commotiocordis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
commotiocordis) wrote2007-05-30 10:32 pm
commotiocordis) wrote2007-05-30 10:32 pm
(no subject)
You've all undoubtedly heard about the latest uproar to hit fandom, so if you just want to skip over this, it's prolly the same things everyone is saying, just with an Alexandria-ranty touch.
There are too many people using LJbook right now for anything to go through. And I'm having to refresh 4 or 5 times on JournalFen and GreatestJournal per page change to get anything to load. That, more than the multitude of posts talking about this is what made me realize how much this LJ Strikeout shit is affecting everybody. So many people are trying to back up their journals for fear of getting deleted that these three sites' bandwidths are being hugely overtaxed. People are terrified without really having any reason to be because of the seemingly indiscriminate deletion.
How far will it go?
I, honestly, wouldn't have a problem with them taking down the communities that do, indeed, violate their TOS (though I've heard that's been changing lately to fit their actions; remind you of any president you know?) by discussing in a promotional way such events. If you're going to make a community where you talk about how you do/plan to/enjoy molesting little girls, you're damn right I think you should go to hell, and if 6A and LJ don't want them on here, I'm all for their right to kick them off.
But, and I'll use this word again, it's the indiscriminate deletion that is absolutely not right.
They've messed up. They acknowledged the possibility of their deleting comms/journals incorrectly in their message to the news (going to CNET instead of us, yet another thing that has me pissed -- as of a few minutes ago when last I checked, no one with authority has posted anything on official LJ comms explaining this), but limited it to perhaps a dozen. Well, that's a dozen comms gone. Let's say that they got an average of 3 posts a day, and they'd been online each for 3 years. That's 39420 posts gone. Add 5 comments off of each post and that's 236520.
Yes, community owners are getting tools to help download the posts on the community, but what are they going to do? Email copies of every post and comment back to the person who wrote it? People are going to end up losing material, plain and simple.
And I don't fault the LJ Abuse team at all, this is obviously a decision from higher up, but what are they going to do about that?
I've come to the conclusion that the whole thing has been mishandled.
As a few of the other posts have said, the news that this Warriors for Innocence (in case some of you haven't heard this, DO NOT GO TO THEIR WEBSITE. It's got spyware up the wazoo.) place is going after LJ has been up for months. People who had a genuine reason for concern are well underground by now.
Legally, LJ/6A are well within their rights. There is no guarantee of free speech on a corporate site like this, and it's in their TOS both that they can get rid of anybody they want for any reason they want and that they can change their TOS at any time. But if they wanted to do this, it's common courtesy to the people who support their site to be a little more careful. Delete the sites that violate the TOS, but determine which sites these are carefully.
There are fandom groups down (which appears to be what's causing the most fuss, since we fandomy types are so interconnected and thus all stick together), I think the biggest name one being![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
pornish_pixies(which I read fics on regularly), but more strikingly, by doing this purge they've knocked out survivor journals and communities that support victims of such abuse. I didn't frequent any of these, I can't even name any of them, but I think that's horrific. By attempting to remove pedophiles from LJ, they're removing support from the people victimied by them.
We support their site with our traffic, our paid and plus accounts, and yet we're being totally ignored in this. People have called the LJ PR rep to be assured that they're working on a statement that will be up immediately. Well, the first post regarding that was hours ago. They seem to have had no trouble making a statement to the news, yet no word to the people that actually make this site what it is. That, rather than any particular loss on my part (because minus losing a group with some pretty good fanfiction, I haven't been particularly impacted as of yet) is why I'm supporting and working with everybody to get some answers in this case. They bungled it. I want an explanation, and I want them to admit that they handled this incorrectly, and I want an apology to those incorrectly deleted.
Most of all, I want an assurance that they're not going to start catering to the interests of whatever corporate sponsor comes along.
I think the scariest thing for LJ as a whole is that LJ/6A caved to this external pressure of the WfI site. There had to have been finances at work; threatened loss of ad money or some such.
What's next? Focus on the Family says they're going to target Livejournal, threatens to have all their supporters pull their ads, and all of a sudden any group having anything to do with homosexuality or extramarital sex in any way is gone? Well, that's most of fandom right there (when did the last fic you read have the two characters wait until they were married to have sex?). The Pittsburgh Steelers say that they're going to pull their ads unless anyone supporting another American football team has the corresponding interests deleted?
It's a slippery slope. I'm working against it.
There are too many people using LJbook right now for anything to go through. And I'm having to refresh 4 or 5 times on JournalFen and GreatestJournal per page change to get anything to load. That, more than the multitude of posts talking about this is what made me realize how much this LJ Strikeout shit is affecting everybody. So many people are trying to back up their journals for fear of getting deleted that these three sites' bandwidths are being hugely overtaxed. People are terrified without really having any reason to be because of the seemingly indiscriminate deletion.
