LiveJournal Says Users are Responsible for Content of Links 283
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.
None of which... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No right to protection from stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
hah! (Score:3, Insightful)
I bet!
You know, if your landlord declared tomorrow that he is not responsible for any drug trafficking you do from your rented apartment, and you yourself are responsible for your actions, it would hardly be seen as unfair(especially if there are 1000 other tenants in the high-rise, thus making it impossible to check up on all of them individually).
Why is it anyways with America's obsession with sex on the net, while in real life, solicitations of all and any such activities run unhindered and unnoticed? A pedophile can much more easily target the kids of people he knows. Such has always been the case since they already have the advantage of being trusted. It is not like pedophiles were not there without the net.
How hard is it to pull out the cable of your PC and hide it in a lock, when you are not using it? There are computer cases that can be locked you know... if you really think it is that big a threat. If you think internet is a threat then don't allow kids to use it unsupervised. Ask your local libraries and schools to ensure that unsupervised access to public computers is not given to minors. Are you that retarded or lazy to not see the simple solution? Or you are one those guys who couldn't be bothered to give time and attention to your own kids? In that case, you shouldn't be having kids in the first place!
Think of the children indeed! It would be much much better for the children if they just considered merely "thinking" in the first place! Sheesh!
Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, isn't it perfectly within LJ's right to protect itself and remove accounts who are linking to porn ? Is it not *your* responsibility to make sure that sites that you link to aren't something that "parent company" wouldn't object to ? Where parent company is a web host, employer or anyone else who *owns* the property (web server, domain etc.) that you are hosting your page on ?
So the owner of the link changed the page. That means Live Journal should just sit back and say "oh well... our domain is linking to porn and our policy clearly states that we do not allow that, however, since the link was obviously changed to redirect to porn *after* the page owner linked to it we'll just leave it there and do nothing" ?
Ok, so they could pull the link and inform / warn the user etc. But then the question is raised, who's responsibility is it to check those links ? IMO the guy who signed up for a Live Journal account and linked to the site that eventually got changed and redirected should be held responsible.
Maybe I'm a little biased because I'm a webmaster. But I make it a point to check the links on my sites periodically because they change. I don't expect my web hosting provider to do it for me. Not that my hosting provider would terminate my account for anything short of something extremely illegal anyway. But for my own reputation and for the sake of giving my surfers a pleasant and consistent surfing experience free of anything that they would not expect or want to come across while browsing my sites I check my links every once in a while.
And it is certainly within LJ's rights to remove pages on their servers that are violating their TOS. I don't see how it has anything to do with understanding the nature of the Internet. I haven't read their TOS but I'm assuming somewhere in there is "Don't Link To Porn Sites" and I'm also pretty sure that there is NOT an "Except unless the page you're linking to was changed afterwards" clause.
Be that as it may... (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, who will learn from their example if no one makes an example of them?
Re:hah! (Score:2, Insightful)
But frankly, this is all the fault of Yahoo for giving in. They had user-created chatrooms, which got closed thanks to "think of the children" brigade. It hardly solved any problems. Not like the pedophiles were caught or arrested. Those sickoes were just forced to move elsewhere, making it a cat and mouse game... leaving them still free to prey on kids elsewhere.
But you can bet that after that case, no other company wants to take any risks. It is better to lose a few customers than to be shutdown. I mean especially when such "think of the children" idiots seem too lazy to mind their kids properly on their own. You allowed your representatives to do things based on fear-mongering and now it comes to bite you in the ass indirectly.
For all the "think of the children" nonsense(mind your kids dammit! ask your legislators to put more copson catching those sickoes! ), a quick look at the list of ages of consent in most of the US states is quite illuminating and shocking. Hypocrisy at its finest!
Re:No right to protection from stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they are "rights."
You say we "don't have any" rights when at K-Mart? This is false on its face, and anyone can see it. If you walk into K-Mart they have no right to bind and gag you, nor to handcuff you and throw darts at you for entertainment, nor to forcefully take a blood sample.
Sure, they can legally ask you to leave when you enter wearing a t-shirt which they dislike -- but that doesn't make them ethically correct in doing so.
Your redefinition of "rights" to include only major human/civil rights, encoded in law as actions the government may not take against individuals, is mere wordplay -- whose effect is to semantically limit those rights you'll permit people to demand for themselves. When we demand certain rights, it does not matter whether the entity infringing upon those rights is the government or not. They are rights by dint of their infringement being unethical.
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No right to protection from stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
This is unfortunate; online communities could well operate like governments, with a concept of citizenship and taxation, rather than as business enterprises, with a concept of customer accounts and fees, but very few of them seem to any more.
