Because censorship is wrong.

[riot_nrrrd]

I realize that it's been a day since the whole controversy erupted, which means that, in LJ-land, everything to be said about it has already been said, but I feel the need to weigh in on the mass LJ deletion that has gone down in the past day.

For those of you not in the know: recently, a group calling itself Warriors for Innocence-- a self-styled child-abuse-and-incest vigilante group which a) does not appear to have any real credentials as an anti-abuse-and-incest activist group, b) appears to be little more than a few disgruntled individuals with a blog and a chip on their shoulder, c) may have links to Dominionist groups and even a right-wing militia, has threatened LiveJournal with legal action if it does not delete a number of journals that, it claims, promote incest and child abuse.

As a result, some 500 journals, including both communities and personal journals, have been deleted from LiveJournal. While some of them are, in fact, communities glorifying incest and child abuse, the vast majority of them are fanfiction communities with adult content, personal journals of fanfic writers, journals by and for rape and incest survivors, roleplay and discussion journals concerning consensual ageplay, and, in one case, a community journal dedicated to discussing the novel Lolita. (You can get a more complete list of deleted journals here.) Many, if not most, of these journals have been deleted not for their actual content, but for the content of their interests lists-- journals containing "rape" and "incest" in their interests lists, as well as other, more oblique interests (I have heard of one journal being suspended for having "pretty boys" on its interest list.) Most journals were deleted without warning, and without hope of appeal.

The powers-that-be at Six Apart (the company who owns LiveJournal) claim that the mass deletion of journal is meant to decrease their liability, by ridding LJ of journals that "promote illegal activity." Furthermore, Barak Berkowitz, chairman of Six Apart, asserts that, even if many of said journals did not actively promote real-life sexual abuse, they will stay deleted because "Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not." In other words, LiveJournal is not what its users want to make of it, but what Six Apart wants to make of it, and they reserve the right to censor and delete any journal which they feel is counter to the image they want for LJ. Six Apart has since conceded that they did delete some journals in error, but that most of said journals will remain deleted, with probably little more than a dozen journals getting reinstated.

I'm sure I need not mention to all of you that this is censorship of the worst sort.

I have been a loyal member of LJ for some seven years now, and I have stuck with this site through all sorts of controversy. One such controversy keeps cropping up in my head in light of this rash of deletions. I remember, a few years ago, a huge controversy erupted regarding the proliferation of pro-eating disorder communities on LiveJournal. At the time, the powers-that-be on LJ argued that pro-anorexia and -bulimia communities were protected by free speech, and would thus be allowed to stay. (I do not remember if Six Apart was in charge at the time, but simply insert "pro ana" in the interests search at the top of your page, and you will see that this policy persists: pro-eating disorder communities are everywhere on LiveJournal.) I find it absolutely appalling that journals and communities that actively promote and encourage destructive behavior in their members are allowed to not only remain, but proliferate, on LiveJournal, while surivors' journals, and journals that explore social and sexual taboos through FICTION, are being deleted without warning or appeal.

I encourage you all to either e-mail privacy@livejournal.com, or preferably, to call Six Apart protesting this policy. (I e-mailed Six Apart today, and plan to call tomorrow.) In the meantime, I want all of your insights on the merits of free blog services you've subscribed to, and am thinking of setting up a GreatestJournal. I fear that, if this doesn't clear up, then LiveJournal and I have gone as far as we can go together.

EDIT: Apparently, said censorship not only implies an uneven application of the LJ Terms of Service, but is in direct contradiction with Six Apart's policy on the subject four months ago. The hypocrisy, it hurts the brain.

Also, while we're at it: A not entirely accurate, but certainly more comprehensive, list of victims of the LJ purge.

Comments

I want to have my cake and eat it too!

[(Anonymous)]

"I want my LiveJournal, but I want it on my terms goddammit, not theirs - even though THEY'RE the ones providing me the space to write my journal in the first place!"

Uh huh. You know, I'm as against censorship as the next freedom-loving red-blooded American, and I agree with that handy-dandy Voltaire quote that someone's sure to post at some point - but you know what? It's stupid to think that I have the right to spread my message or speak my mind IN SOMEONE ELSE'S HOUSE. LiveJournal has decided that there are some things that they do NOT want associated with their names. If you don't like it, too goddamn bad.

