LiveJournal Says Users are Responsible for Content of Links

Many of you might remember the previous story about LiveJournal erroneously deleting hundreds of users as suspected paedophiles, spurred on by pressure from the group, Warriors for innocence. Since then, they've been taking action against users hosting material on their servers that they believe to be illegal. Today, LiveJournal management have demonstrated a serious lack of understanding in how the internet works, declaring that users are responsible for the content of the webpages that they link to in their blog entries. A user points out the obvious flaw: "I get ToS'd because the link's been redirected to a page full o' porn, even though context clearly shows that when I originally put up the link that it didn't actually land on a page of porn?" One wonders how such a long-established blogging company can be so ignorant about the nature of the world wide web.

No right to protection from stupidity

[Harmonious Botch]

This is not about "your rights online". LiveJournal is a private company, not a govenrment agency. Their web site is private property, and it is not a monopoly.
To speak of 'rights' on their web site is sort of speaking about rights at K-Mart. You don't have any. If you don't like what K-Mart does, you leave and go to their competitor.
If LiveJournal does something that you find intolerably stupid, then quit and go post on their competition's web site.

Re:Big deal?

[Tribbin]

Or get your own domain and link to all the pervertic shit you want.

Re:Umm...

[porcupine8]

As much as it pains me to help the wankers, I should point out that there's no "No Porn" rule. The problems have been with child porn. Specifically, if you draw a picture of 16-year-old Harry Potter performing unseemly acts with 35-year-old Severus Snape, is that child porn? LJ has been somewhat inconsistent with its definitions, so now people are worried they will carry those inconsistent definitions over to this, making it hard to tell what links are OK. Personally, I think we can all just give up our Snarry porn and live happily ever after, but apparently there are MANY PEOPLE (a few dozen) to whom this is a VITAL FORM OF EXPRESSION.

Oh and....

[porcupine8]

The other issue is that they have been yanking paid (in some cases lifetime) accounts with no warning to the owner at all and no refunds. This is what got people really pissed. At least they're starting to realize that they should give people a chance to take it down before deleting the account.

Re:Very strange considering it's roots.

[monkeySauce]

It's roots mean nothing now. LiveJournal is owned by Six Apart these days (makers of Movable Type blog engine). I've never been a LiveJournal blogger, but I've suffered more than enough frustration with MT and Six Apart. In my opinion the company is poorly run. I find this type of idiocy at LiveJournal unsurprising.

Re:Umm...

[wizbit]

I'm guessing you missed the short-lived moratorium on userpics (avatars) with images of breastfeeding. LiveJournal's idea of "porn" isn't limited to the hardcore, illegal stuff.

Re:Umm...

[makomk]

The thing is, their policy doesn't exactly "clearly state that". More specifically, they're saying they'll ban users (presumably under the clause of the ToS prohibiting the uploading and transmission of unlawful or obscene content) for content that's not uploaded to LiveJournal and not necessarily unlawful or obscene.

Also, their statement was in a semi-obscure community [livejournal.com] that's not followed by most users - only the users who have been paying close attention know about it, and most of them probably don't have time to go back through every past entry and check there's nothing that could get them banned.

They don't have any user-visible policy document stating what's not allowed, either, so any new user wanting to know the rules would have to somehow find lj_biz (which isn't particularly well publicised) and read through their past statements.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[STrinity]

Here, here.

Where?

Oh, you mean, "Hear, hear."

Congratulations.

[Benanov]

Either you are a troll who has successfully mastered the ad hominem attack, or you're unable to handle the cognitive dissonance of the following situation:

If the GP disagrees with they way with which WFI goes about spreading their message, it does not neccesarily imply that the GP disagrees with the message itself.

Either way, learn to think critically before making posts on Slashdot in the future, please.

Re:Big deal?

[VJ42]

That depends on who your host is. As long as you're not breaking the law, or (with execptions) using them to ge around local laws Nearly Free Speech [nearlyfreespeech.net] will host anyone, and only actually take sites down if asked by law enforcement.

From the abuse page [nearlyfreespeech.net] of their site:

A NearlyFreeSpeech.NET member site has content that is illegal in the United States.

If you are aware of criminal activity, your first step should always be to contact the appropriate law enforcement agency. Only the police can enforce the law.

If you are a law enforcement official working on a criminal investigation and you need our assistance, please contact [e-mail]. We scrupulously follow all US laws.

So that we can comply with our Privacy Policy, we will need a viable subpoena. You can contact us in advance to discuss the information you will need, which can help minimize delay and tailor the scope of the subpoena. However, the final subpoena will need to be executed before we can turn over any information about our members.

We are not the police, nor are we in any way qualified to investigate or fight crime. Therefore, it is not appropriate to send accusations of illegal activity directly to us, and such accusations will generally have to be discarded. You must contact the appropriate law enforcement office. Then, they can contact us if appropriate.

A NearlyFreeSpeech.NET member site has content that is illegal in my country (not the United States).

As above, your first action if you are aware of criminal activity should be to contact the appropriate law enforcement agency.

If you are a law enforcement official from a country other than the United States, please contact us at [e-mail]. If the crime you are investigating would also be illegal in the United States, we reserve the right to voluntarily cooperate. In such cases, you will need to obtain the equivalent of a subpoena for your jurisdiction, and we may choose to voluntarily comply, but all situations are handled on a case-by-case basis.

Re:It's good to know.

[Yinepuhotep]

If you have Mono or .Net, there's http://www.mp3vcr.com/ljsec/ [mp3vcr.com] and http://sourceforge.net/projects/ljarchive/ [sourceforge.net]

If you use Python, there's http://hewgill.com/software/ljdump/ [hewgill.com]

LJArchive and LJDump both make backups of your LJ account. LJ-Sec allows you to copy your LJ account from one service to another, as long as both use the LJ software.