oh bugger that for a lark....

[lagilman]

Have you heard about the New Rules According to Six Apart's Morality Police?

"Thousands of LiveJournal customers are rebelling against the company's recent decision to censor hundreds of sex-themed discussion groups, a broad swath that has led to the removal of literary critiques and fan-written fiction about Harry Potter.

LiveJournal, which is owned by San Francisco-based Six Apart, confirmed Wednesday that it deleted around 500 journals this week in hopes of better "protecting children." It said the deletion was prompted by activist groups, including one called Warriors for Innocence that claims to track sites promoting pedophilia, the sexual abuse of minors, and other illegal activities."

The article then goes on to point out that

"Legal experts say LiveJournal is clearly not liable for fictional stories and related discussions posted by its users, thanks to a 1996 federal law immunizing Web-based discussion forums from lawsuits. 'If the content is otherwise legal, then LiveJournal has no obligation to police its site or remove any legal content it finds,' said Eric Goldman, who teaches at the Santa Clara University School of Law. "

(emphasis mine)

EtA: mind you, if something crosses the boundries into illegality, I agree it should go. But using a broadsword instead of a scalpel just proves you're a moron, and defending the broadsword means you're a moron without a PR person.

etA2: this post hasn't been verified yet, but it suggests that the so-called "Warriors For Innocence" have ties to several radical and extremely racists 'Christian militia" groups. You know, the kind that say if you're anything other than Them, you're a god-hating, child-abusing, liberal-voting, devil-worshiping....

hey. Has anyone told this group that LJ's mascot is a goat? And that they're based in San Francisco?



Anyone else really tempted to list "highly sexualized goat-pr0n" as an interest, to see how long it takes to get their account deleted as being "bad for the CHILdren?"

I'm not going to jump ship just yet -- I'm digging in and fighting back the only way I know how -- with words here, and a hit to their wallet there. I encourage everyone else to do the same. Leaving just makes these anally troubled organizations think they've taken the field without resistence. Hell no, I won't go. And if it takes posting explicit pr0n to this journal to make a point, well, my family's always been a big fan of civil disobedience....

Comments

[rhonawestbrook.livejournal.com]

LOL....I agree with you!

:::Pumps fist in air::::

Let them take two of us on.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my f-list has been screaming bloody murder since the purges started. Frakking idiots.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Leaving just makes these anally troubled organizations think they've taken the field without resistence.

Precisely, and only makes them think that they'll be successful as they hunt everyone down to the *next* place. Better to stay and ride it out, and to remind SixApart of the egg that ended up all over AOL's face when they banned dirty words and got ridiculed for banning breast cancer survivor and breast feeding journals.

[chaoticgoodnik.livejournal.com]

LiveJournal already banned icons that depict breast-feeding, IIRC. Though they may have reversed that at some point.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I remember that. I think some still sneak through.

But I see a difference between banning images and banning whole communities. One moderately limits self-expression; the other entirely shuts it down.

[debg.livejournal.com]

I'm staying here, and running one over at greaterjournal.

I'm livid at the stupid CEO. And yes, VERY tempted to list a few highly-flavoured things - including "beating Warriors of Innocence to death with a rock" - as interests.

[debg.livejournal.com]

make that "greatestjournal". Oy.

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. I'm not ready to exit stage left yet. I was annoyed by the whole thing before but when the CEO managed to find the time to speak wth CNET and no one from SixApart managed to even say "statement coming soon" to the THOUSANDS of messages on the LJ news journal - well, that (plus the laughable idea that SixApart had build this community) was just rude.

Since Lolita has been deemed to dangerous fore the children, anyone up for a robust disscussion of de Sade?

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

de Sade's effect on the perception of Lolita?

[lagilman]

Since Lolita has been deemed to dangerous fore the children, anyone up for a robust disscussion of de Sade?

I'd join that comm, just to have it on my f-list.

what I really want is to come up with a perfectly reasonable interest that will trigger their broadsword, and have a mass listing of it. See if we can get, oh, a hundred, two hundred people all listing it at the same time....

*hums a bar of 'Alice's Restaurant'*

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

fabulous! Let's make it so. Shall it be a de Sade specific community or a more general type of thing - a community to discuss various writers of erotica - Anaïs Nin, de Sade, etc - and related works - say, a side bar discussion of the Kama Sutra?

What shall we call it?

[debg.livejournal.com]

I was thinking Justine might be a good choice. Complete with large vibrantly coloured tags, announcing what's being discussed.

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

Lordy, I have a copy of Justone somewhere. Now where did I put it . . .

