Flickr product strategist Matthew Rothenberg offers fresh doughnuts to the crowd.

SAN FRANCISCO – A Flickr protest spawned a sugary snackfest Wednesday as dozens of people turned out to enjoy free doughnuts handed out by the popular photo-sharing site.

Dubbed The Day of the Donut by Flickr group We Demand Donuts, the event began as a way to make light of the latest controversy to bubble up among the photo site's famously finicky users. This time, some Flickr fans are up in arms because the site decided last week to let "Pro" users upload 90-second video clips.

"Who doesn't deserve a doughnut?" said Flickr employee Matthew Rothenberg, who agreed to buy the fried treats for anyone who showed up at Bob's Donut and Pastry Shop in San

Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood. "After I found the group, I'd made my decision within an hour [to organize the San

Francisco event]. And now, there's all kinds of groups demanding things, like free pancakes."

The doughnut demand quickly steamrolled into an worldwide event after We Demand Donuts posted its mocking manifesto: "If we get 20,000 people to join the group, Flickr will be forced to give us free donuts!" People around the world planned informal meet-ups to eat doughnuts – and to snap photos of the gatherings, of course. Flickr only organized (and paid for doughnuts) at the San Francisco gathering.

Rothenberg bought 10 dozen boxes of glazed, powder-coated and chocolate doughnuts and passed them around to Flickr employees and users who stood around chatting outside the shop Wednesday.

"It's like a flash mob," said Michael Michael, a long-time Flickr user and a San Francisco resident, of the gathering. "Though I'm still not sure about the video feature."

We Demand Donuts sprang up long before the video feature was added, but the group never had much of a following until last week, according to Jake Rome, who started the group in 2007. Shortly after the option to include video was added and several groups protesting the new feature emerged, the We Demand Donuts movement gathered steam.

"It's a very Flickr response ... whimsical," said Heather Champ, director of communications at Flickr. "I think some people didn't quite know how to respond to the new [ video ] feature, so they chose to get behind this."

Iain Burke, a University of California at Berkeley student and Flickr user, said he came to the city Wednesday just to get a free donut. "I am worried about YouTube junk coming into Flickr," he said. "But [ video ] is a good idea."

No word yet of a We Demand Free Beer Flickr group yet, but Rothenberg promised he'd consider a similar giveaway if such a group were created and enough members joined.

"We're open to it," he laughed while handing a chocolate-covered doughnut to a passerby.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

For story exclusives and extras, head to Underwire's Facebook page for behind-the-scenes photos from the event.

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