/clubs/reportstalkersandpervertshere) where users ‘warn’ other users about people posting illegal pictures. However, even this seems to have corrupted, crossing the border of illegal pictures and objectionable pictures – some threads accuse users of posting child porn, but the girls clearly aren’t underage… So the fanatical moral users end up squaring up against the ‘free peace brigade’ and every post becomes a debate. In a sense, this has, in itself, created a community of people very different coming together towards a different goal. Worryingly though, within 5 minutes on the message board I found the name of a club (http://www.yafro.com/clubs/y0ungg1rlsnudeornot) showing mainly OK pictures, but some of some girls that looked worryingly young. Scary too that this site has 886 members.

The question arises, is it healthy to have such an easy medium for sharing photos available to all, for free, and unmoderated? For the majority of people the answer is yes, but to allow these people their freedom, the bad few will always get through. I dont like the idea of being watched, but Im even less happy about people posting pictures of girls I don’t consider to look any older than 12!!

The conclusion: Any medium of communication can breed its own problems, but largely the site just seems to be people of all ages interacting – nude or otherwise!! It’s a great concept, but not one that is any better than a conventional blog – just different. A picture can speak a thousand words, and Yafro tries to harness that.