Mass Deletion Leads To LiveJournal Revolt

Green Monkey writes "LiveJournal has been suspending accounts suspected of promoting incest — except that many of them were communities for survivors of abuse and people discussing Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Even after being informed of the problem, LiveJournal apparently refuses to reinstate the banned accounts. LiveJournal's official news blog has filled up with hundreds of complaints protesting the decision, so we could have another Digg-style user rebellion brewing." Update: 05/31 11:50 GMT by KD : strredwolf writes to let us know that in their offical blog LiveJournal admits to botching the suspension, saying "We made a mistake and now we are going to try to fix it."

Keep up the good work

[Cassius Corodes (1084513)]

Jeez, how hard is it for these companies to just NOT piss off their own customers.

Re:Keep up the good work

[kestasjk (933987)]

I wonder if everyone who posts to livejournal will put incest advice in their posts as a form of rebellion, and I wonder if we'll put incest advice in our posts and signatures to show our support.

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0x14CE57

Re:Keep up the good work

[aussie_a (778472)]

I doubt it

Re:Keep up the good work

[someone1234 (830754)]

It is somehow fishy that there are MANY communities discussing Lolita.

Re:Keep up the good work

[tirerim (1108567)]

Actually, no. LiveJournal is only minimally supported by advertising, which only comes through users who have agreed to have Google Ads show up on their journals in exchange for extra features. Most of their money comes from users with paid accounts. If those users get pissed off and leave, the site dies.

Incest is awesome!

[by Anonymous Coward]

My sister is hot!

Re:Incest is awesome!

[Mr. Shotgun (832121)]

Yeah, but your mom could use a little work.

Incest?

[VirusEqualsVeryYes (981719)]

Does anyone else find the Internet a rather unlikely medium for spreading incest? Incest happens within the family, one which probably doesn't think much of the Internet. And if you're convinced to commit incest because of what strangers on the interwebs say, your family's got bigger issues.

Think of the children! To hell with the rest.

Re:Incest?

[TheRealMindChild (743925)]

Like you said... it is the internet. People are much more likely to say to random internet folk "My sister sucks on my cock and I like it", than they are their buddy next door. With that, you are just as likely to have someone who encourages it/discourages it/talks to them about it.

Re:Incest?

[Kjella (173770)]

Internet is a great place if you're looking to confirm your "normality". Between a few billion people, there's almost always someone that's just as oddball as yourself. So if you start out looking to confirm that lots of people have incestrous fantasies, you'll find it. And while there, you'll find sutble hints that people have real-world experiences. And if you want to believe it, you'll "find" that lots of people do it and so could you.

I think humans aren't wired right for the Internet. If only a few decades ago you knew a few hundred people doing something, it was probably something common and (so mostly) accepted in society. Your odd desires were maybe shared by one or two, tops. Now you got the Internet, and the rules have changed completely but we haven't. On the Internet, you can find confirmation for roughly anything. There's always a social circle somewhere that agree with your practises, if you look hard enough.

For the most part, this is a good thing, the freedom to associate with people that think like you and want to live life like you. But you should be aware what happens when you let your highly distilled social circles decide your social norms as opposed to checking out what your average neighbor and townsfolk are thinking about it.

Digg-style rebellion?

[UbuntuDupe (970646)]

LiveJournal's official news blog has filled up with hundreds of complaints protesting the decision, so we could have another Digg-style user rebellion brewing.

Let's show solidarity with them:

09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

Re:Digg-style rebellion?

[forkazoo (138186)]

LiveJournal's official news blog has filled up with hundreds of complaints protesting the decision, so we could have another Digg-style user rebellion brewing.

Let's show solidarity with them:

09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0

Dude, that's a disgusting way to show solidarity. 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0 totally sleeps with 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c1.

"Warriors for Innocence"?

[sehlat (180760)]

Apparently it started with a group of professional trolls who call themselves "Warriors for Innocence" and whose website, I am told, is baited with enough spyware and malware to lay waste to a continent. They complained and LiveJournal caved without so much as a whisper of investigation.

Who are this bunch, exactly? Anything like those "family-friendly" folks who complain en masse to the FCC whenever the word "sex" is so much as whispered on the television or radio?

Re:"Warriors for Innocence"?

[seasleepy (651293)]

They're even worse than that -- they seem to be buddy-buddy with a lot of hard right wing Christian dominionist type groups [livejournal.com]. The same community has a bit of peeking through records [livejournal.com] in an attempt to get some info about the site's servers (and thus location), but it looks like all they came up with is that they're hosted through GoDaddy.

Re:"Warriors for Innocence"?

[ozbird (127571)]

... GoDaddy.

OMG - incest!</satire>

I don't see why LiveJournal is doing this.

[Virak (897071)]

I mean, with so many people screaming "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" all the time, you'd think they'd be happy to have someone finally actually listening and doing it. But no, they ban them all? None of this makes sense.

Shopping mall analogy

[femto (459605)]

MySpace, LiveJournal, ... They are the Internet equivalent of the mega shopping mall. They represent convenience but convenience comes at the price of freedom. Have you ever tried protesting outside a shop in a mall? You can't. The mall is private land and you will get removed by security. Similarly with LiveJournal and the other "communities" based on a centralised website, they are private space and the owner can boot you out on a whim.

