DR Weekend Edition 08.05.07: LiveJournal arouses the ire of its users…again.
Aficionados of various TV shows, comics, games, movies, and books, united under the common name of ‘fandom’, are currently speaking out in protest of popular blogging service Six Apart/LiveJournal’s customer service practices and enforcement of its Terms of Service.
This is the second such incident in recent history; in May, LiveJournal sparked a revolt among its user base when, in the deletion of over 500 journals suspected of promoting pedophilia, several journals of artists, writers, abuse survivors, and even a community dedicated to literary discussion of Vladimir Nobokov’s Lolita were all deleted without warning and without recourse. Members of the community staged a peaceful protest by flooding LiveJournal’s news community with complaints, demanding a response regarding the reinstatement of those who were arbitrarily suspended without the actual content of their journals being reviewed to determine whether or not they were, in fact, a potential threat to child safety. After days without commentary save for the CNet article linked above, LiveJournal responded by restoring the deleted journals and communities and promising to be more clear and more careful in its review process.
Only now it’s begun again. Only two journals are known to have been permanently suspended without warning, without negotiation, without recourse, and with the warning that said users are not allowed to create new LiveJournals: those of users ponderosa121 and elaboration, both paying users. However, LiveJournal has changed their deletion standards so that deleted/suspended journals are harder to recognize, so others may have fallen victim without notice from those concerned. Both ponderosa121 and elaboration are respected members of the fan community, and thus drew a great deal of notice from users still smarting from the last blow. The main controversy has centered around the piece of fanart resulting in ponderosa121’s suspension, posted in a locked entry to a community [Update per ponderosa121: the entry was not locked, but was behind an obscuring cut with warnings, visible only if voluntarily clicked]; the art depicted two characters from the famous Harry Potter series engaged in consensual sexual activity, incidentally homosexual. In the image of Severus Snape performing oral sex on a teenaged Harry Potter, it was thought that LiveJournal suspended ponderosa121 because Potter’s age is ambiguous, and in the style of the drawing could be anywhere from 17-19, leaving a narrow margin for Potter to be considered ‘underage’.
Copyright issues aside, the community’s ire was aroused when a support ticket received a response stating that the ages of the characters were not in question, but rather whether or not the piece possessed any artistic merit as subjectively judged by LiveJournal staff. Users protested that LiveJournal has no right to judge the contents of their journals based on whether or not the LiveJournal staff believes it has merit and that depictions of sex do not automatically remove artistic merit, as proved by many works of recognized art and literature depicting eroticism. Rampant speculation has ensued that in these deletions and in the previous May incident, the deletions may have been a result of homophobia rather than an attempt to target pedophilic content. Without an official statement from LiveJournal, the community has been left to outraged conjecture and over 10,000 comments of protest in an attempt to gain a response from LiveJournal. This time, users have resorted to spam tactics.
Contrary to what you might think, these users aren’t so very upset that they may not be able to post any art or fiction above a PG-13 rating on LiveJournal; as a privately-held business, LiveJournal has the right to determine just how free one’s freedom of speech is when posting on their servers, and reserves the right to remove content that they feel violates their terms of service or any U.S. laws. The problem is that their terms of service haven’t been officially updated since even before the May incident, and nowhere in those terms of service does it provide hard and fast guidelines for what is or is not specifically allowed, so that users may know where the line is and how not to cross it. Previous clarifications in the LiveJournal news community have only muddied the waters further, with requests for further elucidation ignored and actions taken contradicting statements made at the time. Journals have been deleted for a single post, without giving the users in question a chance to remove the offending content, without allowing them to save the other contents of their journals, and without offering to refund a penny of the money spent on LiveJournal’s services.
At this point members of LiveJournal not even involved in fandom have turned an angry eye on the situation; paranoia already ran rampant after the May incident, but now users are wondering: who’s next? Will a mother be suspended for posting pictures of her baby’s first bath? Will a gay male be suspended for posting a photograph or even a drawing of himself and his boyfriend kissing? Will a closeted lesbian be suspended for using LiveJournal as a safe haven to discuss her erotic thoughts about other women? Will artists and writers be censored in their creativity because LiveJournal believes that writing or drawing about an act - be it sex, violence, etc. - construes endorsing and promoting it?
