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elfsWell, it looks like there's another blogquake going on. Six Apart's crack legal team has succumbed to vigilante pressure from the outside world and is now tracking down every LJ in which the user has one of the following (or a synonym for one of the following) in the "Interests" list: child abuse, human sacrifice, kidnapping, killing, murder, paedophiles, paedophilia, rape, and beating people up.
I doubt they're going to come for me; none of those particularly float my boat. But it does mean that Six Apart is now taking an active, editorial interest in what you write, which is different from LJAbuse's previous interest only in what you do. Six Apart's abuse policy has now become editorial: your blog is no longer your own, but is now jointly managed by you and the legal team of Six Apart, which may decide without warning to terminate your account.
The thing that irritates me most is that they're going after fiction writers. Despite the disclaimer from LJ abuse that they're not going after fictional accounts, it's become clear from the ongoing discussion that some user accounts have disappeared because they were the fictional journals of fictional, villainous characters.
Sigh. The only question is: when will the Six Apart legal team get its act together and start going after all "questionable" content? I mean, I have "sadomasochism" as an interest (no, really!?) and that's illegal in Massachusetts.
If LJ becomes a Disney Gated Community, I'm so outta here, whether they push me or not.
I doubt they're going to come for me; none of those particularly float my boat. But it does mean that Six Apart is now taking an active, editorial interest in what you write, which is different from LJAbuse's previous interest only in what you do. Six Apart's abuse policy has now become editorial: your blog is no longer your own, but is now jointly managed by you and the legal team of Six Apart, which may decide without warning to terminate your account.
The thing that irritates me most is that they're going after fiction writers. Despite the disclaimer from LJ abuse that they're not going after fictional accounts, it's become clear from the ongoing discussion that some user accounts have disappeared because they were the fictional journals of fictional, villainous characters.
Sigh. The only question is: when will the Six Apart legal team get its act together and start going after all "questionable" content? I mean, I have "sadomasochism" as an interest (no, really!?) and that's illegal in Massachusetts.
If LJ becomes a Disney Gated Community, I'm so outta here, whether they push me or not.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 04:06 pm (UTC)Nothing anywhere I can find that explains SA/LJ's actions.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 06:46 pm (UTC)A friend just re-edited the interests list for an incest-survivor community she manages.
What a bunch of twits. It's like Six Apart was bought out by Yahoo! and is being managed by the team that manages Yahoo! Groups.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 06:49 pm (UTC)Yes, they are deleting support communities.
And they are not giving anyone a chance to just readjust their interest lists.
Back up your LJ, friends. Try , although it doesn't preserve comments.
Oh, damn. I need to go check my
Freaking assholes. (http://www.ljbook.com)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 08:51 pm (UTC)But the rest of me is pretty disgusted of what else is being attacked. Removing support groups disgusts me.
A long time ago, I was using an ISP in the UK which lost a court case on defamation. For a few days things went pretty crazy, with a wildly exaggerated sensitivity to alleged defamation. This sounds rather the same: people with a poor understanding of the legal issues in a state of panic.
Is it any wonder that people want to run their own servers for bloggimng,
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 09:03 pm (UTC)Which communities? None of the lists I've read (and I've read a bunch) list any support communities that I recognized as such. I know of one person who is a survivor who got deleted, apparently due to listed interests. Thus far I've been unable to confirm that any support communities were deleted or even get a name of one that might have been deleted but lots of people seem to be saying this.
If they insist on sticking with their legal interperatation of interests helping people commit crimes they'd do best to just give up the interests feature all together.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 09:28 pm (UTC)Abuse: Material which can be interpreted as expressing interest in, soliciting, or encouraging illegal activity places LiveJournal at considerable legal risk. When journals that contain such material are reported to us, we must suspend them. Because LiveJournal's interests list serves as a search function, and because listing an interest enables other people also interested in a similar topic to gather and/or congregate, we have been advised that listing an interest in an illegal activity must be viewed as using LiveJournal to solicit that illegal activity.
In particular, the interests that you had listed on your two journals' profiles that qualify as expressing interest in, soliciting, or encouraging illegal activity were: child abuse, human sacrifice, kidnapping, killing, murder, paedophiles, paedophilia, rape, and beating people up.
Our legal counsel advises us that it would increase LiveJournal's liability if we were to allow your journal to be unsuspended for you to delete the illegal interests from your profile. This is because if someone were to remove the illegal interests from his or her profile, but was in fact using LiveJournal to coordinate, solicit, or participate in illegal activity, LiveJournal would most likely be considered to have foreknowledge of that activity and thus become liable.
We recognize that many people list these types of interests for shock value, as a method of expressing opposition for these illegal activities, or to indicate fictional activity. Unfortunately, the Abuse team does not have any discretion in these cases; if a journal profile contains interests that support illegal activity, we must suspend the journal. Journals, on the other hand, may express or imply interest in illegal activity or express or imply a desire to meet and/or interact with others with similar interests, but only if the journal clearly (1) is in opposition to or condemnation of the illegal activity, (2) does not encourage the illegal activity and (3) is not used in furtherance of any illegal activity.
I do recognize that your accounts may not necessarily be the type of content that this policy is directly intended to remove from LiveJournal, and I do understand that your journals contained only fictional content. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned, the Abuse team has no discretion in how these instances must be handled. Because your account was reported to us, and because it contained illegal activities in your interests list, we must permanently suspend it. While I know that it may be little consolation, you can download your journal entries by using the Export Journal tool as described in http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=8&view=full. This tool will function even if your account is suspended.
Also, a community reading Lolita has been suspended. (http://lolaraincoat.livejournal.com/253978.html?thread=2871578)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 09:33 pm (UTC)http://ataniell93.livejournal.com/818441.html
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 10:45 pm (UTC)I wonder what DeadJournal's policies are? :)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-31 12:17 am (UTC)Translation: they didn't bother to review what they suspended...they suspended it because someone reported that one (or more) of the interests in the interests list were issues that, if acted upon, would be considered illegal.
Talking about illegal activities, however, is not illegal...unless the talk is meant to encourage the illegal activity. In fact, I question from a legal standpoint whether they would be liable for any legal action unless they had foreknowledge of the talk and did not remove the LJ when alerted to it. In other words, if someone looking at the account reported the account to Abuse and said, "this account is encouraging illegal activity X" and Abuse reviewed it and determined that, yes, it was doing exactly that, and then deleted it.
Therefore, what Abuse is really saying is that they are too lazy to in fact look at each LJ account that has an interest that, if acted upon, would be considered illegal, and decide for that LJ whether it is, in fact, encouraging an illegal activity.
This is a policy that LJ Abuse will find will get Six Apart in financial trouble, as more and more LJ users will leave and go elsewhere...where the company that manages the blog software policies isn't lazy.
I am not a lawyer, but . . .
Date: 2007-05-31 12:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-31 01:46 am (UTC)And if that happens, let us know?
That way, we can join you.
Re: I am not a lawyer, but . . .
Date: 2007-05-31 02:24 am (UTC)In the same way, Six Apart would need to investigate a claim to see if the person with the LJ had actually violated the policy (i.e. used the Interests lists to encourage the actions of illegal activities.)
However, none of that matters anymore, as Six Apart has now officially stated that their reason for pulling the accounts were not legal, but because these accounts didn't fall within the "community [LJ] wanted to build." Go read Mass Deletion Sparks LiveJournal Revolt to see the sad truth straight from the mouth of Six Apart's CEO.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-31 05:50 am (UTC)Isn't this a bad move for them
Date: 2007-05-31 04:47 pm (UTC)Respectfully,
DB_Story