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.

Comments

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:No right to protection from stupidity

[Rinisari]

Here, here. For those who find it a problem, they are free to seek other services. Those won't have no problem with the new policy will stay. If the former group is larger than the latter and LiveJournal sees mass exodus, perhaps it will regret and renege.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Watson Ladd]

Yes it is. This is about livejournal caving in to a private and unaccountable group that has ruined the lives of innocent men and women for having expressed desire to have sex with teenagers. This is legal in some states out west with parental consent. First livejournal, then google, and someday the government. They don't believe in innocent until guilty. They don't believe in the distinction between fantasy and reality. According to some of the logic they employ, a 19-year old having sex with a 17 year old (consentually) is some kind of monster. They don't care about reason, and they are not interested in open debate. Regardless of our feelings about legal expressions of paedophilia, we can agree that no-one should hold debate on the internet hostage by shutting out one of the sides.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

LJ are big, they can't read every account. They have to sift. Some people are unfortunately caught up in this process.

If they let the filth take over, the filth will ruin them.

People only obviously care about their own individual account though.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[pclminion]

The assignment of a category to the story is Slashdot's problem -- none of the posters here had any control over it. Also, among all the news categories on Slashdot, which one would have been more appropriate? I agree that you don't really have "rights" when it comes to your interactions with private companies or individuals, but really -- what would YOU suggest?

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[UserGoogol]

Many would argue that you have a right to do whatever the hell you want as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. When people's websites are shut down by Livejournal, their ability do "whatever the hell they want" is limited, and it's quite debatable whether said people were harming anyone. Of course, it's debatable which side the rights really fall on, but that's true of any discussion. For every so-called right, it is not hard to find some person who thinks that isn't a right. Especially since Slashdot is a discussion website, they should use an open-ended definition of rights so that they can stir up as much discussion as possible.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just a bizarre, backwards argument.

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:No right to protection from stupidity

[Junior J. Junior III]

LJ is run like a company, but bills itself as a community. People who are members of communities tend to think of themselves as having rights, including a right to say what they think about the community's policies. If you disagree with changes in the Terms of Service, you really don't have much redress as you might with an entity that operated like a democracy.

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:No right to protection from stupidity

[bky1701]

If LiveJournal does something that you find intolerably stupid, then quit and go post on their competition's web site.

That doesn't make what they do right. Also, you can use the same argument in support of anything the government does- and many do. That doesn't make them right, why would it make you right?

Being legally acceptable doesn't make it morally acceptable or publicly acceptable, and we shouldn't treat it as if it does, lest we instill the idea that laws = morals and morals = laws.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[quanticle]

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.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[coaxial]

To speak of 'rights' on their web site is sort of speaking about rights at K-Mart. You don't have any. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how rights work. You do not check them all at the door. For instance, if K-Mart said, "no Irish," that's not their right, in fact, it's illegal. Is what LJ doing illegal? No. But that doesn't mean that it's not censorship, and not offensive.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[NMerriam]

This is not about "your rights online". LiveJournal is a private company, not a govenrment agency.

Yes, LJ and K-Mart are private companies. Congratulations on stating the obvious. Can you please point out where anyone claimed they were acting as agents of the government?

Back to the discussion, which is about whether or not it is appropriate, sensible or logical for LJ to implement this policy.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[EconomyGuy]

Parent is mistaken if they believe that we only have rights in relation to government agencies. That's simply not how the world functions. I have the right to not be struck by moving cars, which is enforced by my right to bring a suit in torts against anyone who does strike me by a moving car. There are all manner of rights which exist between private parties. Some have existed since the first common law courts on England, others are more modern such as civil rights laws passed by Congress in the 50s and 60s. In all cases it is a right a private actor enforces against another.

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:No right to protection from stupidity

[Entropius]

If they let the filth take over, the filth will ruin them.

By filth you probably mean porn, right?

So someone might post some porn on Livejournal. If you don't like it, don't read it. How exactly is porn going to take over and force out nonpornographic uses of LJ?

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[hauntingthunder]

bolocks Live journal is opening up themsleves to lega attack if they start removing certain items you dont want to limit your comon carier status.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

To speak of 'rights' on their web site is sort of speaking about rights at K-Mart. You don't have any.

With the greatest respect, bollocks!
You have the right not to be racially/sexually discriminated against, for example.
You have general rights not to be beaten or killed or whatever.

Surely what you mean is that you don't have any free-speech type rights (at wal-mart or on live journal) and more generally that they have the right to exclude you/discontinue your service for any reason (as long as it's not sex/race/age(?) related).

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Stooshie]

I noticed that the whois entry for www.warriorsforinnocence.org is anonymous as well, so open debate seems not to be an option.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[makomk]

Here's the backstory - after the WfI mess, LiveJournal made certain reassurances to its users. Shortly after that, there was a permanent account sale where (for one week only) people could buy "permanent" accounts for $150. Two weeks after this, they made "clarifications" that technically didn't contradict what they'd said earlier but still came as a nasty surprise to some people. Then they banned two users for stuff that they reckoned was against the rules with the new "clarifications" (specifically, Harry Potter porn) - whether it was is an interesting question. Worse, one of the users was very well-known and the other had apparently just got received a permanent account as a gift. Also, LiveJournal is basically a social networking site. Sure, you can go elsewhere, but you need an account if you want to be able to read non-public posts by your friends, take part in communities, or even comment on entries (unless the journal has manually turned on anonymous comments or dates back to before they were disabled by default - bear in mind that OpenID comments have the same restrictions as anonymous ones.) Also, you make it much harder for your friends to keep up with your journal if it's on a different site. (Sure, LiveJournal has RSS, but it's broken in various interesting ways and also very limited.) By banning users, LiveJournal is, in a sense, banishing them from their online social circles... (On the plus side, the next time a LiveJournal user hotlinks one of your images, you can now find some hentai image involving under-18 characters, substitute it, abuse report them, and get them into a lot of trouble. Second time it happens to them is a ban. Of course, for a better chance of success,

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[TheRaven64]

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. Can we let this meme die? If I kill you, your right to life has been infringed. If I kidnap you and lock you in a small room, your right to liberty has been infringed. If I put ducktape over your mouth, your right to free speech has been infringed. All of these are occurrences in which you have lost rights without any government intervention.