Perhaps the hysteria might not have reached these levels if not for LiveJournal’s continued silence. Users are threatening to leave the service, and many have either reverted from paid to free status or already migrated to other journaling services based on LiveJournal’s open-source client. While the speculations above may seem wild and extreme, LiveJournal has yet to make a statement easing those fears, and so among their disgruntled user base, panic has only continued to grow. The flames were fueled late Saturday evening when a prominent member of LiveJournal support/abuse staff was found posting mocking commentary (context debated, considering the nature of the community) regarding the situation in another LiveJournal community, while ignoring repeated requests for reassurance.
Over and over again users have stated that because they are paying for this service, they deserve better customer service, more clarification of their rights within the terms of service, and site-wide notification of any changes in those terms of service - now made mandatory by a California ruling that any updates to a company’s online contract must be made publicly known to the users, rather than expecting the users to periodically check the TOS on their own for any changes. Six Apart/LiveJournal is based out of California and thus held by this judgment.
Several days ago I attempted to contact Six Apart, LiveJournal’s parent company, through their official press channels for a statement. No response has yet been forthcoming. In the meantime, however, LiveJournal’s clients continue to demand answers. The global community of friends that millions of users have built has been threatened, with a major portion of users directly affected and leaving others uneasy. Thousands have rallied, in an effort so vocal and so persistent that I, frankly, would love to see such fiery determination applied to larger-scale issues such as transgressions of local government or gay rights. Others are more apathetic towards the situation, or speak out in defense of LiveJournal’s actions. LiveJournal could face accountability for anything hosted on their servers, even if their TOS states that they don’t.
Although I’m not involved in fandom or in the depiction of erotic art or fiction, I have a paid LiveJournal myself and can understand the concerns of other users. However, until an official statement, one must keep in mind that LiveJournal may, in fact, have more clear and proper justification for their actions. They are not obligated to host any content that they find objectionable even if users are paying for their services, and reserve the right to terminate the user’s contract at any time for any reason. It’s going to happen, now and then. That’s life, and that’s business.
But they could do it a bit more gracefully.
Update, 2:14 P.M. CST: Reader svz_insanity adds further clarification on ponderosa121’s art in the comments to this article.
Also, other LiveJournal users have unearthed that the charities benefited by LiveJournal’s last permanent account sale are all strongly tied to the venture group that funded the purchase of Six Apart. Not exactly the best publicity for a company whose name is already acquiring a coat of tarnish. This entire situation appears to be turning into a public relations nightmare.
Lastly: We’ve been Dugg.
Update 6:44 p.m. CST: Reader TheCaelum informs us that LiveJournal user thamiris has been suspended, although her journal is still visible but cannot be added to others’ friends lists and it is likely that posting permissions have been revoked. User thamiris has been deceased since 04.02.07. It is unknown whether or not the deletion is related to the same issue as ponderosa121 and elaboration.
Update, 8:04 p.m. CST: Several readers have suggested that the odd issue with thamiris‘ journal may be related to glitches in the memorial journal status with LiveJournal and may have nothing to do with the issue of content-related suspensions. Thanks for pointing that out, everyone. Still no update from LiveJournal itself.
Update 2:15 p.m. CST 08-06-07: Word has it that founder of LiveJournal Brad Fitzpatrick is leaving, partially due to Six Apart’s management, mainly due to…boredom, while Six Apart may be looking to sell again (source is uncomfirmed, gossip columnist). Also, users are tracking new suspensions with the possibility that they are related to the original issue, but they may have been deleted by their owners in the migration to other journal services or for any number of other reasons. Users have also been e-mailing advertisers and sponsors of LiveJournal, and apparently at least one has received a response.
Lastly, users have posted that Six Apart is now answering their phone lines when they attempt to call, but no statements have been made as to what information callers have received. I may try to call myself to get an official press statement when I have a free minute to get to a phone.
Any further updates from this point out will be in a new post on the main page - this is growing too long.
livejournal, blogging, six apart, censorship, strikethrough 07, boldthrough 07, fanart, fanfiction, fandom, ponderosa121, elaboration
August 5th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
You might want to note that Ponderosa’s fanart was based off of a fanfic where Harry was of legal age. Of course, LJ/6 Apart didn’t bother to check before banning her for life.
August 5th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I, honestly, did not sleep last night. I was on http://news.livejournal.com/profile from around midnight until… well, now, really.