But it's very difficult to say "If you don't like the way things are run here, you can just leave." It's not easy to export a livejournal account to another service with more agreeable ToS. It's not easy to leave the friends and contacts behind when you move your blogging to another service.
Re:None of which... (Score:5, Insightful)
What problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
You should be responsible for sites you link to, you're the one sending your readers there.
How can a person be responsible for a site they link to? The content of that site could change at any time. If I was held legally responsible for the content of every site I link to, I'd never link to ANYTHING. It could change at any moment -- what if it becomes child porn? To hold people responsible for the content of the sites they link to would fundamentally destroy the web. Nobody would link to anything.
Re:No right to protection from stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
To speak of 'rights' on their web site is sort of speaking about rights at K-Mart. You don't have any.
That's not true, per se. One does have right at K-Mart. For example, K-Mart may not turn me away even if I'm a minority or if I'm in a wheelchair. There are anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws that grant me certain rights even if I'm inside private property.
Devil's Advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
LJ will let you post most anything you want. I saw someone post a TOS violation because a guy had a user-pic of masturbating with a barbie doll. LJ didn't ban him because it wasn't his default icon.
LJ and SixApart came under fire specifically because of journals that had varying levels of content in regards to sex with children. LJ is owned and operated within the US and has to operate in conjunction with US law. LJ admitted they over-reacted initially and deleted some communities they shouldn't have. They reinstanted said communities.
This new policy really is only regards to illegal content, which LJ very losely regulates. There are many pirate communities on LJ, and LJ doesn't care about that. People discuss gangs, illegal drugs, and all kinds of crazy stuff. But when it comes to pedophilia, they have to cover their bases or get in big trouble with the government. When LJ said you couldn't post fan-fic anymore that featured sex and children, people got upset and started linking to it instead. If I owned Six Apart, I'd have the same policy simply to cover my ass.
If you don't like it, blog somewhere else. Quite frankly, if they go elsewhere, LJ is better off for it. Let someone else deal with the legal problems.
Who else would be responsible? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
Other than that I doubt they give a shit. They don't care if you link to some porn site -- why would they? They just want to cover their asses, they just want you to know that if you break a law like that they're not going to stand behind you.
Re:No right to protection from stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
One such right is the right of LiveJournal to avoid any liability for defamatory material posted on their site by members. The law explicitly exempts LiveJournal (and other service providers) from the same liability a newspaper would carry if it printed the same materials. There is zero government involvement.
Another, perhaps more analogous, example is that a landlord cannot put in a lease that they can evict you without cause or without notice. Sure, it's the landlords private property, but the courts have long held that as it becomes your home you have certain rights which trump the private property holder. Again, no government involvement needed.
Which is all a way of saying that the "right" to not be deemed in violation of ToS because a link you pointed to has changed to something different is not a far-fetched right. It's just another layer of rights and regulations that form the web that is our legal framework.
Re:Big deal? (Score:2, Insightful)
Am I missing something?
I'm sure somebody else could look at the way the site is structured, its topology, interface and content, and explain precisely why people become more deeply involved in social networks there, than is typical for random web sites; I don't know the language for precisely describing it. But from my experience, the relationships tend to be stronger, deeper and more socially layered/complex than on typical web forums (I don't have experience with other social blogging sites like facebook or myspace, but I'd assume something similar goes on with them).
It's not just a thousand forgettable aliases, blurring into each other, spitting out fire-and-forget one-liners on a news story; it's often people posting in depth about life experiences, sometimes very sensitive ones, and interacting with a small peer group. I know this isn't all the site is used for, but it's a substantial part of it, and it's those people I sympathize with in this case, when they're being forced to uproot themselves and move elsewhere, starting over in some other community.
I haven't used it in a couple of years--other priorities took over--but I still remember some of the people there in the kind of depth normally reserved for real-life friends. (And that's not counting the ones who I went on to meet in real life, and still know.) They may not have a legal right to defend their presence, or their communities on the site; although I'd put real money on this changing over the next decade or two, so that web community participants do have some kind of legal voice; Sixapart owns the software and bandwidth, NOT the people and communities which are responsible for the company's success, and that distinction isn't yet legally recognized.
But in spite of the absence of legal leverage, they have good reason to be upset about having the rug pulled out from under them, and certainly have a right to complain and try to fight it. Transplanting an entire community to another site/medium does happen, but it's difficult to hold a group together through that process, and doesn't usually happen without a lot of real-life ties to support it. People find it difficult to agree on the timing--what's the last straw that makes them all give up on a site, at once, rather than breaking off piecemeal and going in different directions--and it's hard to get people to agree on where they're going to go instead. You're better off trying to get the site to reverse its policy changes, if there's any hope of that happening.
