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."

Comments

Keep up the good work

[Cassius Corodes]

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

Re:Keep up the good work

[tirerim]

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?

[VirusEqualsVeryYes]

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?

[Kjella]

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.

Re:Oh well

[smegged]

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]

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?

[LTB_Enterprises]

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]

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.