I am not a person who spams. I think it’s rude and immature. However, SixApart’s lack of contact with its users (paying customers) is extremely disappointing and, I must admit that a lot of us have gone to extreme measures to make a point. How many posts can we max out before SixApart bothers to respond?
As you stated above, we are NOT mad because of the deletions themselves. We are mad because our many and repeated requests for clear rules regarding the types of posts that are allowed by LJ and SixApart have been ignored or brushed aside. I even opened a support log asking for clarification and was told to go read http://news.livejournal.com/profile, which, obviously, I’ve already done! I have since responded with a very detailed post outlining our questions and confusion and have not heard anything back in about a day and a half. You can read a copy of the original request (which is locked) here: http://pics.livejournal.com/littleroo27/pic/0016rksx.
Honestly, all we want are answers. Not vague generalities, but true, thought out answers.
August 5th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
sorry, that last link isn’t working. Not sure why…
http://pics.livejournal.com/littleroo27/pic/0016rksx/
August 5th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
It might be worth it to you to know that there was a lone response to a question regarding ponderosa’s art. The user posted a copy of this to the latest news post. I do not have a link, however:
LJ acknowledged that the art in question, the art that got ponderosa suspended, the art that was cited in the notice-of-suspension email DID NOT CONTAIN UNDERAGE CHARACTERS.
However, it was not something that LJ cared to host anyway. So it was deleted. No reason was given.
The only thing shown in that picture, if it was not UNDERAGE, and LJ acknowledged that it was not, in fact, UNDERAGE, was a depiction of consensual homosexual fellatio.
Elaboration was deleted because of “chan” yet she has never drawn chan in her life. I know her personally. The art in question was twincest, and while it was possible that it could have been seen as underage, both characters depicted are not underage in the books and no warning for chan was made.
This is also true for Ponderosa’s art. No warning for underage was made.
A QUICK SCROLL DOWN THE FIRST PAGE OF THE COMMUNITY AS IT IS NOW *SHOWS* AT LEAST ONE OTHER PICTURE THAT WARNS FOR UNDERAGE CHARACTERS. THIS WAS NOT DELETED. THE USER HAS NOT BEEN CONTACTED BY LJ AT ALL. GOING BACK ANOTHER PAGE SHOWS MORE ART, WHICH WARNS FOR CHAN AND UNDERAGE CHARACTERS.
THIS WAS NOT DELETED EITHER.
SOMETHING IS DEFINITELY WRONG.
August 5th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
I forgot to clarify that the person who received a response about ponderosa’s art was not the artist herself, but another lj user.
August 5th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Others have made great points and I second everything they say. I’d like to add something:
Aside from Six Apart and LiveJournal’s generally bad response to this (and by “response,” I mean, of course, refusing to clarify their guidelines, confusing the uers, and then ignoring the users), one of their employees, Abe Hassan (LJ username burr86), who has previously made the “clarifications” of their policies, posted in a community making fun of the whole situation.
The community was http://efw.livejournal.com
The post has since been deleted, but I saved the page and screencapped all of Abe’s comments.
Those files have been uploaded to:
http://www.until-yesterday.org/eljay/
And are available in both the original HTML format and in image format, whatever is more convenient for the viewer.
Abe Hassan, as an employee for LiveJournal, acted very unprofessionally in this case, and it’s just another thing to add to LiveJournal’s poor handling of this situation.
August 5th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
I have not been too affected by the Livejournal Boldthrough ‘07 but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t bother me. LJ needs to clean up it’s act - and it’s TOS - pure and simple.
August 5th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Thank you, this was very informative.
Some additional info to add, though. Another fandom-affiliated journal was suspended as well, and I’m not sure why. The username is Thamiris (http://thamiris.livejournal.com/profile) and the journal appears normal unless you look at comments or attempt to friend it. Friending it produces the error “The account thamiris cannot be added as a friend because it is deleted, purged, or suspended.”
This user passed away on 04/02/2007 from cancer, so the suspension isn’t due to any recent posts or activity. Troubling stuff.
August 5th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
It’s kind of ironic that the Google Ads below the comment submission form on this page all point to LiveJournal features.
August 5th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
TheCaelum, whatever was wrong with Thamiris’ journal appears to be fixed - she’s on my friend-of list, linked, and I can both read and post comments (at least, I could open a comment window - I didn’t try to actually post it). When I tried to friend her it told me that she was already on my flist (true) and I could remove her if I wished (clearly I did not). Could the problems you saw be a non-friend thing, because of Thamiris having passed away? I vaguely remember hearing something at the time about some confusion with settings as LJ made the journal permanent.