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

Justine, that is

[debg.livejournal.com]

I've already been seriously, profanely, grotesquely rude about the moron in charge of this mess, and the likelihood that he's having it off with a member of the Fundy Purity Brigade or whatever they are, in my own lj.

I feel like blasting Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down" at warp eleven. Or plugging in one of my guitars and playing my own version.

GOD, I am furious.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I feel like blasting Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down" at warp eleven.

There's a Brian May song for all occasions. Truth.

[debg.livejournal.com]

Dude, I've got eleven axes and a Mesa Boogie three feet away. If I wasn't trying to finish up a chapter section in new book - which has already lost a shitload of time to this mess today - I'd be rattling the wineglasses at the other end of my house.

Damn it.

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

I know it's not De Sade, but how about a discussion on 'The Story of O'? }:P

[debg.livejournal.com]

Where was that BDSM training facility? Passy? Bercy? Long time since I read O.

But there's no incest in that one. Justine's got incest, IIRC.

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

Ahh but there's rape, there's kidnapping, various BDSM forms that could be construed as torture.

I'd have to look it up as to where it was again.

Then we also have 'The New Story of O', which features implied incest, rape, underage sex, etc.

Of course, there's also Anne Rice's Beauty series....

Various Victorian Erotica aka 'bodice rippers'....

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

Oh and speaking of goats... how could I forget Morgan Llywellyn's 'The Horse Goddess' , which has beastiality featuring women and horses.

[debg.livejournal.com]

Nothing would induce me to read Anne Rice. She gives me heartburn.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

There's a journal - lost now in the blizzard of links - that is specifically asking for comments with works of great literature that would get TOSsed under the SixApart hysteria right now. Amazing how much pedophilia and incest there is in just the Greeks and Shakespeare!

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

Amazing how much pedophilia and incest there is in just the Greeks and Shakespeare!

Or Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur? Or Mann's Death in Venice? Or almost any of Anne Perry's Pitt mysteries. It's everywhere!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Or almost any of Anne Perry's Pitt mysteries.

Ew, really?

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

well, there's not graphic sex in the books, no. But in the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series (as opposed to the William Monk series), the core of the mystery is often (before she got hung up on the Inner Circle) the sexual abuse of a young child by a family member. Sometimes the child lashes out, sometimes it's the mother killing the abuser. I think once the abuser killed themselves as the news was about to break. I'd have to go back and check but the earlier end of that series is awash in it.

Then she made up the Inner Circle and fell in love with her own creation (a bad habit of hers, it would seem) and it became so omnipresent, I stopped reading them.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

Warriors for Innocence sure sounds like like a good name for a pedophilic community to me. It would at least have pedophelia listed as an interest for sure.

I'm not searching for it - I'd probably find it.

[vampry.livejournal.com]

Good idea not searching. If you do go to the Warriors for Innocence webpage, be careful. People have gotten spyware and adware on their computer from them; I just scanned my machine and found more than usual.

[wolfsilveroak.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to jump ship just yet -- I'm digging in and fighting back the only way I know how -- with words here, and a hit to their wallet there. I encourage everyone else to do the same.

My thoughts exactly.
Mind you, I do have journals elsewhere, if they decide to ban me, perchance.}:P

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

Remember, these were the same idiots who tried to ban using nursing mother photos as icons, and not completely successfully either...

[kriz1818.livejournal.com]

I just switched my account from Plus (free, with ads) to Basic (free, no ads). But first I sent them a "support ticket" explaining why.

[meekachuegs.livejournal.com]

so if you get purged where can I find you to continue to get your nuggets of wisdom, advice, and whatever else happens to come to mind for you?

if I suddenly go bye-bye...

[lagilman]

http://cosanostradamus.blogspot.com/


I must have had an inkling...

(mind you, I've not been happy with sixApart since the whole "corporate accounts" thing.... I saw where the wind was blowing, which was 'screw the people who built us, we want Corporate Money and are willing to whore you out for it."

Not that there's anything wrong with corporate money, if you wash it in good deeds and bleach. But there's got to be a balance!)

Re: if I suddenly go bye-bye...

[argillaceous-d.livejournal.com]

I keep following you around the cyberverse, don't I? At least I already have a account at the new site this time :))

[kalligraphy.livejournal.com]

I'm staying and fighting back. While I suspect that some of the communities and users probably should have been deleted, they went way overboard and just used broadstrokes. I find this very telling considering that I complained to the abuse team a couple of years ago about a troll that created a journal then went around to LGBT communities, joined them and then posted hate filled rants in which he made threats of violence and bodily harm. All of this is clear violation of the Terms of Service. The LJ abuse team response was that it was free speech and they wouldn't do anything about it.