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.

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 K-Mart decided, for example, to search people who went in, I would consider this important and worth covering. Sure, now you can go somewhere else, but if people start thinking this kind of behaviour is acceptable then what happens when all of the stores do it? Then where do you shop?

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[makomk]

Let's try that again:

Here's the backstory - after the WfI mess, LiveJournal made certain reassurances to its users. Shortly after that, there was a permanent account sale where (for one week only) people could buy "permanent" accounts for $150. Two weeks after this, they made "clarifications" that technically didn't contradict what they'd said earlier but still came as a nasty surprise to some people. Then they banned two users for stuff that they reckoned was against the rules with the new "clarifications" (specifically, Harry Potter porn) - whether it was is an interesting question. Worse, one of the users was very well-known and the other had apparently just got received a permanent account as a gift.

Also, LiveJournal is basically a social networking site. Sure, you can go elsewhere, but you need an account if you want to be able to read non-public posts by your friends, take part in communities, or even comment on entries (unless the journal has manually turned on anonymous comments or dates back to before they were disabled by default - bear in mind that OpenID comments have the same restrictions as anonymous ones.) Also, you make it much harder for your friends to keep up with your journal if it's on a different site. (LiveJournal has RSS, but it's broken in various interesting ways and also very limited.)By banning users, LiveJournal is, in a sense, banishing them from their online social circles...

(On the plus side, the next time a LiveJournal user hotlinks one of your images, you can now find some hentai image involving under-18 characters, substitute it, abuse report them, and get them into a lot of trouble. Second time it happens to them is a permanent ban. Of course, for a better chance of success, you'd wait until whatever entry they're hotlinking your images from is an old one, so it's less likely they'll remove it. Please don't, though.)

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Newton's Alchemy]

The philosophy of the Enlightenment, the principles upon which this country was founded state, and are clearly restated in the Declaration of Independence, that people have rights. An entity can only protect or violate those rights, not take them away.

What rights have I surrendered when I walk into K-mart? My freedom of religion? Speech? Due Process? Wearing stupid trucker caps?

An argument can be made that if I run a site and allow public comment, that I can censor or remove any comments I find offensive or disagree with. After all, my site is my free and protected expression, and I can do with it what I want.

LiveJournal is however a Corporation, thus should not have the same rights as a Person, despite the egregious and insane ruling of the Supreme Court to the contrary. Thus, the parent is arguing that LiveJournal's First Amendement protected rights are violated when someone posts something they find offensive, despite the fact they charge that person for the priviledge. I happen to think that's a little nutty.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Yinepuhotep]

The only difficulty I had was in transferring my archived posts. Other than that, it took me all of about ten minutes to find a more agreeable service (Insanejournal, in my case), sign up, and post a message on LiveJournal informing my friends that I was moving.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Stan92057]

No,that only stops people like you from harassing them at home,you can post on there site if you so choose as long as you are not stupid about it.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Stan92057]

It may be ok in some states for a 19 yr old to have sex with a 17 yr old. But in alot more states its against the law. And i want proof they ruined innocent mens and womens lives, not just you stating it.When where and how.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Atragon]

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.

Well crap, so much for that business plan...

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Stan92057]

Being a minority and handicapped is not speech. Anyways he is right you don't have any rights on any web site except for what the TOS allows. I suggest creating ones own website and fight for your freedom of speech with there own dime,not someones Else's dime. And theres another problem also,i don't now of any ISP that will host pro pedophilia content. Even web sites like LJ is still hosted by some ISP and can be shut down for hosting illegal content.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[_14k4]

Right. But try leaving pornographic magazines on the floor in K-Mart. It's not viewed at k-mart and you have to open them ("click the link") to get there... but I am certain K-Mart would not want the ability for customers to "find porn" inside the store...

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[STrinity]

Here, here.

Where?

Oh, you mean, "Hear, hear."

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[reallocate]

Don't be naive. "Community" is just marketing hype, and always has been, in any instance of its use on the web.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[apparently]

Yeah! If you don't like the policy, you should just leave! It would be totally silly and unreasonable to see if the policy can be changed, right? And it would be even sillier and even more unreasonable to get the word out to other people who might not be aware of the new policy, right? You seem to holding the opinion that protest == whining. Yeah, people could just leave, -or- livejournal could just change their policy. So tell me, why is -your- way the right way?

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[mdwh2]

This is a rather pedantic point - a large number of stories in YRO are about actions of companies (e.g., recently we have "Microsoft Forces Shutdown of Autopatcher", and "Does Google Own Your Content?").

Sure, they have a "right" to do what they like. We know that - that's a strawman argument. We have a right to complain about it, and/or go elsewhere.

I'm not sure what's so special about LiveJournal that people seem to keep bringing this point up (even when no one claims they don't have a right to do this), when it's fair game to criticise every other company out there.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[mdwh2]

For those who find it a problem, they are free to seek other services.

And how do people (existing users or potential users) find out about a companies policies and actions? By telling people about it, of course.

This meta-strawman-debate of "LJ can do what it likes" "users can go elsewhere" is pointing out the bleeding obvious and applies to most company-related stories on Slashdot. Let's get to discussing the actual story.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Cro Magnon]

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.