Re:No right to protection from stupidity (Score:3, Insightful)
The US constitution only protects your rights from the government, because its authors believed they were the biggest threat to your rights. This does not mean that they are the only threat.
Re:None of which... (Score:4, Insightful)
*Maybe I was brought up strange, but I was always taught that this was the normal way to behave, and encounter people who also behave likewise all the time.
Re:None of which... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Be that as it may... (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone can be a flaming hypocritical asshat, but that won't make an example of anyone. It's more or less the same as the WoW forums (as well as EQ forums, DAoC forums and any other main-stream MMO game in it's hayday). All you get is a bunch of idiots yelling "F!U Bliztards! I KNOW GAZ!LL!ON PEOPLE WHO ARE LEAVING BEKAZ OF NEW CANGE"
Just RTF synopsis and some of these /. asshat comments.
What an incredibly stupid and sensationalist remark. Yes, lets think. The people who built and manage a fairly popular website (incredibly popular compared to most of the internet sites out there) have no clue how the Internets work. It's just a series of tubes to them. Of course, I'll believe whatever you(the quoter) say and just because you(the quoter) said it! Of course, their reasoning for it is even worse.
Yes, more sensational bullshit. I didn't see the LJ TOS [livejournal.com] specifically say that you are responsible for the content of another website. What I did read is as follows..
Re:None of which... (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely you're allowed to! In fact, you're not only allowed to, it's required! No "understanding" or "analysis of what causes it" is allowed here! Just blind, reflexive, thoughtless mob mentality! Plus, you can safely apply the label to pretty much anybody you don't like and safely hate them, too. It's not required to actually do it to be one, after all - just thinking about it, or being somebody that looks like they might be thinking about it, is enough to be deserving of anything from spiteful contempt right up to instant death. Plus which, "child" refers to anybody under 18, and "rape" refers to any activity, consensual or not. It doesn't even have to be sex - it can just be something kind of like sex. In fact, it doesn't even have to be kind of like sex, it can be, you know, "talking to", "looking at" or "being in the vicinity of". When it comes to hate, in America, just say the magic words, "the children" and the sky's the limit!
Re:Be that as it may... (Score:2, Insightful)
The same could be said for most Slashdot stories. Most of us aren't Apple users, Linux users, don't use MySpace or Facebook, some don't use Windows or Google applications. That doesn't stop us getting stories on these and more. I suspect that the proportion of LJ users is still higher than some of the niche stories that get posted.
a particular company that provides a service for friggin' free
Again, many of the companies criticised on Slashdot provide free services too, but you are incorrect anyway - LJ has paid (and even "permanent") accounts as well as free ones.
What is so special about LJ that it has so many people defending it with the strawman argument "it can do what it likes", when criticising every other company is fair game on Slashdot?
Re:No right to protection from stupidity (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, LJ have made it clear they listen to groups (WFI) who aren't even customers. At that point, it's fair game to shout back and complain, since they've made it clear they are responding to what they think people want.
Re:No right to protection from stupidity (Score:3, Insightful)
So it's quite accurate to say that it is in fact both a community and a business. The question is, does paying a business for services leave you with any rights with respect to their services? Is there a difference between the obligations of a business and the obligations of a government? What are the rights of citizens vs. the rights of customers? Can either group get what it wants?
Advertising vs. Community (Score:2, Insightful)
The problems on LiveJournal demonstrate that Six Apart's management has no idea of who the members of their community are, or what they care about. LiveJournal isn't blogging software; it's a system for building and role-playing personas. Many journals are "kept" by fictional characters, who write things that in no way represent the real life thoughts of their authors.
This was all fine until SA decided that ad revenue was the way to fund their enterprise. Six Apart's customer base is now split: part community members, part advertisers. The mission of LiveJournal (the company) has been corrupted, because it is now about delivering eyeballs to advertisers, rather than delivering great community software to end users.
The switch is painfully obvious to the community (Pepsi Max mood theme? What a piece of crap!) but the community IS LiveJournal so they can't just leave. There is no mass exodus--you can't export an LJ account, import it into some other system (even a free copy of LiveJournal on your own server) and expect to carry on as before.
The only way out that I can see is for the users to organize and buy Six Apart out, replacing them with a non-profit foundation. Since that's about as likely to happen as Harry giving Snape a blowjob in real life, the end result will be the slow death of LJ as we know it.