A letter to a moderator of a fiction community, from LJ Abuse.

[emmelinemay]

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.

I do recognize that your community account may not necessarily be the type of content that this policy is directly intended to remove from LiveJournal. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned, the Abuse team has no discretion in how these instances must be handled. Because your account was reported to us, and because it contained illegal activities in your interests list, we must permanently suspend it.

Apparently, LOADS of communities and some users have been deleted due to having 'incest' on their interests list. Including ones for incest victims...

SO - have you got anything illegal on your interest list?

And i'm opening to books on how long before die_paulo_die is deleted.

EDIT - i've added links to all this in the comments. I was going to post about it earlier, but wrote it off as rumour... After all, rumour powers the internet - am i right?

EDIT - Warriors for justice have claimed they'e protected THOUSANDS of children from VICIOUS CHILD RAPISTS that LJ has been PROTECTING all these years. They're claiming that hundreds of journals have been shut down (but conveniently not mentioning how many probably shouldn't have been...)

Check out WFJ lovely little graphic on their blog:


They'll be after the violent porn brigade next...

edit: I am merely the messenger, and will not get into some fucking idiotic debate about whether this is 'actually' happening. If you're interested, read the links. If not, don't. I didn't start the rumour, so if you want to be 'well prove it', well, i don't have to. Read the fucking links and decide for yourself, ok?

Comments

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

Where is all of this stuff being discussed?

-x-

some links, for your viewing pleasure:

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

General consensus is that it is this group putting pressure on LJ and six apart to delete the journals in case they incite illegal activities and LJ is liable through inaction.

Allegedly a group or group have been searching for people and communities via the search feature, and reporting everyone. Rather than investigating the content of the journal/community, LJ are just deleting them straight away, with no possibility of re-insatement.

one of the mods whose community was deleted

journal collecting the rumours and confirmed things happening">

another one

a fandom community which called out the rumours a few days ago and now feels rather smug and vindicated

<a href="http://catrinella.livejournal.com/151812.html?thread=1146628#t1146628>an individual who had those interests because she'd been a victim of abuse. She's had her original journal suspended.</a>

Re: some links, for your viewing pleasure:

[shewho.livejournal.com]

also, careful linking to WFI or anything, apparently they track everything and if that gets them interested YOU COULD BE NEXT!!!!

/drama

Re: some links, for your viewing pleasure:

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

Thank you for all of this.

Man but this stinks.

-x-

Re: some links, for your viewing pleasure:

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

here's an interesting one:

http://liz-marcs.livejournal.com/266996.html

this girl wrote to warriors for justice, and got a reply, and wrote back...

Seems they did do it. The LJer herself has pointed out that they may have done more harm than good by a - causing the journals and communities of survivors to be deleted and b - potentially driving the real dodgy fuckers on LJ underground.

But according to W4J, protecting children is more important than free speech.

Re: some links, for your viewing pleasure:

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

Gah. I've just added my name to the ever-growing list of people complaining in the news community. Why won't they issue an official statement?

This is just a really, really poor way to run a business.

-x-

Re: some links, for your viewing pleasure:

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Why won't they issue an official statement?

Because they've cocked up BIG TIME and need a lawyer to write it for them, i imagine...

Re: some links, for your viewing pleasure:

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

found your comment!

It's incredible that the comments about this start on page 7, and go on for (so far) another 5 pages, and LJ have still said nothing. Not even 'we are preparing a statement, apologies for the delay'.

Re: some links, for your viewing pleasure:

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

and i joined in too!!

Re: some links, for your viewing pleasure:

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

Like you say, just a holding statement woudl be nice! Two lines saying they're aware of the issue and a full statement will follow soon - how hard can it be?

-x-

Re: some links, for your viewing pleasure:

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

maybe they've all been killed by the warriors for justice terrorists as supporters of child abuse?

the office is strewn with blood as the comment notifications go
*bip*

*bip*

*bip*

*bip*

*bip*

*bip*

into the silence...

[quercus.livejournal.com]

causing the journals and communities of survivors to be deleted

Is there at least one link, to at least one credible example of such a journal / community? I've been looking and as yet there's a lot of hand-waving about such a thing, but no real sign of it.

This flap seems to have killed a bunch of communities like "ch*ldl*v*" (WTF was _that_ doing there in the first place?), borderline pervery that's imposible to judge now that it has disappeared and some HP fanfic that's reputedly harmless, despite what it says on the tin.

Yet to really slap this bunch of unaccountable redneck vigilantes, it needs a clear and unarguable example of their actions having been diametrically opposite to their claimed goals. Has anyone _seen_ it?