How far will it go?
I, honestly, wouldn't have a problem with them taking down the communities that do, indeed, violate their TOS (though I've heard that's been changing lately to fit their actions; remind you of any president you know?) by discussing in a promotional way such events. If you're going to make a community where you talk about how you do/plan to/enjoy molesting little girls, you're damn right I think you should go to hell, and if 6A and LJ don't want them on here, I'm all for their right to kick them off.
But, and I'll use this word again, it's the indiscriminate deletion that is absolutely not right.
They've messed up. They acknowledged the possibility of their deleting comms/journals incorrectly in their message to the news (going to CNET instead of us, yet another thing that has me pissed -- as of a few minutes ago when last I checked, no one with authority has posted anything on official LJ comms explaining this), but limited it to perhaps a dozen. Well, that's a dozen comms gone. Let's say that they got an average of 3 posts a day, and they'd been online each for 3 years. That's 39420 posts gone. Add 5 comments off of each post and that's 236520.
Yes, community owners are getting tools to help download the posts on the community, but what are they going to do? Email copies of every post and comment back to the person who wrote it? People are going to end up losing material, plain and simple.
And I don't fault the LJ Abuse team at all, this is obviously a decision from higher up, but what are they going to do about that?
I've come to the conclusion that the whole thing has been mishandled.
As a few of the other posts have said, the news that this Warriors for Innocence (in case some of you haven't heard this, DO NOT GO TO THEIR WEBSITE. It's got spyware up the wazoo.) place is going after LJ has been up for months. People who had a genuine reason for concern are well underground by now.
Legally, LJ/6A are well within their rights. There is no guarantee of free speech on a corporate site like this, and it's in their TOS both that they can get rid of anybody they want for any reason they want and that they can change their TOS at any time. But if they wanted to do this, it's common courtesy to the people who support their site to be a little more careful. Delete the sites that violate the TOS, but determine which sites these are carefully.
There are fandom groups down (which appears to be what's causing the most fuss, since we fandomy types are so interconnected and thus all stick together), I think the biggest name one being
pornish_pixies(which I read fics on regularly), but more strikingly, by doing this purge they've knocked out survivor journals and communities that support victims of such abuse. I didn't frequent any of these, I can't even name any of them, but I think that's horrific. By attempting to remove pedophiles from LJ, they're removing support from the people victimied by them. We support their site with our traffic, our paid and plus accounts, and yet we're being totally ignored in this. People have called the LJ PR rep to be assured that they're working on a statement that will be up immediately. Well, the first post regarding that was hours ago. They seem to have had no trouble making a statement to the news, yet no word to the people that actually make this site what it is. That, rather than any particular loss on my part (because minus losing a group with some pretty good fanfiction, I haven't been particularly impacted as of yet) is why I'm supporting and working with everybody to get some answers in this case. They bungled it. I want an explanation, and I want them to admit that they handled this incorrectly, and I want an apology to those incorrectly deleted.
Most of all, I want an assurance that they're not going to start catering to the interests of whatever corporate sponsor comes along.
I think the scariest thing for LJ as a whole is that LJ/6A caved to this external pressure of the WfI site. There had to have been finances at work; threatened loss of ad money or some such.
What's next? Focus on the Family says they're going to target Livejournal, threatens to have all their supporters pull their ads, and all of a sudden any group having anything to do with homosexuality or extramarital sex in any way is gone? Well, that's most of fandom right there (when did the last fic you read have the two characters wait until they were married to have sex?). The Pittsburgh Steelers say that they're going to pull their ads unless anyone supporting another American football team has the corresponding interests deleted?
It's a slippery slope. I'm working against it.
no subject
Hmm, maybe I'm just out of it. I hope a bunch of places don't get deleted!
no subject
no subject
What a turn on.Well, you've brought up so many points and I agree with all of them, so I don't have anything to add except: WHAT A LOAD OF BULLSHIT. That bit about the support groups being booted made me mad. LJ needs to actually LOOK at the journals instead of just deleting them based on their interests. Because, I mean, take support for rape victims for example. How else are people going to find such communities, if there aren't things like "rape victims" or even "rape" in the interests? HDKFHKDSJGDFJHLSKJGS;L. I don't have anything else to say without repeating you or getting childish and ranting pointlessly, so I'll shut up now.
no subject
What a turn on.You know you want me. *licks*
How else are people going to find such communities, if there aren't things like "rape victims" or even "rape" in the interests?
Exactly. And everybody who uses the internet regularly knows that you search for the shortest term possible to find what you want. That means putting rape in your interests.
I understand that it was opening them up to legal action, but it pisses me off that this was a result of a company leaning on them and not their lawyers actually advising them to do this of their own accord.