Frankly I think Six Apart is worried from a marketing/publicity standpoint from how MySpace has gotten shelled over hosting pages from sex offenders who were using the medium.
LiveJournal is a huge community, and there is still a lot of growth and a lot potential to what it can become (and importantly for Six Apart, how much money it can generate) and I think those at the company want to expand their reach to more — and in particular, younger — audiences. And how you get them (or how many think so) is through parents. If you ask parents of pre-teens if they'd feel comfortable letting their child create a page on MySpace and actively use that community, I'm sure you'd get many concerned responses. I believe Six Apart is worried about their community drifting away from being a safe, welcoming place for all ages (whether substantiated or not), and the deletions serve as a way to show parents and the media that it is a "safe" environment.
I have not read the latest terms and conditions or policies for LJ, but I'm sure, like most content storage services out there, they include a clause that enables them to change anything at their discretion, and more importantly, remove content as they see fit. (Correct me if I'm wrong: I do believe, just like YouTube and others, they own the content on the site when you publish your entries.)
Unfortunately when you put up content through another company they set the rules, no matter if they're fair or not. I applaud you for taking a stand and trying to work with Six Apart to accommodate legitimate LiveJournal sub-communities and personal blogs, but I think truly the only way to remain uncensored is to own your own content delivery system (e.g. web site).
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Date: 2007-05-31 11:43 am (UTC)LiveJournal is a huge community, and there is still a lot of growth and a lot potential to what it can become (and importantly for Six Apart, how much money it can generate) and I think those at the company want to expand their reach to more — and in particular, younger — audiences. And how you get them (or how many think so) is through parents. If you ask parents of pre-teens if they'd feel comfortable letting their child create a page on MySpace and actively use that community, I'm sure you'd get many concerned responses. I believe Six Apart is worried about their community drifting away from being a safe, welcoming place for all ages (whether substantiated or not), and the deletions serve as a way to show parents and the media that it is a "safe" environment.
I have not read the latest terms and conditions or policies for LJ, but I'm sure, like most content storage services out there, they include a clause that enables them to change anything at their discretion, and more importantly, remove content as they see fit. (Correct me if I'm wrong: I do believe, just like YouTube and others, they own the content on the site when you publish your entries.)
Unfortunately when you put up content through another company they set the rules, no matter if they're fair or not. I applaud you for taking a stand and trying to work with Six Apart to accommodate legitimate LiveJournal sub-communities and personal blogs, but I think truly the only way to remain uncensored is to own your own content delivery system (e.g. web site).