August 5th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
It should be mentioned that Harry Potter is set in Great Britain. The age of consent there is 16. So the problem image, which could be anywhere from 17-19, could be a perfectly legitimate encounter in Britain. Even if LJ does finally get its handling of situations like these fixed, there’s still the outstanding question of, on a *world* wide web, whose standards of decency should apply?
August 5th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
It should be mentioned that Harry Potter is set in Great Britain. The age of consent there is 16 (yes, even for homosexual sex). So the problem image, which could be anywhere from 17-19, could be a perfectly legitimate encounter in Britain. Even if LJ does finally get its handling of situations like these fixed, there’s still the outstanding question of, on a *world* wide web, whose standards of decency should apply?
August 5th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Thank you - this is one of the posts I will point people to when I need to provide a thorough and reasonably-voiced explanation of the situation and what’s wrong with it.
WRT TheCaelum’s comment about LJ user Thamiris, I am guessing (but have no confirmation) that her account is considered a “memorial journal” as mentioned in this post on the lj_releases community, and thus may be showing up as deleted/suspended because the code hasn’t quite been updated properly to deal with that category yet.
August 5th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
More boo-hooing from the weirdos who read/write fanfic. Take your money (those of you who actually pay) and find a journal somewhere else.
Seriously, what crybaby crap.
August 5th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Thanks for this great summary of what’s happened. It’s very clear, concise, objective, and very much appreciated.
August 5th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
I’m one of those weirdos who read/write fanfiction on LJ.
I could make gushing - and honest - arguments about how the people in various fandoms on my friendslist have become actual friends over the years and I don’t want to lose them … or expound on how the idea of LJ/6A acting as judges of artistic merit … but instead I’ll point out a basic, and overlooked detail.
Weirdos or not, we are customers who have the right to expect to be treated with respect, integrity, and fairness by a business we are honoring with said custom. We have been loyal to LJ, and as a group we probably have a higher percentage of paid and permanent LJ accounts than non-fandom users. We deserve better We deserve fair.
What was done to ponderosa121 and elaboration just ain’t right. It leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, and I’m horribly disappointed with LJ/6A.
By the way, there’s a bunch of us weirdos, 39,000 last time I checked out fandom_counts.
August 5th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Go, Polly!
I, too, am one of the aforementioned weirdos who read/write fanfic on LJ. And we have the same rights, as Polly pointed out, as all the other users here, fandom or not.
You may be “Not Concerned” now, but when your rights are threatened, or one of your friends is suspended for some random thing LJ suddenly decides is wrong, I’m sure you will be.
And yeah, 39,000 of us.
August 6th, 2007 at 1:18 am
To help with some of the facts here as well as the comments, the image I was banned for was not a commission for a piece of fanfiction where Harry is stated to be 18+. I’m c/p’ing a little bit in my reply to Melissa Wilson’s post over on Firefox News, so I apologize for that, but I want to make sure incorrent information doesn’t continue being spread.
The piece of Snape/Harry artwork was posted without “friend’s lock” in a community intended for adults, and similarly in my journal, which is also intended for adults. It was under a “cut” in both places and provided content warning. Unless linked to by a third party elsewhere, in the places where I posted it, a user would need to click on a cut beneath a label with the adult rating (pornish_pixies) or on a cut duplicating the adult rating as listed in the subject line (my personal journal) to view it.
The person who commissioned the artwork from me asked for Snape/Harry, explicit but loving, and left all the details to me. I did not state their age, and make no statement now. I had no age in mind when drawing other than the recipient had previously asked me for a commission (which fell through due to timing) of Harry as a young man and not a teen.
I would like it clear that I make no statement as to whether or not Harry is a minor in this image, and though I question the criteria for my suspension by Six Apart, I accept it without any admission of guilt. My intent was not to draw Harry at a specific age and as he doesn’t exist other than as I rendered him, I cannot ask him if he is 16, 17, 18, 19, or 201 for that matter. I will say, however, that any reference for which I used in the creation of his pose is of a female above the age of 18.