Damn, I wish I'd read this sooner!

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Nick of NSTime]

I don't get your sig. :/

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[mdwh2]

I agree. Also it's perfectly reasonable to try complaining before moving to another service. That's what people do with every other business.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Back when I was 8 years old, they forced me to leave. I couldn't have been wearing a t-shirt which they disliked. I wasn't wearing a shirt at all!

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[budgenator]

IANAL but I believe in Michigan the age of consent is 16, in Kentucky it's 13; the way things are it's legally possible in Michigan for two kids, 14 and 13 yr old to have sex, to charge the 14 yr old boy with CSC-2, try him as an adult and sentence him to life in prison.
There is a real reality disconnect with sex crimes, a 13 yr old girl can accuse of having sex with her, provide no physical evidence, or even a time or date. The only defense you have is that a Dr. might say she's still a virgin and how likely is it for a girl who's falsely accusing you of a sex crime because you wouldn't buy her cigarettes to be a virgin?

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Junior J. Junior III]

Actually, if you know the history of Livejournal, it started out as a pet project for Brad Fitzpatrick. He expanded it to a community for his friends, and it cascaded into a public community. Only after it became too expensive for him to maintain did he start collecting payments for users who wanted to help fund the community's expenses. Only after it became too much of a burden for him to continue operations did he decide to sell off the community.

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?

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Yinepuhotep]

The problem is, LJ has also made it clear that the people with journals aren't their customers, the people with journals are their PRODUCT. The ADVERTISERS are their customers.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[budgenator]

that's because he wrote
Gun control: The belief that a woman, raped and strangled with her panties, is morally superior to a dead rapist.
when he should have wrote
Gun control: The belief that a woman, raped and strangled with her panties, is morally superior to a dead attempted rapist.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[DragonWriter]

This is not about "your rights online". LiveJournal is a private company, not a govenrment agency.

So? People have both moral and, in many cases, legally enforceable (at least, notionally) rights that apply against private parties acting badly.

To speak of 'rights' on their web site is sort of speaking about rights at K-Mart. You don't have any.

Actually, you do. What do you think, e.g., consumer protection laws are?

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Maxmin]

To speak of 'rights' on their web site is sort of speaking about rights at K-Mart. You don't have any.

Bzzzt! Wrong answer. You have the rights that the law entitles you to. K-Mart simply doesn't have to abide by the legal restrictions placed on governmental bodies, if it is not also legally mandated to respect them.

Back to LiveJournal. Your right to either post, or link to, content would be covered in the contract you assented to when you signed up with them. If they changed the terms of the contract, and didn't get your assent ... that may be actionable. IANAL.

Recently, a click-through contract that was changed post-assent was struck down, because the user was not presented with the change proposal, nor given the opportunity to assent to it. In contract law, that's a no-brainer. May be the same with LiveJournal.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[metamatic]

You don't have to leave anyone behind when you leave LiveJournal. Just set up your new site to support OpenID and Atom feeds, and all your LJ-using friends can log in to your site and comment, and subscribe to your journal.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[jaydonnell]

Isn't the woman morally superior to the rapist in all cases? ;)

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[jaydonnell]

The problem is that your posts will no longer show up on their "friends" page on lj. You'll be asking your friends to take an extra step in order to keep in touch and it likely won't happen in many cases.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

K-Mart can throw people out for trespassing, if they're in the store after hours. But they can't decide, in the middle of a business day, "Today we close at 1 o'clock, and it's now 2:30 and you're all trespassing."

They can decide "you can't wear red jackets in our store because we think that's gang-related." They can't allow red jackets for a long time, and then change their minds, post the new rule, and start throwing people out and confiscating what they've already paid for because they're wearing red jackets.

They especially can't decide "well, that jacket didn't look red when you walked in, but now that you're under the fluorescent lights it does. We're going to have you arrested for promoting gang activity in our store."

(Elfwreck at Livejournal. Not anonymous; just not up to setting up an account right now.)

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[oldenough]

Oops, according to this we have rights regarding any change to the ToS. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070729-cour t-says-no-to-changing-terms-of-service-without-not ification.html

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Blakey Rat]

I guess the woman could have murdered a man before being raped. OooOOOooo take THAT, sig!

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[metamatic]

Wrong. They just add your Atom feed as an external feed on LiveJournal, friend it, and all your posts show up on their friends page.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[jaydonnell]

must be a newer feature, they didn't have it back when I used lj. Cool feature

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[jaydonnell]

it's telling me that feature is only available to paid accounts!

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[metamatic]

You need a paid account to set up the feed from your site to LJ, but once it's set up by any paid user, anyone can friend it.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Harmonious Botch]

Touche. You're right, K-Mart can't kick you out for bein black, gay, vietnam vet, etc. But there was no mention of protected classes in TFA.

What I was trying to get at is the slow degredation and blurring of the concept of a 'right'.

Originally right a was a claim that you had against a government to compel it to leave you alone - to compel it to do nothing. The classic examples are freedom of speech, press, assembly. The beauty of it was that no governmental coersion was involved when it worked properly. ( And when there was coersion, it was one branch of government correcting another )

Then came that class of rights in which the govenment was compelled to do something for you. A right to an education, for example. This meant that the government now had to actively do something coercive to somebody. They had to either - in this example - force someone to teach, or forcibly tax some third party or parties to pay for a teacher. There was now coersion, but at least it was subject to due process: you could not be enslaved or taxed unfairly.

Next was the concept of a civil right that is a claim against a private party: K-Mart, for example, was now prevented from firing someone because they were black, or female or a Vietnam vet, etc. At least this was simply a order that a third party not do something.

