Fun times.

[brinshannara]

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.

Comments

[moireach.livejournal.com]

Yeah, not only have they suspended abuse survivor journals/communities, but also a Lolita-reading community, a TON of RPG characters and fanfic archives.... it's ridiculous and insane. And the group that's spurring this on seem to be total loose cannon vigilantes. (I'm not linking b/c they're tracking referrers AND are full of spyware. Charming.)

LJ still hasn't said anything public yet, but in some of the abuse reports they told people that journal CONTENT can be almost anything, but it's what's on the userinterest pages that they're liable for.

Haha, I've been reading A LOT about this today.

[brinshannara]

Yeah, I just read about the Lolita comms. Hadn't thought about RPG chars, though. Ouch. :/ The archives must just be painful.

I went to the website (thanks for the heads up re: spyware, I shall scan!) and they seem a little crazed. I googled their name and went through Google, so they won't be able to tell where on LJ I got their name from, at least.

I'm confused, they let people post anything, because that's user content, but you can't say you're INTERESTED in something, even on an academic level, because they're liable since it's their tool?

I say everyone should stack their user info with nothing but those keywords. :P Let them try to delete ALL our journals. ;) (I'm kidding, but boy, that'd be amusing.)

[moireach.livejournal.com]

HA, check out AnilDash's latest twitter update: http://twitter.com/anildash

Yeah, obviously their lawyers gave them over-the-top CYA advice and it's backfiring awfully. Blaaaargh censorship. Thing is, I'd expect arbitrary modding and silence from, like, TWOP; I thought LJ was smarter than that. :P

[brinshannara]

LJ was smarter than that.

SixApart is not, apparently.

[shiningmoon.livejournal.com]

While it's true that perhaps LJ/SixApart went over the top in deleting journals for (probable) legal liability concerns--were there warnings first?--I can't imagine ever personally listing "incest" or "rape" as an INTEREST, even if I were a victim of either at some point...

I mean, honestly, the ways that could be interpreted without any modifiers to clarify the true interest, especially when (and yes, I realize a lot of people don't read instructions) LJ's own "interests" guidelines say that your interests should fit into the sentence "I like ____".

[brinshannara]

No warnings, as I understand it. I just personally think that a warning would have been at least polite or nice of them, or that if they were gonna do something like that across the board, that they should have, you know, double-checked to make sure support groups weren't deleted.

I think part of it is... how else will you find someone/a community to talk to about your experiences without the interest tags?

[shiningmoon.livejournal.com]

I know. :/ I mean, you can get into using interest tags like "surviving rape" or "rape prevention" or what not, but boy, that makes it a much more difficult search. I don't think the site at inception was ever designed to handle dealing with darker subjects.

[deinera.livejournal.com]

I'm not down with censorship, and I'm definitely not down with over the top psycho's who force their own will upon others with the threat of legal recourse and action.

However, some of the comm's and journals that were deleted were, risque to say the least. I didn't go in search of them, so I never really found them. I never stumbled upon them. I never accidentally clicked on one. Even when I viewed Friend's of Friends pages, I never saw the kind of journals that are listed as suspended.

I'm all for free speech, but I've got to say I'm partially in agreement with some of the suspensions. This is a public service, and owned by another. If you want a place where you can write about all the children you'd like to screw, then feel free, buy your own domain and use it as you will.

Otherwise, LJ/SA could've given warnings to give people opportunity to save items.

The RPG stuff, ghey. I mean, ghey and dumb and ghey. That's just retarded. Fanfic... wtf?!? *rolls eyes*

This is definitely turning into an ordeal.