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I would like to see some evidence of a community that was wrongly suspended AND had its appeal ignored.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

well, try reading the links i put? The one from the mod of pornish_pixes has an email from LJ that says exactly that.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

Aye, the bit on the reply from LJ Abuse saying they had no latitude was a bit harsh, but at present it's just someone's word against another, of course an owner is going to say their community was actually perfectly OK, and you can tell nothing from that particular name. Do you have the name of a community that was suspended that was obviously legitimate?

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

read all of the links i gave you. It's all there.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

It's not me you need to convince! If everything is above board then I'm sure LJ's management will see reason once things have calmed down. They've no reason to alienate paying customers after all.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

It's not me you need to convince

*sigh*

What part of this do you not understand?

I DO NOT FEEL THE NEED TO CONVINCE ANYONE OF ANYTHING. I AM MERELY PASSING ON SOMETHING I READ.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

I know that now! But I hadn't read your latest entry before replying, sorry! :$

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

yes - the links i gave at the top - look at the one with broken html. That's a girl claiming to have had her journal deleted for those reasons.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

that last bit of HTML went a bit wonk, sorry!

also, is HYOOOGE discussion over at stupid free and metaquotes.

[shewho.livejournal.com]

there are a lot of comments on the latest lj news entry, plus (obviously) all the fandoms and fanfic people are going a bit mental (and rightly too) over it. if you're not in fandom stuff or as bored as i am this afternoon it's easy to miss!

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I'm not, but i spotted it in stupid_free this morning. I did assume it was one of your typical fandom flaps, and then realised it was considerably more serious.

[gothicfreakgrrl.livejournal.com]

The only positive I can envisage from this situation is the possibility that my boyfriend's ex's stupid little "social services are wrong" community might get axed.

Other than that, blind deleting never helped anybody.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

it certainly hasn't helped the 'survivors' communities that have already been deleted...

[gothicfreakgrrl.livejournal.com]

Jeez, that's just, well, wrong.

I noticed as well from stupid_free that LJ have done this all on the quiet with no news or warning.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

yup.

Apparently, if the'd given warning, people might have removed 'incest' from their interests list, and they'd not have been able to find them.

well, duh.

[s0b.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I have reported any member of senior LJ staff who has an interest that might possibly be construed as falling foul of this regulation.

I believe one of their executives has "MP3" as an interest and I have suggested that this encourages people to steal music and quoted the statement "if a journal profile contains interests that support illegal activity, we must suspend the journal".

If they really are doing it without checking then imagine the sh*t that will hit the fan when they suspend the accounts that belong to their own bosses!

This is, of course, not constructive - but it is quick and that's all I have time to do today as I am being eaten alive by The Bleak, and hounded by work and stress, and my Warcraft server is b0rked.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

not the bleak!! Fight the Bleak. Don't let it win!!

It's hanging around long after the party's over, isn't it. There's always one who won't leave when it's clear they should have gone already...

[blackberryqueen.livejournal.com]

Fight the Bleak! Dont let it win!
I am with Emmie. And we will come armed with frying-pans if needed!
Parties are too good to be spoilt by the bleak!
x

[angel-emma.livejournal.com]

Pornish Pixies has been deleted...ffs it was an adult only community (which I don't have on my fl anymore due to being careful what C can read when my home page comes up).

I can understand LJ investigating certain things, afterall they have to watch what is going on but just deleting for no reason is wrong.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

the problem is with what they've done, is that fandom makes up a HYYOOOGE part of LJ's paid customer base. And a very vocal and outspoken one too, from what i've occasionally witnessed on stupid_free ;)

As soon as the first one went, there would have been a (very public) outcry. But more than one, and catastrophe. All they've done is wind up THOUSANDS of people, and what that has done has alerted the people on LJ they *really* need to catch, who have now had ample warning to change interests, lock entries, and go quiet.

They key to catching online predators is never let them know they are bing watched, or you'll never catch them out.

Way to go, LJ. You'll never catch the majority now.

Having said that, they did catch one or two, but really, they should have investigated properly before going nuts.

[chromenewt.livejournal.com]

Agreed. To catch them and remove them you need to observe and snipe them without their buddies realising they've been arrested by leaving the account open but with nobody to add more to it (being in a cell and all). It's like sending in the UN to catch a few Talibani Terrorists: you get lucky, but the vast majority are now dug in within secret hideouts.

[stylishbastard.livejournal.com]

First they came for the paedos, and I was silent..because I was not a paedo..
Then they came for the furries, and I was silent bec-..oh you get the idea :D

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Then they came for the furries, and I was silent...

...becauwse I was won a Fuwwy Hwunt!