The last and seemingly unsurpassable interpretation of a 'right' is that in which a private party is compelled to do something for you. In the name of the rights of the disabled, K-Mart now has to build special doors, ramps, toilet facilities, rails, etc. In the name of the rights of vets, they must prove - without presumption of innocence - that they have made sufficient attempts to hire vets.

In summary, the four steps have been:
1) Government being compelled to do nothing
2) Government being compelled to do something
3) Private parties being compelled to do nothing
2) Private parties being compelled to do something

Perversely, the concept of a right has come full circle, originally a right meant that you could force the government to leave you alone, now in the name of rights they can force you to do something. ( FWIW, the most extreme example of this that I have heard about is the SCOTUS nominee Lani Guanier arguing that the right to free speech didn't mean anything in a vacuum, therefore people had to be compelled to listen. )

Now the concept has become so misunderstood that when someone wants to impose a resrictive policy on his own web site, people speak of rights.

*gets off of soapbox*

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Harmonious Botch]

Actually , I consider myself to have a fairly good understading of what rights are. Perhaps I was too brief.

What I was trying to get at is the slow degredation and blurring of the concept of a 'right'.

Originally right a was a claim that you had against a government to compel it to leave you alone - to compel it to do nothing. The classic examples are freedom of speech, press, assembly. The beauty of it was that no governmental coersion was involved when it worked properly. ( And when there was coersion, it was one branch of government correcting another )

Then came that class of rights in which the govenment was compelled to do something for you. A right to an education, for example. This meant that the government now had to actively do something coercive to somebody. They had to either - in this example - force someone to teach, or forcibly tax some third party or parties to pay for a teacher. There was now coersion, but at least it was subject to due process: you could not be enslaved or taxed unfairly.

Next was the concept of a civil right that is a claim against a private party: K-Mart, for example, was now prevented from firing someone because they were black, or female or a Vietnam vet, etc. At least this was simply a order that a third party not do something.

The last and seemingly unsurpassable interpretation of a 'right' is that in which a private party is compelled to do something for you. In the name of the rights of the disabled, K-Mart now has to build special doors, ramps, toilet facilities, rails, etc. In the name of the rights of vets, they must prove - without presumption of innocence - that they have made sufficient attempts to hire vets.

In summary, the four steps have been:
1) Government being compelled to do nothing
2) Government being compelled to do something
3) Private parties being compelled to do nothing
2) Private parties being compelled to do something

Perversely, the concept of a right has come full circle, originally a right meant that you could force the government to leave you alone, now in the name of rights they can force you to do something. ( FWIW, the most extreme example of this that I have heard about is the SCOTUS nominee Lani Guanier arguing that the right to free speech didn't mean anything in a vacuum, therefore people had to be compelled to listen. )

Now when somone wants to have strict policies on his own web site, people speak of rights.

Re:No right to protection from stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on -

Vote with your pocketbook - let people who like to have their mommies and daddies take care of them use services like that.

Only problem is that sometimes the services are monopolies (TDS as an ISP in my area for example) and we are forced to use their overprotective and insulting crap.

Oh well - the market used to work...

Very strange considering it's roots.

[FauxReal]

It was started by a geeky highschool kid... a classmate of a friend of mine who definitely understood how things worked. Of course it's changed hands since then. I would chalk this up to PHB syndrome.

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.

None of which...

[msauve]

changes the fact that they're acting like clueless noobs.

Re:None of which...

[martinX]

You misspelled a word. It's spelled "knobs".

Re:None of which...

[Anonymous Coward]

These Warriors for Innocence are a bunch of bible-thumping altar-violated nazi feminist who have no idea how the internet works, and for them to have put that much pressure on LiveJournal for them to turn into them, is a freaking joke. LiveJournal will soon collapse, and they will most likely look back at how they listened to a bunch of nobodies who think they know how to protect little children.

I went on their site, and found that their site alone was not work safe. Hypocritical bastards.

Re:None of which...

[adona1]

I also seem to recall that when LJ did their first lot of journal-cuts and it was posted on /. that many people pointed out (with glee) that the Warriors for Innocence webpage attempts to install spyware and other dirty tricks. Why should anyone, LJ included, pay attention to what they have to say? That's like accepting the help of a rapist to catch drug dealers...the intention may be good, but you get dirty doing it.

Re:None of which...

[Wonko the Sane]

Someone who's overly friendly and goes out of his way to be helpful without asking for anything in return is suspicious.

I don't know where this author is from, but I was raised with the expectation that this is normal behavior.

Re:None of which...

[Skreems]

Just for the sake of irony, I submitted a "terms of service violation" complaint against the Warriors of Innocence blog. I recommend anyone else who's pissed at this behavior do the same. They're hate-mongering enough that there's a chance it'll do something. And damn, would it be funny.

Re:None of which...

[Thexare Blademoon]

Was your hometown smaller than 300 people by any chance?

Re:None of which...

[piojo]

That was very well said.

Re:None of which...

[PitaBred]

Jesus H. Christ, you're right. That site isn't even safe for the Internet... haven't they ever heard of, oh, I don't know... LINKS? Seriously... all content in one place. Buncha right-wing, witch-hunting, self-important, ignorant morons. You'd think that someone at LiveJournal would go to their site and say "Huh... what a group of nutters" and then proceed to block their emails/phone calls.

Re:None of which...

[Stormie]

LiveJournal will soon collapse..

LiveJournal is already dead man walking. A lot of my older friends have LJs, but I asked around my workplace (which is a company in an internet-related field) - most of the people here are younger than me, and not a single one of this MyFaceBookSpaceTube-generation had even heard of LiveJournal.

Re:None of which...

[Tony Hoyle]

I live in a city of 3.6 million and that's considered polite and normal behaviour.

