Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to my favourite Kiddo, literaryradical. Hope your day is awesome, darlin'!

... also, how has it been 10 years since we first met? Seriously.

Fun times.

Apparently, there's a big kerfuffle going on about censorship and fic and fandom and even support communities going on 'round here. I'm not entirely sure what the deal is, except that a community was reported to the abuse team for having "incest" as an "interest" (even though it was a HP community that did not remotely FOCUS on incest, but apparently it made an appearance now and again)... and an incest survivor's LJ was suspended for violating TOS just because incest was in the interests.

Now, let's get one thing straight... I don't have a fandom kink for incest, nor has there been anything like that in my real life. But I know what's out there in terms of fic and I steer clear from anything that might be squicky to me. I may not like that sort of fic (or, indeed, most fic that is similarly murky), but I do support people's creativity, and I don't particularly see a lot of harm in writing stories. Geez, I read my fair share of smut as a 17-year-old and I'd like to think I'm not hideously fucked up in the head because I happened to read Sex and the Single Doctor.

I see a great deal of harm in suspending a user's account because the user is a survivor of abuse and incest and frankly, I'm not remotely shocked that LJ/SixApart has gone that far, even if they wind up reversing the decision.

I said it when SixApart purchased LJ -- I don't trust Ben and Mena. I used to, I used to use MovableType on my own blog site, but something changed at some point, and when I heard their company had purchased LJ, I had a bad feeling about it. I eventually let my paid account expire, and though I was thinking about reactivating it if only for the icons, this sort of unilateral action on the part of LJ/SA has changed my mind.

I don't really want to debate the merits or the pros or cons of "risqué" fic being posted in what seems like a public forum, but is, in fact, a playground owned by the company that has every legal right to remove what they don't want there. I don't want to debate the "what if kids read it??" issue. I don't even really have TIME to debate anything, since I'm writing a paper, but I'll say this...

Such behaviour by a company that people have trusted for years to act a certain way, without public announcements or warning, is not cool by me. Their continued silence is not cool by me. What's next, cracking down on icons because they could be viewed as copyright infringement? Or maybe journal titles that are snagged from a song? No, wait, maybe the "Current Music" tag will vanish, because that'll incite illegal downloading!

Thanks for reinforcing my lack of trust in Ben and Mena and SixApart. <thumbs up>

ETA: Great resource post here, courtesy of liz_marcs.

Well.

So the chickenshits who run LJ talked to CNET about their deletions and have yet to make a public statement to the users.

http://news.com.com/Mass+deletion+sparks+LiveJournal+revolt/2100-1025_3-6187619.html?tag=item

I've already gone and signed up for brinshannara over at GreatestJournal. I'm just sayin'.