LiveJournal has every right to censor whatever the hell they want. You have a journal there because they LET you have a journal there (at no charge, I might add) - and if they decide they don't want to let you have it anymore, tough shit. You're in NO position to dictate terms to THEM, when THEY'RE the ones giving you the journal-space in the first place. If you have a problem with LiveJournal's content policy, then take your blogging elsewhere. Plain and simple.

If someone came into my journal and started preaching, say, how great racism and bigotry are, you bet your bottom dollar I'd censor their posts in a Minnesota heartbeat. I have zero tolerance for that kind of shit. You want to preach something I have zero tolerance for? Fine. Knock yourself out. But you're not doing it in MY house.

From your post it says that LiveJournal apparantly stated, "[The censorship] was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not." Who the fuck is this "starstealingirl", or anyone else for that matter, to decide what kind of community LJ should have to build, or what LJ should have to find apporpriate. If you don't like the way LJ does business, if you don't like the kind of community they're building, if you don't like what they do and don't find appropriate, then WHY ARE YOU HERE?

Don't bother answering. The answer is the same as it is whenever folks complain about Walmart or gas prices. The answer is: "Because I want to have my cake and eat it too."


===
And no, I'm not an LJ user in case you were wondering, and I can only guess as to why YOU folks are when you clearly have such contempt for the place.

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

Um... do you actually know me, or are you just stirring up shit because you enjoy it?

Re: I want to have my cake and eat it too!

[gender-euphoric.livejournal.com]

the walmart and gas prices examples don't work (besides the fact that you are assuming that people who are complicit with american-style capitalism because they have to be AGREE with it or can't critique it. They can and should especially since their money is fueling it.)

This is a community that requires *my* CONTENT and paid account money to make it great. as such, i consider myself a minor shareholder in the livejournal brand. And as such, they should be accountable to me.

If people didn't break any laws or violate TOS, they shouldn't have been deleted or suspended. In doing so, livejournal/six apart violated community standards (i'll get back to that) and certainly at the very least should have to refund people's money (pro-rated of course) if these deleted folks had paid accounts. I'd also like to see them get to access their journals and their content again to be able to save it somewhere else.

Community standards - livejournal has always banked on its community standards of noncensorship and free speech to get satisfied users and attract more customers/content adders. it has relied on internet reputation and word-of-mouth advertising. if things have changed here, then i think everyone who uses this service has a right, if not a duty, to inform others.

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU, Jay. I'm pretty exhausted and have exceeded my eloquence capacity for the day, but this is more or less exactly how I feel about the whole debacle.

Re: I want to have my cake and eat it too!

[(Anonymous)]

"This is a community that requires *my* CONTENT and paid account money to make it great."

LJ has obviously decided that SOME people's content don't make it all that great. That's THEIR right, because it's THEIR site - NOT yours. They are merely PERMITTING you to be here.

"as such, i consider myself a minor shareholder in the livejournal brand. And as such, they should be accountable to me."

rofl. When was the last time you attended a stockholders meeting? You own squat when it comes to LJ. You are here because they ALLOW you to be here. They are, in no way whatsoever, accountable to you. You are permitted to post within their website at THEIR consent and discretion - not your own.

"If people didn't break any laws or violate TOS, they shouldn't have been deleted or suspended."

YOU don't get to determine LJ's terms of service or content policy. THEY get to - and you can either get on board with it, or go find somewhere else to host your journal.

"I'd also like to see them get to access their journals and their content again to be able to save it somewhere else."

What makes you think you have any right to it? Because you wrote it? Newsflash: when you submitted it to LiveJournal, you gave it up to them. Them deleting it is no different than as if they'd had a server crash and it all got lost. You risked losing your work when you decided to host it somewhere other than your own servers. If your work was that important to you, you'd keep backup copies.

"Community standards - livejournal has always banked on its community standards of noncensorship and free speech to get satisfied users and attract more customers/content adders."

LJ obviously cares more about not being associated with child abusers than they do the oh-so-precious "community standards" that YOU'RE demanding THEY adopt. Their "standards" are THEIRS to decide, because THEY OWN this so-called "community". If you don't like the way LiveJournal runs their community, Myspace and Geocities are just a click away.

"if things have changed here, then i think everyone who uses this service has a right, if not a duty, to inform others."

It's one thing to inform others when a group unjustly being oppressed and deprived. It's a whole other thing to whine and complain when YOU'RE the one trying to dictate what you should be allowed to say on someone else's website.

Re: I want to have my cake and eat it too!

[gender-euphoric.livejournal.com]

oh MY god. can YOU stop TYPING like THIS?
I only did the all caps for emphasis thing like 3 times.