Is the where you live that far down the toilet that the normal standards of society don't apply?

Re:None of which...

[Tony Hoyle]

I thought they were a banner ad company to be honest... and I'm 38 - you older than that?

Facebook is pretty much everywhere now, myspace is becoming a niche product used to pubilicise new bands. There's also another one waiting in the wings I forget the name (something silly like 'boing' but not that) ready to take over if facebook dies.

Re:None of which...

[duncanmhor]

bebo

Re:None of which...

[montyzooooma]

Once a social networking website becomes popular it ceases to be cool and people move onto the next one. Buying a social networking site, like Murdoch did, is a losers game. Better to apply the catfood brands principle and set up successive sites so that as each previous website loses favour you have two others ready for people to move to.
(catfood brands theory - if you have 2 companies making 1 brand of catfood each with about 50% market share, it makes sense to launch another brand rather than trying to promote your existing brand. So now you have 2 companies, one with 2 brands and 1 with 1 brand. The newly launched brand will take away sales from both existing brands but with the company with 2 brands benefiting overall. Until, obviously, the second company launches 2 new brands. And so on.)

Re:None of which...

[tacocat]

This is the difference between US and Canada?

Really, it depends on the city. Detroit is a joke. San Francisco is pretty tame, Chicago in between.

I have lived in Detroit for a decade and still find it openly threatening during the day. Bums will borderline assualt for dollar. And these bums have blackberries -- something I can't afford myself!

Re:None of which...

[symbolic]

There is a very similar group on YouTube. They are of no help to anyone, but I'm sure they get a perverted sense of self-importance out of it.

Re:None of which...

[TheRaven64]

LiveJournal used to be where all the crud on the Internet moved to from Geocities. After MySpace launched, most of the rubbish moved there, and the signal to noise ratio improved a lot. Now, I read a few peoples' LiveJournals, particularly Eric Anholt's one, which is the best indicator of DRI support in FreeBSD I've found.

Re:None of which...

[SolitaryMan]

Not expectations, but habits. Expecting this from other people is silly.

Re:None of which...

[oyenstikker]

"Wrong" has too many definitions. They need a "Factually Incorrect" moderation.

Re:None of which...

[badasscat]

This is the difference between US and Canada?

More like the difference between the US and the rest of the world.

(btw, I'm from the US.)

Re:None of which...

[douglaid]

How they are acting doesn't matter. Just go elsewhere.

Re:None of which...

[that IT girl]

Hate-mongering? So we're not allowed to hate child rapists now? Because...damn.

I hadn't logged in yet when I hit reply, and my captcha was "recoil". How appropriate.

Re:None of which...

[VJ42]

Hate-mongering? So we're not allowed to hate child rapists now? Because...damn. Sure, you can hate child rapists, just not on the basis of that site. For example it says "Someone who's overly friendly and goes out of his way to be helpful without asking for anything in return is suspicious.". That does nothing but makes everyone paranoid about genuinely nice people*; I think that's what the GP meant by "Hate-mongering". Their site makes people hate the wrong people.

*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...

[roman_mir]

Someone being overly friendly to you, who goes out of his/her way to be helpful without asking for anything in return is not normal behavior for most people on this planet, I was most definitely not raised to have this kind of expectations. I was raised with expectations that most people will either not be interested in me very much or will try to take advantage of me and this in fact is what happens.

Re:None of which...

[Yinepuhotep]

There's a difference between child rapists and the people that WfI targets. WfI targets anyone who happens to not fit their definition of a "fine, upstanding citizen" - could be queers, could be pedos, could be them funny brown people, could be people who like drawing funny pictures, they're all the same to WfI.

Of course, the not-so-funny thing is, the vast majority of child rape is perpetrated by NON-pedos. So, by sending people haring off after pedos, they're targeting the wrong people.

Re:None of which...

[Jafafa Hots]

Bible-thumping Feminists? That has to be a first.

Re:None of which...

[that IT girl]

Okay, I see what you're saying. I read through the first few pages of that blog, but that doesn't mean I understand EVERYTHING they stand for. Thanks for clarifying.

Re:None of which...

[Yinepuhotep]

Sounds to me like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you expect people to try to screw you, then your behavior will make it clear to them that this is what you expect, and unless they have some overriding reason to do otherwise, they'll be happy to oblige you.

Re:None of which...

[VJ42]

Just to clarify further, I'm not the guy\girl you replied to; that's just how I read his post. But I genuinely think he's disagreeing with the way they try to put their message across rather than the thrust of the message itself (I know I do, but then I dislike all selfrighteous moralizers on principle). I could of course be totally wrong.

Re:None of which...

[computational super]

So we're not allowed to hate child rapists now?

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:None of which...

[c_forq]

I think it depends on what is meant by overly friendly and going out of their way. I will go out of my way to help people all the time, but not that out of the way. I will open the door for someone carrying stuff within a dozen or so feet of me, but I would not run across the street to do so. Likewise, if I was driving from Toledo to Chicago I might take a detour to take a friend to South Bend. I would not go out of my way to New York though. I would be extremely suspicious if someone headed West offered to go far out of their way and give me a ride out East.

Re:None of which...

[roman_mir]

O Rly? I don't presume on people's intentions and don't expect anything until proven otherwise. Someone obliging you for no reason at all is suspicious to me, but it just doesn't happen that often for this to become a prophecy, it just doesn't happen.

Re:None of which...

[that IT girl]

Last time I checked, a "rapist" was someone who had previously committed rape. A "child rapist" would be someone who has committed rape against a child.
So when I say "child rapists", that's actually exactly what I meant. Fascinating, isn't it?

Re:None of which...

