Well, the photos haven't been 'removed from the threads'...

Photobucket are charging an extortionate fee of $399 to enable third-party linking. So they block the pics from going across to the threads and send a message instead that essentially means you haven't paid the fee.

Imageshack did the same a few years ago, others might copy it. But Imageshack only charge a small fee, Photobucket has gone right over the top.

I use Postimage, they're free.