Any further statements of mine on the matter can be found on a temporary journal over at greatestjournal under the same username ponderosa121, and my website http://www.ponderosa121.com contains the extent of my protest to Six Apart at this time.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Months ago, when I asked, in an email, for LJ to offer clear guidelines of behavior on their server that they would find inappropriate and subject to criticism, LJ wrote back “Examples of interests that may be actionable if they are reported to us would include illegal activities such as murder and theft. We cannot, however, provide a comprehensive list of interests that are inappropriate for use on LiveJournal.” To me, this proves (looking at current events) that LJ is beyond a doubt using this vagueness like a free-pass to suspend anyone and everyone they do not find TASTEFUL. While fandom is broken into factions on this one, every fandom for itself, I feel like this is only the beginning signs of LJ’s disinterest in continuing to serve and understand the fandom community at large.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Maddie, it isn’t a “right” that you’re talking about. If LJ removes my account, I’d have to find someplace else to journal. That is their “right” as a company.
To pretend you have NO IDEA what was wrong is disingenuous at best. LJ deleted a bunch of accounts for similar infractions. It’s not like you didn’t know LJ considered these topics to be taboo. You knew. Why else would all of you have your little passive aggressive icons thumbing your noses at LJ for deleting accounts in May. You were all aware. I’m quite sure the spittle was flying on monitors all over Weirdoland as they blogged about the horrific treatment of their fellow pedo/incest fanfic friends.
How many people who obviously know nothing about free speech did we see making comments in official LJ posts? Thousands. Luckily the person who wrote this editorial made it clear that it is not a free speech issue lest we have tons here doing the same thing.
39,000. Good for you. Out of the millions of journals, 39000 other people who think it is art to take characters fleshed out by real artists and turn them into the literary equivalent of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story.
Put your money where your mouths are. Start your own journal service for the topic you so love. LJ has made their service an open ID from the start so you can gank all of their codes to start your own. Make one. Since someone predicted that you guys have a higher percentage (with no proof of said prediction, mind you) of paying then it shouldn’t be a problem for you. You can set up your own place with your own rules and steal customers from LJ.
Don’t let the door hit you.. nevermind.
August 6th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
I’m so glad to see an article that presents this in an objective way. I agree with “Not Concerned” that too many hysterical fans failed to realize that this was not a free speech issue.
However, regardless of whether they’re spittle-spraying weirdos, I do think the calls for clarity around the TOS are legitimate because though LJ has not officially updated its policies (which were previously relatively fandom-friendly)it has been talking quite a bit about obscenity laws, which as this editorial suggests is not merely an issue of child pornography or writers of the “Choose Your Own Adventure Story ilk”. Original art or fiction would also be subject to these obscenity-based policies if that is indeed what LJ is going by. The TOS also currently does not address the fact that the official statement was that this account was suspended because it lacked artistic merit and that ultimately is the bottom line.
I think those fans not busy spraying the spittle are simply asking for clarity around these points, not questioning LJ’s rights to delete accounts as it sees fit. Their voices may have gotten lost amidst the shouting, but their concern I think is still legitimate.
Even where apparent weirdos are concerned I think dialogue is possible and there’s a middle ground in this issue. A clear TOS would do what all this bouhaha hasn’t: allow those fans to leave who want to, let those who want to stay keep themselves in compliance and give non-fandom users the peace of mind they wish for.
August 6th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Gather round, children and listen to a little tale called Strikethrough ‘07. Because sometimes looking into the past can provide some insight into the present.
A whole melting pot of speculation has been and still is brewing concerning what exactly spawned the mass deletion of 500 accounts and communities late May this year. Some point the finger at the supposedly poor judgement of the LJ Abuse Team. 99.9% of others say the blame goes to the involvement of anti-child molestation group, more specifically Warriors for Innocence. While both played their part in the hysteria, there is, in truth, a larger underlying secret that heralded the biggest spark of them all.
Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to a little something called an IPO, which is short for “initial public offering”, which in laymen’s terms translates to “selling stock like crazy.”
Selling stock requires investors, and getting investors needs convincing, which for Six Apart meant “cleaning up” Livejournal and making it look presentable. This was something the management department of Six Apart already had in the works. Pedophiles weren’t their priority, just anything that might make investors want to inch as far away from Six Apart as possible. They also wanted to make sure that there was nothing the press could hold against them once they went public.
Prior to this whole mess, the LJ Abuse Team received plenty of accusations from anti-child molestation groups that LJ was hosting pedophiles. Any other day, the Abuse Team would have turned the other way and told these people to run along.