[that IT girl]

Flamebait...
So sad when we get to the point where kind, humane behaviour is mocked and seen as "backwoods".

Re:None of which...

[computational super]

Particularly fascinating given that the OP was referring to hate-mongering of people who had not, in fact, ever done anything illegal or even immoral.

Re:None of which...

[Medieval]

I take it you're not into sarcasm much, hm?

Re:None of which...

[Anonymous Coward]

"No "understanding" or "analysis of what causes it" is allowed here!"

That's funny, I thought that hating someone didn't have anything at all to do with understanding them, and that you could do both. Same for analyzing them.

I guess in your world being stupid is acceptable, but look up mutually exclusive and then shut your idiot mouth because they're not.

Re:None of which...

[Reziac]

In fact, I got the feeling from the WFI site that *they* are the ones having trouble controlling their impulses toward children. There's something ugly going on in those minds, above and beyond just hating anyone they perceive as "immoral".

Re:None of which...

[Arterion]

It's called civilization.

Re:None of which...

[MatB]

They did. The WfI went for the advertisers instead, and threatened them with screenshots and similar. That was after several months of just going for LJ. Which was of course the problem a bunch of us predicted when LJ tried to switch from pure subscriber funded to a mixed system.

It's not really the loons that are the problem, it's a website and management that haven't actually managed to update itself or stay with the times, and an abuse team run mostly by willing amateurs instead of actual trained staff.

Six Apart are basically digging their own grave business wise,t hey destroyed the (successful) LJ business model after they bought it, launched a new platform that directly competed with their own product (Vox) and have absolutely no idea how to deal with their screechy-monkey userbase. That and Facebook is eating up all their potential new customers and they're doing nothing to respond.

Re:None of which...

[Brad Eleven]

Bums With Blackberries--I've seen that band!

Re:None of which...

[Thexare Blademoon]

I didn't expect my half-joking remark to be taken so seriously. Nor did I expect it to be misinterpreted that badly.

I wasn't mocking kind, humane behavior. I'm simply surprised that anyone expects it anymore. I agree that it should be normal enough to expect it, but in all but the smallest towns I've lived in, I've found that it's simply not common at all.

But maybe Virginia just sucks.

Re:None of which...

[Anonymous Coward]

> San Francisco is pretty tame

Go on over to Hunters Point and say that. Sixth street and the Tenderloin aren't exactly Mayberry either. Okay, the rest is pretty tame, but it's actually striking how small Oakland and SF actually are -- about a million put together.

Re:None of which...

[z-vet]

...most people will either not be interested in me very much or will try to take advantage of me and this in fact is what happens. Well said. I totally agree.

Re:None of which...

[HobophobE]

One of the weirder things about their site is they constantly spotlight websites that allegedly (haven't looked into it) tell predators how to stalk children but then their own site is full of the same information. While they place it there in an attempt to warn parents, "these are things that predators might try," that's still information that predators themselves could use as far as I can tell.

Anyway, my general take on this sort of social problem is that being outraged isn't going to solve the problem. Locking them all up or killing them won't either. It's only when we can understand what goes wrong with their brains and either find a treatment or a way to identify them so that we can quarantine them from society (obviously still giving them as good a life as they can have) that children will be safe.

The fact that these sorts of people are so passionate about "we gotta mangle these bastards" without actually thinking about "hey, we're not going to stop kids from being abused, we're just contributing to the overall quantity of human misery" is probably a mental disorder in and of itself.

Big deal?

[SnoopJeDi]

If it's really that important, bloggers can:

1) Plaintext the URLS; they're not linking to the site, they're simply providing a URL should somebody want to look into whatever they're jabbering on about (maybe this one wouldn't get around the ToS)

2) Use some kind of passthrough; something similar to tinyurl that monitors the site. Impractical, but so is LJ, really.

3) Get a new blog site; it's not like there aren't a billion floating around or anything.

Am I missing something?

Re:Big deal?

[Tribbin]

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

Re:Big deal?

[marcfiszman]

Until you get censored by your host.

Re:Big deal?

[Malekin]

1. LiveJournal automagically turns plaintext URLs into links.

2. That just changes the link URL, not the fact that LiveJournal still holds you accountable for the content linked to.

3. LiveJournal, more than many similar services, has its primary value not as a blogging service but as a social network. Without all your friends also moving, a new blogging service is a significantly different experience.

Re:Big deal?

[Ablakmaniac]

3) Get a new blog site; it's not like there aren't a billion floating around or anything.

Am I missing something? Yes, although you may not agree to its importance (but you'd be at odds with the people who actually use LJ and are at the heart of this issue). It's not as simple as switching from coke to pepsi; people who use LJ for extended periods of time often develop substantial roots, real-life as well as online, with peers on the site (as well as having a lot of legacy content that's difficult to copy over to a new blog, intact). Although the metaphor is too melodramatic for my taste, it's a little closer to a minor organ transplant than to changing the brand of watch you wear.

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: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 will host anyone, and only actually take sites down if asked by law enforcement.

From the abuse page 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 abuse@NearlyFreeSpeech.NET. 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 abuse@NearlyFreeSpeech.NET. 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:Big deal?

[that IT girl]

Wow...what a pretty sunset on my background all of a sudden! :)

Re:Big deal?

[mdwh2]

1) Plaintext the URLS; they're not linking to the site, they're simply providing a URL should somebody want to look into whatever they're jabbering on about (maybe this one wouldn't get around the ToS)

2) Use some kind of passthrough; something similar to tinyurl that monitors the site. Impractical, but so is LJ, really.

Assuming that they'll allow this - it seems such an obvious loophole, I doubt it.

3) Get a new blog site; it's not like there aren't a billion floating around or anything.

