Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2007-05-30 05:56 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2007-05-30 05:56 pm
Suspension hysteria--what's probably going on.
NB for everyone with their panties in a twist over Deletegate, or considering friends-locking adult content on their journals because of it: read this post. LJ's suspension of all those journals has nothing to do with fandom--fandom journals, as well as the completely legitimate literary discussion groups and abuse survivor communities that also got suspended, are collateral damage. In fact, as far as I can see it, the whole debacle is caused by LJ going into bizarre contortions to avoid suspending, deleting, warning, or otherwise interfering with people based on content, because once they start doing that they'll be liable for all the questionably-legal content that gets posted here. So unless (until?) the shitstorm takes an unexpected turn, there's very little risk of being suspended over anything you write in your journal. Interest lists and profiles in general are at risk, but not anything you've written.
Does it suck being treated as collateral damage? Hell yes. But this isn't about us, and the Copyright Nazis aren't going to come knocking at your door.
Until there's more communication between LJ and the people who got suspended, I'm not going to say the post I linked to has an 100% accurate assessment of the situation--but it tallies with the impressions I formed independently based on what both LJ Abuse and WFI have said, and it's a pretty sound analysis of the sticky place LJ is in legally. It's a pretty safe bet that none of the ban-happy parties give a shit about fandom, that this is not a censorship or copyright issue, and that LJ would have been happy to keep your shota Weasleycest porn if its arm hadn't been twisted on completely different issues.
(If you've heard nothing of Deletegate,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metafandom has been awash in links on it for the past few days, and you can probably find a good recap there.)
Edit: Oh look, it's hit the news, and a SixApart rep was willing to talk to reporters but not to the pissed-off LJ users. And claimed that this was motivated not only by legal issues but by SA deciding to be the taste police and baninate journals they thought were "inappropriate." WTF? My first instinct is that he's talking out his ass, but this does not bode well for LJ's side of the story.
Does it suck being treated as collateral damage? Hell yes. But this isn't about us, and the Copyright Nazis aren't going to come knocking at your door.
Until there's more communication between LJ and the people who got suspended, I'm not going to say the post I linked to has an 100% accurate assessment of the situation--but it tallies with the impressions I formed independently based on what both LJ Abuse and WFI have said, and it's a pretty sound analysis of the sticky place LJ is in legally. It's a pretty safe bet that none of the ban-happy parties give a shit about fandom, that this is not a censorship or copyright issue, and that LJ would have been happy to keep your shota Weasleycest porn if its arm hadn't been twisted on completely different issues.
(If you've heard nothing of Deletegate,
metafandom has been awash in links on it for the past few days, and you can probably find a good recap there.)Edit: Oh look, it's hit the news, and a SixApart rep was willing to talk to reporters but not to the pissed-off LJ users. And claimed that this was motivated not only by legal issues but by SA deciding to be the taste police and baninate journals they thought were "inappropriate." WTF? My first instinct is that he's talking out his ass, but this does not bode well for LJ's side of the story.
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I'm not sure why people are going on about first amendment, copyright issues and censorship, because it's obvious that LJ is just trying to do what I think is a good thing (getting rid of things encouraging paedophilia), but has done it in a very shite way.
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I mean, it's a Very Bad Thing that fandom is getting caught in the blast of the whole pedophilia thing, and tarred with the same brush as some of the really nasty communities that got suspended--but for LJ, SixApart, and even the WFI idiots who started the whole thing, it's totally not about the legality of the fic, or even about the fic itself. I would be very, very surprised if LJ Abuse and the tech people in charge of the suspensions were even allowed to look at anything on the suspended journals besides the interest lists.
The reason I'm hesitant to demand a refund on my paid account, jump ship to GJ, or even write a bitter screed about LJ is that no matter how much wank has exploded on the issue, in the places where it counts--WFI and the LJ team--the whole kerfuffle is still in its early stages. LJ realized it was in potential legal trouble and took a really ill-advised step to cover its ass; I'm waiting to see if LJ realizes how many people it's pissed off and tries to find some other method of avoiding liability, or goes down the slippery slope and does further suspensions based on other interests, or decides to call WFI's bluff, or apologizes to the victims of the "collateral damage" but does nothing to fix it. They're going to have to say something eventually, and I'd bet good money that the situation will develop further.
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I'm waiting to get some hard information on this. People are scared and it's hard to tell what's going on.
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Right now I'm trying to stay away from everyone who's flailing about freedom of speech, and just stick to what WFI has said, what correspondence from LJ has been posted on WFI's site, what LJ Abuse has said to the suspended users, and maybe a bit of legal analysis à la the linked post. Mind, if the linked post is correct, I still have a bunch of questions--why were violence-related interests that didn't fall under the wide-reaching child porn laws targeted? why were interests like incest that aren't actually illegal targeted?--but I think most of the hysteria is on the wrong track.
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http://www.metafilter.com/61636/livejournal-suspends-hundreds-of-accounts#1712054