Fandom Post
May. 30th, 2007 08:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jebbypalDear me -- do not try to fool yourself that you will wake up at 5 am the morning after you have a migraine (that started after taking an aleve). Really. Not going to happen.
ETA3: Okay, based on this post and also the crappy media relations on the one public article (lost the link, sorry), I take most of my "wait and see" comments here back. LJ is handling this badly, but the above link does show that for better or worse, LJ isn't public if you aren't under flock.
eta: in case you've been on vacation/under rock: Liz Marcs provides a good summary of events and the various sites/links/places to comment or sources to look for your recourses/alternatives to LJ. Not that I'm advocating that - I've always found LJ very homey, myself.
So, I'm flocking this mostly because I try to stay out of the big wanks. People can quote me if you want. Obviously, this is over the big LJ "rumor" kerfuffle of whether or not journals are being deleted based on interest keywords that may be construed to promote illegal activity. ETA -- on second thought, I won't flock, but I am turning comments off because I have no interest in reading the potential flames or agreements. It's my take and there's only so much of the situation I want to follow.
First off, seriously, is there anyone in fandom that actually went ahead and put "incest" in your interest keywords? I mean, really. Even if you are into slash or whatever, that's odd. Now, it's different if you did that as you were interested in promoting discussion on surviving or living with incest. But if you put it there because of fandom, accept that you experienced a temporary brain fart when filling out your keywords and change it.
Okay, that's off my chest. I get the whole "but we pay for our journals" indignation and insistence that you at least be given some due process because of that. And if your account has been suspended, I suspect you'll get some. But right now, it appears that they are going by interest key words and don't have the staff to check each journal as they suspend/delete.
But more than that, in fandom, we all know that this can happen even if we own our own domain. How many horror stories have we heard of or personally witnessed of some fan receiving a Cease and Desist order from a studio for providing show transcripts or what have you? Regardless of where we are located, we depend on both the host and the PTB turning a blind eye to our content and activities -- regardless of the actual content.
Is it in poor taste for LJ to do this without warning or explanation? Yes. But in their defense, they didn't give any explanation or warning most likely due to 1) volume of journals they are trying to scan for potential problems and 2) to prevent the actual offenders from deleting their LJ (though I assume LJ has some archival system to keep deleted journals around -- Yes, yes, I know, WfI tipped the hand when they posted the open letters targeting LJ. That's neither here nor there.). Probably after they finish, they'll dig through each suspended account and determine if any should be referred to the proper authorities and at that time determine if all the suspended accounts should actually be suspended. No, I'm not a legal scholar, I'm simply applying some reasonable logic to what might be going on in their heads after they got spooked by whatever started the situation --- which may have been an internet group. Or it may be due to a piece of state or federal legislation we know nothing about --- I don't know about you, but I do remember the kerfuffle a few months ago in which several LJers from California posted huge warning with regard to some California statute and asked that anyone under 18 not read their porn stories.
And finally, I've seen some people be upset about "expectation of privacy" and all that. Umm, hello? INTERNET. WORLD WIDE WEB. Are you really that naive? Search engines and ISPs have been pressed to turn over all their data and backups under the guise of homeland security and child predator protection. Everything you do, be it under friends lock or not, is recorded somewhere - be it at your ISP's computers, or on LJs servers. It's not private. it never will be. Remember the fear when LJ seek and the like came out about whether or not your flocked posts were truly private?
We've all been lucky that LJ isn't the size of MySpace and we haven't technically been in the crosshairs of any major legislative body specifically. Though yes, the whole "block social networking sites from public buildings of libraries and schools to protect the children" does. Still, LJ has been spared many of the hassles of MySpace and Facebook thus far. It wasn't going to last forever. As a smaller site, there's less people to deal with things when the shit hits the fan.
So yes, if you know people affected and feel that the suspension is in error, complain and keep records. But let's calm down a little and put the torches and the pitchforks back in storage. And that's probably the last thing I have to say on the subject.
ETA3: Okay, based on this post and also the crappy media relations on the one public article (lost the link, sorry), I take most of my "wait and see" comments here back. LJ is handling this badly, but the above link does show that for better or worse, LJ isn't public if you aren't under flock.
eta: in case you've been on vacation/under rock: Liz Marcs provides a good summary of events and the various sites/links/places to comment or sources to look for your recourses/alternatives to LJ. Not that I'm advocating that - I've always found LJ very homey, myself.
So, I'm flocking this mostly because I try to stay out of the big wanks. People can quote me if you want. Obviously, this is over the big LJ "rumor" kerfuffle of whether or not journals are being deleted based on interest keywords that may be construed to promote illegal activity. ETA -- on second thought, I won't flock, but I am turning comments off because I have no interest in reading the potential flames or agreements. It's my take and there's only so much of the situation I want to follow.
First off, seriously, is there anyone in fandom that actually went ahead and put "incest" in your interest keywords? I mean, really. Even if you are into slash or whatever, that's odd. Now, it's different if you did that as you were interested in promoting discussion on surviving or living with incest. But if you put it there because of fandom, accept that you experienced a temporary brain fart when filling out your keywords and change it.
Okay, that's off my chest. I get the whole "but we pay for our journals" indignation and insistence that you at least be given some due process because of that. And if your account has been suspended, I suspect you'll get some. But right now, it appears that they are going by interest key words and don't have the staff to check each journal as they suspend/delete.
But more than that, in fandom, we all know that this can happen even if we own our own domain. How many horror stories have we heard of or personally witnessed of some fan receiving a Cease and Desist order from a studio for providing show transcripts or what have you? Regardless of where we are located, we depend on both the host and the PTB turning a blind eye to our content and activities -- regardless of the actual content.
Is it in poor taste for LJ to do this without warning or explanation? Yes. But in their defense, they didn't give any explanation or warning most likely due to 1) volume of journals they are trying to scan for potential problems and 2) to prevent the actual offenders from deleting their LJ (though I assume LJ has some archival system to keep deleted journals around -- Yes, yes, I know, WfI tipped the hand when they posted the open letters targeting LJ. That's neither here nor there.). Probably after they finish, they'll dig through each suspended account and determine if any should be referred to the proper authorities and at that time determine if all the suspended accounts should actually be suspended. No, I'm not a legal scholar, I'm simply applying some reasonable logic to what might be going on in their heads after they got spooked by whatever started the situation --- which may have been an internet group. Or it may be due to a piece of state or federal legislation we know nothing about --- I don't know about you, but I do remember the kerfuffle a few months ago in which several LJers from California posted huge warning with regard to some California statute and asked that anyone under 18 not read their porn stories.
And finally, I've seen some people be upset about "expectation of privacy" and all that. Umm, hello? INTERNET. WORLD WIDE WEB. Are you really that naive? Search engines and ISPs have been pressed to turn over all their data and backups under the guise of homeland security and child predator protection. Everything you do, be it under friends lock or not, is recorded somewhere - be it at your ISP's computers, or on LJs servers. It's not private. it never will be. Remember the fear when LJ seek and the like came out about whether or not your flocked posts were truly private?
We've all been lucky that LJ isn't the size of MySpace and we haven't technically been in the crosshairs of any major legislative body specifically. Though yes, the whole "block social networking sites from public buildings of libraries and schools to protect the children" does. Still, LJ has been spared many of the hassles of MySpace and Facebook thus far. It wasn't going to last forever. As a smaller site, there's less people to deal with things when the shit hits the fan.
So yes, if you know people affected and feel that the suspension is in error, complain and keep records. But let's calm down a little and put the torches and the pitchforks back in storage. And that's probably the last thing I have to say on the subject.