Indeed, and many people are doing that (though the problem of linking blogs together in the way that it works on LJ is not solved). But in order to do that, they need to be told about it.

hah!

[thej1nx]

So you would rather that *they* take reponsibility and get shutdown for, any illegal stuff *you* put in your blog?

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!

Re:hah!

[thej1nx]

my bad ! put in that italics tag by mistake.

Re:hah!

[thej1nx]

To be fair LJ should possibly provide a tool for the users to verify the links. But yeah, links do not change that frequently all of a sudden for a porn site. And plus LJ is not a democracy. They are simply reserving the right to terminate the accounts that are more trouble than they are worth. if you are a paying customer, they would probably just warn you off first. If there is too much mass-exodus, they would possibly investigate individual cases more cautiously...

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:hah!

[Anonymous Coward]

But yeah, links do not change that frequently all of a sudden for a porn site.

Yes they do. If a linked-to site's domain name expires, it's quite common for a porn site to buy it to take advantage of the page-rank. It's more often the case that stupid made-for-adsense search-style sites get domains, but even they have NSFW ads sometimes.

Re:hah!

[WNight]

They are simply reserving the right to terminate the accounts that are more trouble than they are worth. if you are a paying customer [...]

That's just the problem, this is to paying customers. They don't have a right to terminate these accounts at all, considering their ToS changed after these users paid.

If these were just free accounts it would be expected.

Re:hah!

[anagama]

I can understand people's frustration with feeling like their freedom to express themselves is at risk, even if only from a company rather than the government, so I won't criticize the people who are upset about Live Journal's policy change. By the same token, if they are paying customers, why not say "forget that", get a $5/month hosting plan, install wordpress with a couple button clicks in Fantastico, and call it good. Then they can say whatever the hell they want (till they run into host trouble and have to go offshore).

Re:hah!

[Malekin]

I recall reading when this issue first came up that the US has a law that protects website hosts from liability resulting from user-posted content. (Section 509 of the Communications Decency Act as codified at 47 U.S.C. Section 230.)

Six Apart is enforcing these rules not out of a desire to be shutdown, but as a choice to impose their sense of morality on their users.

Re:hah!

[Sparks23]

IANAL, but I believe the section you are thinking of is:

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be
treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided
by another information content provider.

...provided by ANOTHER information content provider. As I understand it, if I am one of these 'Think of the Children' types, and I am with Comcast, and my child goes and finds a porn site, Comcast cannot be held responsible for the porn site. The company /hosting/ the porn site can still be held responsible.

(2) Civil liability
                No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be
            held liable on account of -
                    (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict
                access to or availability of material that the provider or user
                considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively
                violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not
                such material is constitutionally protected; or
                    (B) any action taken to enable or make available to
                information content providers or others the technical means to
                restrict access to material described in paragraph (1)

So my understanding of this is that it is intended to say basically 'you cannot sue your ISP for the content of the Internet,' and 'you cannot prosecute people as restricting speech if they are making good-faith efforts to block inappropriate material they host, OR to provide filtering mechanisms which rate and block inappropriate material.'

I may be misreading it, but I do not think the law (even any of the other sections, at least as best I can read it) protects a website from being liable for offensive user-posted content once informed of the existence of such content. I believe, though again I may be wrong, that liability issues are actually why many ISPs will just shut down hosted sites when sent a DMCA takedown notice.

Re:hah!

[Malekin]

It is certainly possible you are correct. It is also possible this is not the law that I am thinking of - I simply took the first google link that looked about right. My source was this cnet news story. The money quote:

"Legal experts say LiveJournal is clearly not liable for fictional stories and related discussions posted by its users, thanks to a 1996 federal law immunizing Web-based discussion forums from lawsuits. "If the content is otherwise legal, then LiveJournal has no obligation to police its site or remove any legal content it finds," said Eric Goldman, who teaches at the Santa Clara University School of Law."

Re:hah!

[Sparks23]

Yeah, we may well be thinking of different laws. Especially at oh-god-this-is-too-early o'clock. :)

Though that quote... "if the content is otherwise legal." I suspect the issue is that what they have been pointed at are incest or pedophilia type stuff, and while the fiction is probably legal, I suspect they just plain are not really reviewing things well. If the content is legal they are not obligated to remove it, but what is or is not legal on the Internet (even in the US, given differing state laws) is probably a matter for debate.

So while I think SixApart are handling this about as poorly as a company possibly can, I *can* also see where they might feel some legitimate concern (or some concern with the illusion of legitimacy) over their legal liability. Especially when a group who quite clearly would intend to pressure them in other ways (such as legal) start pointing out the supposed issues.

I am not sure they actually WOULD be liable in such a case. But I can see, given past publicized cases, where they might think they would be. If that makes sense. (Not, granted, that much to do with the Internet and law ever does make sense.)

Re:hah!

[Malekin]

I have nothing further to add to this discussion except that it's only 8:45PM where I am, (you insensitive clod!)

Re:hah!

[makomk]

The trouble is, their definition of illegal is a bit... interesting. Specifically, any sexually explicit drawings involving (in the judgement of the Abuse team) under-18s is bannable. (After the fuss kicked up when they did actually ban someone for this, they've changed it so that, when it's unclear, they'll let the person off the first time it happens - the second time is still a ban, though). If you can't see how this can be a problem, you've obviously not been spending your time on the right part of the Internet. (Specifically, since this class of image is not only not - in general - illegal in the US, and is in fact protected by the 1st Amendment in some circumstances, it's not exactly hard to find.) Also, bear in mind that this change (like the one making pornographic drawings of under-18s unconditionally against the rules and reason for swift, permanent banning) was both retroactive and not exactly well publicised by LiveJournal.

Re:hah!

[jafiwam]

I think the links are a small part of what they are trying to achieve.