You originally stated that you were posting anonymously since you weren't an LJ user. If that's actually true, you probably don't understand the culture here. The culture that I have been taking part in for at least 5 years. If you can't understand how this "act stupidly first, talk to your members later" slash and burn policy of six apart's isn't offensive (especially the part where they felt they should be more loyal to a shadowy interest group than their own members)--you aren't going to get it. so let's stop wasting time.

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

Methinks it is time to start logging the IP addresses of anonymous commenters.

[(Anonymous)]

I have nothing to hide, I just don't feel like registering with LJ. If you'd like to get a better idea of who you're talking to, click away:

http://www.okcupid.com/profile?u=atomicturtle

I'm talking about this subject over in my journal now too - and you're all welcome to come comment on it if you'd like.

[gender-euphoric.livejournal.com]

for some reason it error out when i try to post comments there.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm pretty sure you have to register to reply to journal comments. I know you can't even VIEW some people's profiles/journals without being a member.

PS. Sorry star, for distracting the discussion with this side-issue.

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

It's all good. The thing is, I don't mind anonymous commenters, but I like it if they post some reference to who they are and what their web presence is. It feels like less of a hit-and-run if they leave some sort of trail to back them up.

(And I don't mind the main discussion, either. I obviously don't agree with you, but as the debate has calmed down and gotten less inflammatory, I haven't minded hosting it.)

Question: where did you find my journal?

[gender-euphoric.livejournal.com]

it looks like 3_14159, had a post linking to this entry on her okcupid blog, but she removed it: http://www.okcupid.com/journal?pid=4682335030818585265&tuid=14788705095077718505

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

Sigh. I don't blame Susie for the troll attack, but man, is okcupid not a bastion of intelligence. I love this guy's assertion that he is "antagonizing the extremists" for entertainment is actually a means of discussing issues effectively. For that matter, I love the idea that anyone who has any sort of conviction or passion for an issue is an "extremist," and worthy of "antagonism." There is no moderation here. There is just playing devil's advocate and flaming for the sake of pissing people off.

Re: I want to have my cake and eat it too!

[(Anonymous)]

"If that's actually true, you probably don't understand the culture here."

That's a fair criticism - but it doesn't change the point. Regardless of how long you've been here or what you find offensive, keep in mind that LiveJournal has every right to decide for themselves what kind of content they want on their servers, and what kind of content gets associated with their site. If I ran LiveJournal, I'd totally support a persons right to believe in all kinds of heinous stuff - child abuse, racism, rape, whatever - but just because I respect their right to believe what they want DOESN'T mean I have to give them a place to express those beliefs. You are not entitled to LiveJournal on your terms. You are permitted to use LiveJournal on THEIRS.

"If you can't understand how this "act stupidly first, talk to your members later" slash and burn policy of six apart's isn't offensive"

Who are you to dictate how they should act? If you don't like how LJ does business, take your business elsewhere. It's that simple.

Re: I want to have my cake and eat it too!

[gender-euphoric.livejournal.com]

Proclaiming something "offensive" is not equivalent to "dictating how someone should act". I'm very well aware that I'm in no position to dictate how livejournal should act--I'm not stupid. Am I not allowed to debate/critique how a service and community that I've paid for (and devoted my time to) treats its customers/users?

I think a little more transparency on this issue from livejournal would have been in good faith and community-supportive. I know they don't *have* to, but it would gone a long way to calm the disgruntled.

Re: I want to have my cake and eat it too!

[(Anonymous)]

"Am I not allowed to debate/critique how a service and community that I've paid for (and devoted my time to) treats its customers/users?"

Of course! I'm not saying we shouldn't be having this discussion (in fact, I'm quite enjoying it. Been awhile since I've had a good censorship debate. :), or that LiveJournal folks don't have a right to be upset. I'm merely saying that if this is how LJ wants to run their site, that's their exclusive right.

"I know they don't *have* to, but it would gone a long way to calm the disgruntled."

Most likely - but it doesn't really change anything as far as the merits of this dicussion are concerned. LJ could unilaterally and without warning decide to ban all black people. It'd make them total assholes, and a lot of people would be very justified in being very pissed - but even something as heinous as that wouldn't change the fact that LiveJournal can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants with their website.

.

[gender-euphoric.livejournal.com]

ok, fine. rah rah capitalism. i sometimes don't like debating with libertarians -- known to cause a blood pressure spike.

i feel bad that starstealingirl is getting all these comments, presumably emailed to her. so if i have anything more to say, i will attempt to post it in your okcupid journal.