But not this time.
It’s still unknown as to when this occured, but sometime between Friday, May 18th and Monday, May 21st, an infamous anti-pedophilia protest group called Warriors for Innocence threatened to expose Six Apart management to advertisers and investors as pedophile-lovers. On top of their threat, WfI pinned a handy little list naming all of the users and communities they wanted erased.
Panicked, Six Apart complied. But instead of taking their time and thoroughly investigating any supsicious journals and communities, they decided to cut their work in half and rely on WfI’s provided hit list. Fandom began suspecting a purge sometime around the 24th of May, so it’s possible that Six Apart commenced one of their most idiotic moves sometime between the 22nd and the 23rd.
So you see children, the whole dilemna wasn’t entirely centered around the safety of children against online predators. LJ even admitted that WfI wasn’t the reason the whole debacle. It was about the havoc being unleashed on Six Apart’s beloved IPO.
However, this doesn’t remove WfI from the equation enitirely. WfI’s hit list’s involvement was undoubtable, because sometime after the deletions began, an almost spotless list of suspended and deleted user accounts and communities appeared on pedoblogtracker.com, courtesy of a member of WfI. Their involvement is also confirmed in the fact that they could not have derived their list of suspended and deleted accounts from fandom, seeing how by Memorial Day, shortly before the discovery of WfI’s hit list, members of the fandom community only managed to find at least 100 accounts suddenly gone.
Six Apart made a heap of mistakes during Strikethrough ‘07, one of them being their not informing the LJ Abuse Team of WfI. This was confirmed in the journals of Abuse Team members who posted absolutely nothing concerning a purge until it spiraled out of control around Tuesday, May 29th. Secondly, and probably most importantly, Six Apart greatly underestimated the ferocious, man-eating force that is fandom in three different ways.
First: LJ is a global network. Six Apart took a look at site-usage statistics and marked Memorial Day as the beginning of the purge. However, LJ is not limited to American users only. By the purge kicked off, it was midday in the Philipines. And damn, were those fangirls peeved.
Second: When the going gets tough, the tough get going. LJ failed to acknowledge that members of the fandom community, which can fight tooth and nail over yaoi vs. yuri, banded together against FanLib.com not two weeks before the purge. For those of you not on the up and up, the managers of FanLib hoped to recruit fanfiction authors under incredibly one-sided Terms of Service in the hopes of getting their wallets just a little bit fatter through the profit made by the fanfiction (if published) while the author/ess gets nothing but a pat on the head in return. Slashers and het writers alike fought back, even discouraging others from visiting the site by not providing the link in their journals.
And thirdly: One of the deleted communities was a very popular Harry Potter adult fanfiction and fanart community. As stewardess on GreatestJournal put it, “news of its suspension spread faster than you can say ‘Avada Kedavra’”.
By Tuesday, fandom’s ire had finally reached a boil and LJ users began spamming LJ news with complaints and threats to degrade their paid accounts to free accounts. Others threatened to pack their things and leave. Worse yet, much to Six Apart’s horror, news of the purge reached the media. Worse even than that, WfI was exposed as the driving force behind the purge, compelling fandom to believe that Six Apart had sold out to racist, homophobic, dominionist, Redneck Neo-Nazis. (Look them up on Google; you’ll see why.)
Six Apart suddenly themselves in a greater pickle than before. Not only were thousands upon thousands of LJ users in revolt against them, but they were also being exposed in the media as supposed allies of the Redneck Mafia. Their plan to draw in investors and make their dream of an IPO a reality backfired, and all they could do now was bite the bullet and face the flustered members of LJ.
They apologized, WfI sank back into the shadows, and LJ conducted a more thourough investigation of their hosted journals, pulling the suspension off of hundreds of missing journals. The rest, they say, is history.
What, you may ask, is the meaning behind this obscenely long story? It’s to present a more rational theory behind the Strikethrough and the driving force behind the current purge taking place. While this may not be 100% proven, myself and 39000 others know better than to believe that Six Apart and LJ suspended over 500 accounts all for the sake of the children. Something darker lies beneath Six Apart’s supposed intentions of erasing anything they see that may lack, what they call, “artistic merit.” It only takes noticing the replacement of strikethrough with bold print and the disappearance of usernames from friend’s list to realize that. If there are any similarities between the incident in May and what’s transpiring now, it’s that fandom isn’t buying any of Six Apart’s explanations all that much.