Why not stick with the public spaces on the Internet? If you need a chat room: use an email list, Usenet or run an IRC server. If you want to share your photos: put them on your web server. If you want a pretty home page with lots of "friends" put a home page on your web server with a guest book. These are the online equivalent of the local shopping strip. It's a public place and no-one can force you to bend to their whim. The public spaces of the net are better than web2.0. They are just as customisable, do the job as well or better and you don't have to take it on trust that your freedom will be respected.

WTF?

[interiot (50685)]

From the LJ abuse team [livejournal.com]:

We recognize that many people list these types of interests for shock value, as a method of expressing opposition for these illegal activities, or to indicate fictional activity. Unfortunately, the Abuse team does not have any discretion in these cases; if a journal profile contains interests that support illegal activity, we must suspend the journal. Journals, on the other hand, may express or imply interest in illegal activity or express or imply a desire to meet and/or interact with others with similar interests, but only if the journal clearly (1) is in opposition to or condemnation of the illegal activity, (2) does not encourage the illegal activity and (3) is not used in furtherance of any illegal activity.

So now every time mentions something that might be illegal, they have to pause, look at the camera, put on their most convincing "I'm serious now" face, and say "this is fiction, not real life, we're not encouraging anyone do this in real life, and if you do this illegal act, you'll be in big trouble"? Does LJ really expect people to say things like this with a straight face for very long? I mean, yeah, many actual real-life illegal activities are real downers, but when people have to start saying a blurb after things that are almost certainly legal, but they still have to say the blurb so they don't get caught up in suspensions where LJ has "no discretion", then those blurbs aren't going to be something anyone takes seriously, but instead will be an outlet for users to continually mock LJ's policies.

Livejournal is a fool.

[acherusia (995492)]

I've been watching this since it started, and what continually amazes me is how poorly livejournal is handling this. Over 24 hours into this, there is no announcement. Nothing reassuring users that their journal won't be next. Nothing apologizing for wiping out the incest survivor's livejournal in their witchhunt. Not even something saying "This is business, deal." The only news livejournallers have heard from livejournal came from an outside news source. [com.com]

Forget the deletions. People were upset, but would have forgotten it quickly if livejournal had just said "We purged some pedophile rings, but some other stuff may have gotten caught in it. If there are any livejournals purged that were genuinely innocent, tell us." People would've bitched, would have said the sky was falling down, that Livejournal had gone down the tubes since Six Apart bought them, but there wouldn't have been this sort of mass hysteria.

Now, I'm anticipating the next great fandom migration will be happening a few years sooner than otherwise, and this makes me grumpy, because migrations are a pain in the ass. And it wouldn't be happening any time soon if Livejournal weren't currently doing their level best to make fandom - a group of people who in my experience pay a great deal of money for their playspace - feel unwelcome.

Re:Oh well

[Aerynvala (1109505)]

It's not like the users are paying for the privilege. Well, actually, some of us are paying for the services.

Re:Oh well

[smegged (1067080)]

Actually no, it wouldn't change. I do use free journal services occasionally, and I would probably be a little annoyed if my posts got censored, but if they DID get censored, I would simply either move to another service or pay for my own hosting (oh my gosh, using my free will to boycott products I don't like - how horrifying).

If you believe that what you say is that important that it simply has to be on the internet, then you will make it happen.

The owners of livejournal have the right to do whatever they like with their website, provided that it is within the law.

Re:Oh well

[kestasjk (933987)]

Play this down if you want, but this is no small issue.
On the spectrum of free speech from the least protected to the most sacred you have:

• Yelling FIRE in a crowded theater
• Ranting about vietnam on street corners
• Ranting about sin on street corners
• Criticizing celebrities
• Criticizing political figures
• Criticizing the system of government
• 
  Sure, this is just livejournal. But then Fox will ban it, then the BBC, then they'll ban talk about it in pubs and on street corners, no more right to peaceful assembly or incest rallies, then it'll just be a goddamn Orwellian society where incest is a thought crime.
  When people in power try to enforce their warped view of morality on good, freaky citizens it's time to found a new government.

Re:discussing incest is illegal?

[Frogbert (589961)]

Just a warning about the above link. The WfI site is loaded with spyware, Firefox only folks.

Re:discussing incest is illegal?

[LTB_Enterprises (824336)]

I by no means condone discussion of this topic for titillation but this whole "Warriors for Innocence" thing to me reeks of "Warriors for Ignorance", that special breed of people who pretend that if you don't write about it, talk about it, educate about it then it will just go away. There are so many children out there suffering horrendous abuse because the person abusing them has convinced them that it's wrong to tell, that it's "just our little secret". These kids need to know that it is wrong and they have a right to tell someone and have it stopped. Don't let them suffer in silence....

Re:As much as I would like to NOT think about this

[15Bit (940730)]

I know many people who would dispute your implied definition of sanity. "Sexual perversion" is all around you, and all over the web too. How many "funny" comments are put up here about porn downloads? Well, there's more than an element of truth in those comments. Look around at your neighbours and friends - more than one of them is a "sexual pervert" and you just don't know it.

As for the 40-somethings who want to read/write about this stuff, well thats fine. Writing about sex with a 14 year old is a long way from actually doing it, and the large number of people who have written and read such fiction indicates that it is far from abnormal for the healthy imagination to wander in this respect. I would say that writing or reading about paedophilia/incest/bestiality etc no more makes you a pervert or a threat to society than playing Quake makes you a murderer.