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, lord. If there's anyone who can raise my hackles as much as conservatives, it's libertarians. Conservatives may have shitty principles, but at least they have principles at all. Libertarians don't seem to believe in anything beyond "not if I find it inconvenient."

Re: I want to have my cake and eat it too!

[giniliz.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is about the most useless comment here, and I say that as someone who actually used the "someone else's house" metaphor myself.

By the way, LJ higher-ups are admitting to some rash decision making.

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

While I'm pretty effing delighted to see the head of Six Apart eat crow, there are aspects of his statement that I'm really not thrilled about. Specifically, this:

There were a number of profiles that expressed “interest” in activities that most of us would agree put children at risk, notably pedophilia and child rape. Both in the instructions for profiles and in other places on the site we make it clear that interests listed should be evaluated within the context of “I like x”, “I’m in favor of x” or “I support x”.

I think anybody with even a cursory understanding of LJ knows that the actual users do not interpret the interests lists that way. An interests lists, to most people, is a list of things a journal user is interested in, not that they like. (I have "fundamentalism" on my interests lists, because I'm interested in keeping abreast of what fundie and Dominionist groups are doing, not because I'm a big ol' fundie myself.) I think 6A needs to be more sensitive to the actual way users are interpreting and using their journal content, rather than attempt to monolithically force their interpretation on the whold of LJ.

More importantly, I'm pretty alarmed by this statement:

Another issue we needed to deal with was journals that used a thin veneer of fictional or academic interest in events and storylines that include child rape, pedophilia, and similar themes in order to actually promote these activities. While there are stories, essays, and discussions that include discussion of these issues in an effort to understand and prevent them, others use a pretext to promote these activities. It’s often very hard to tell the difference.

This paragraph of the entry has since been changed, and perhaps that'll be enough to mollify me, but the implication here has been, and may yet be, that if a journal doesn't go out of its way to assure any innocent passers-by don't understand that it doesn't approve of said issues, that is grounds for deletion. And here, I can't help thinking: would Lolita have been as powerful a novel if Nabokov had prefaced it with: "Just so you know, I don't approve of pedophilia"? Does this mean that ageplay fetishists will have to tack on "...but actual child abuse is WRONG WRONG WRONG" to all of their entries? Will fanfiction that doesn't portray incest, etc. as universally creepy and coming to no good end be interpreted as glorifying incest, and thus, be deleted?

Because, frankly, issues like age-disparate sex and incest have more facets to them than just "this is good" or "this is bad." Talking about such issues can, in some cases, better illuminate our society's attitude toward sexuality as a whole. Furthermore, there have been consensual age-disparate sexual relations and consensual incestuous relations in human history. I am not condemning or approving of such relationships, but I certainly don't think that any good can come from just sweeping them under the rug and forbidding people to talk about them in any but the most condemning tones. (Hanne Blank (http://misia.livejournal.com/1050549.html) has discussed this more eloquently than I can.)

So while I'm glad Barak Berkowitz has admitted to rashness, I'm withholding my big fat sigh of relief until I see what he and 6A are deigning to do about it.

[giniliz.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't mind if I play devil's advocate here. I say this with sincerity, not as somebody hiding behind "devil's advocacy" just to put out an unpopular view. What you have written is generally in line with what i have said and thought about the situation. I am aware, though, that legal matters don't generally come down on the side of what a bunch of young people with amorphous understandings of the internet collectively belief something to mean. The internet is new and written policies and their enforcements are coming to matter a lot more than we might want, so it is somewhat understandable that they would want to cover their asses on this.

I'm with you completely on a need for more open discussion about things such as age and attitudes toward sexuality and consent. I'm just not sure we can expect Livejournal to enact that for us, since it is they that will face the greater repercussions if some judge doesn't read smart people like Hanne Blank.

[giniliz.livejournal.com]

Okay, re-reading this, I didn't end up playing devil's advocate as much as I thought I was going to. Ah well. I also didn't proofread. I'll blame this cat that keeps walking across my keyboard.

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

Eh, well. If I had a penny for the amount of times that I posted LJ comments without proofreading that ended up in a totally different place than I intended them to, I'd never have to work again.

Re: I want to have my cake and eat it too!

[3-14159.livejournal.com]

I don't think she ever said they don't have the right to censor. She just said that she didn't think they should.

And she's already looking into getting a blog hosted elsewhere.

Try reading next time.