And in response to “NotConcerned”, allow me to inform you firsthand that we’re three steps ahead of you. Plans are underway to construct a new user-friendly site for fandom and non-fandom members alike whose patience with LJ and Six Apart’s diservice towards its users has reached its end. A lot of planning, organizing and funding is still needed, but should this act keep up, LJ and Six Apart will be able to kiss our hides goodbye by January 2008.
Also in response to your assumption that fandom’s retort is “boo-hooing”, let me say this.
Before you think yourself heads and shoulders above everyone else, realize that while it may be in your glorious nature to sit back and be rational, it’s not in everyone elses. When something personal, something held dear, be it fanart or fanfiction is threatened by a force a person once trusted, it’s not in likely to be in that person’s nature to twiddle his or her thumbs and wait quietly for the damage to be done. Chances are, that person is going to get his or her hands dirty and fight back for what he or she wants to keep exploited for the entertainment of themselves and others, even if the threatening force in question believes it has no merit or worth.
This isn’t about a crowd being bitchy over a few deleted accounts. This is about a corporation claiming that only they can measure what worth something has. This is about something being hidden from millions of people. This is about people who want what personal freedom they had online back.
And all you care to call it is boo-hooing.
The people I’d kill to inherit your depth perception.
August 6th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
@C.S.
Your mention of an alternative to LJ away from SixApart intrigues me (and is something I’ve been discussing with my non-fandom business partners). Can you contact me at LJ? http://kujo-hikaru.livejournal.com . Thanks!
August 6th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Oh, and before people start thinking otherwise, this theory was not originally done by me. This is more or less a synopsis of a broken-down timeline put together by stewardess at GreatestJournal.com. There was very little contribution on my part, and I think I might have plagiarized a few parts. Crap.
August 6th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
[...] contact, or until LJ/Six Apart responds on their news community, I’m probably done covering this topic and will be going back to business as usual on [...]
August 6th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I’m sorry, underaged or not though. A fictional character is a fictional character! Since when does a character who doesn’t even exist go by the pedophilia laws? It’s bullshit. It really is and I wish Lj would respect their users. We’re the people keeping them around. I’ve been a member since mid-2001 and all this drama has really changed how I view Lj alot.
August 6th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Gay sex is taboo, “not concerned”? When did this happen? Have we gone back in time? Did I miss a memo?
The only thing I can add to the “underage” debate is that for a pupil at a school to have sex with a teacher is usually against the school rules BUT the age of consent changes if the older of the partners is in a position of authority. Harry would have needed to be 21 to have sex with Snape. Legally.
I’m not condoning Sa/s response, because it was completely wrong. If the picture was of a 16 year old having sex with anyone else over age then it would not have been “taboo” (omg ferchrissakes are we living in a cave?), but if SA wanted to be stupid about the letter of the law then they could.
However. That being said. As these characters are FICTIONAL they could have been any age at all. It’s canon that wizards live a lot longer than non-wizards.
What if someone writes a book someday about a society where people look like teenagers but they really are 200 years old? Who chooses subjectively then?
August 7th, 2007 at 2:41 am
[...] It’s a new day, and time to get back to business as usual in this one-horse town, leaving the LiveJournal fiasco behind until something else of note happens. Remember the openly anti-gay Republican caught [...]
August 7th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
[...] for the past four or five days. On my second writing job, for 451 Press…I ended up covering a rather large kerfluffle regarding LiveJournal, fandom, and censorship. It’s required a lot of attention to try to [...]
August 7th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
[...] the meantime, a new angle has unfolded, adding another dimension to the story: while users were permanently suspended for homoerotic imagery of fictional characters that LiveJournal deemed potentially harmful to minors and lacking in artistic merit, communities [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 7:06 am
[...] If you’ve been watching the LiveJournal kerfluffle, you may want to know that LJ/Six Apart has finally posted a comprehensible clarification of their [...]
October 11th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
[...] like livejournal’s kind of makes me feel dirty, because livejournal is currently made of epic [...]
December 15th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
March 19th, 2008 at 8:01 am
[...] care about the fact that LiveJournal might be practicing homophobic censorship during the Harry Potter fanart / ponderosa121 / boldthrough / strikethrough / do-we-really-need-to-rehash-this …beyond the fact that it was arbitrary censorship of art in general with flawed judgments of [...]
July 6th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
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