For example, Google's "community sites" thing "Blogger.com" has approximately 7 out of 10 of it's profiles some sort of spam, link lists (for search rankings to other sites), thinly veiled search whitewashing, malicious program installers, and some that redirect to porn. (The last one has kept me from visiting the site at work, the pop ups and stuff work even in FireFox.)

This policy, is a tool that can help them have a rule that lets them go through and delete that stuff. (LJ seems to have a lot less of it though.)

The following link its the "random next profile" link for blogger.com. Paste it into a browser a couple of times and you will see what I mean.

http://www.blogger.com/next-blog?navBar=true

That's not to say that responding to the right wing christian whack jobs like this is a good idea. But I DO see their point.

Re:hah!

[autophile]

Stop emphasizing!

--Rob

Re:hah!

[mdwh2]

So you would rather that *they* take reponsibility and get shutdown

No one said that. The point is that no one should be responsible for linking (well, if it becomes a legal issue, sure it should be the user who is responsible, but the issue is LJ pre-emptively banning people for linking, even if law enforcement are not involved).

Re:hah!

[jdjbuffalo]

I don't have the specific link to what the Supreme Court decision is but a few years ago they did say that it WAS LEGAL to create pornographic images of under age people as long as it was clear that it wasn't created from an abuse of an actual child.

So something like a fantasy drawing of an underage person is ok legally. But if you did a drawing of an actual child being sexually abused then that would still be illegal.

/Standard IANAL speech.

Umm...

[garett_spencley]

Ok, so I understand quite well how things can change and how domains can switch hands and a link one day might be about my little pony but the next day it could get redirected to porn etc.

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.

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.

Re:Umm...

[bhalter80]

There are 2 things at work here 1) is the case where I post something and it gets changed relatively soon in that case I can see that perhaps the user who posted the LJ entry should be responsible but there is the other case 2) where 2 years from now www.coolsite.com becomes pr0n pr0n pr0n at this point should I still be responsible for checking that my links point to the content I originally intended? Maybe LJ needs to deactivate links in posts over a certain number of days and print them as text instead of links. Personally I think the whole concept of writing a diary for the world to see is rather foolish but I'm not one of those trendy teeniboppers.

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...

[Stooshie]

... the guy who signed up for a Live Journal account ... ... should be held responsible ...

Some people's journals have thousands of entries, which would be impossible for a user to continually check through. It would be much easier for the webmaster to have a small program that loops through the users, and their entries, does a quick check on any links to other sites (e.g. for "bad" words etc...) then emails the user with a warning (it could even keep track of how many warnings a user had been sent). It could just run as a background service continually and start from the beginning again when it's finished.

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 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:Umm...

[Yinepuhotep]

LJ has been somewhat inconsistent with its definitions...,

Somewhat? How about totally inconsistent! When this whole mess started, you coudn't get a straight answer from them, and when you did get an answer, it was sure to be changed within a few hours (if not less). Add to that, the fact that LJ cherry-picks which journals it chooses to apply its TOS to, and you get an environment where you don't know if your "My Little Pony" post of today will be LJ's "evil child porn" post of tomorrow - even if there's no child porn involved.

Re:Umm...

[Stan92057]

Dont ya think that if LJ is a US company,they are bound by the US laws concerning drawing,which have changed that it is against the law to depict minors having sex with anyone of any age. Ignorance of the law as far as i know is not an excuse that has been held up in any court in the US.

Re:Umm...

[Just Some Guy]

Is it not *your* responsibility to make sure that sites that you link to aren't something that "parent company" wouldn't object to ?

I think these guys are a bunch of assholes.

See how that worked? I linked to something I object to, in the context of me objecting to it. You have to be allowed to say the name of things you don't like or else you can't tell other people why you don't like them.

Re:Umm...

[garett_spencley]

You misinterpreted that sentence.

My point was that if you had linked to something that *parent company* objects to then you could expect repercussions. Imagine your employer lets you host a personal web page on company servers. But they tell you "do not link to nambla.org" and then you go and link to it. Even though your context is one of objection, you have still violated your employers terms and you can probably expect to get fired.

In the case of LiveJournal, they own the servers. They own the domain that you are hosting your pages on etc. When you create a LiveJournal account you are, in a sense, "vouching" for the content on said pages. Link to something that goes against LJ's terms and see what happens.

Re:Umm...

[laura20]

As far as I know, it's still in place; quite a few people lost their journals over that one. Including one that was using a classical painting of Mary feeding the infant Jesus.

Re:Umm...

[Reziac]

Why not just disable the link, or automatically redirect it to a generic page that explains what's going on?

We must all be responsible...

[swalker42]

when we decide to hook one of the internet tubes to our website.
If we can't control the tubes, what has this world come to?

Bad summary and random story!

[porcupine8]

Great, now I get to read LJ pedo wank on /. too. Is there no escape?

The blog post in question states:

If there's any good news, current policy dictates that if LJAbuse is able to determine based on the content around your link that you initially posted to a "safe" site and that link has now been redirected, you will be contacted and asked to fix the link. They will most likely not use it as a "strike" against you in their shiny new "two strikes yer out policy" if LJAbuse decides that you didn't intend to link to a site LJ/6A thinks contains ToS-able content.

Which contradicts the comment quoted in the summary.

Of course, as sick as I am of the "LET ME TELL YOU INTERNETS IT IS HARD TO BE AN OPPRESSED HARRY POTTER FANFICCER", I do hope that LJ isn't really going to start kicking people out for old links.

I used to have a Barbie site that got a fair bit of traffic, and of course (this being the late 90s when a links page was a requisite for any site), I had a page of links to my other favorite Barbie sites. I once got a letter in the snail mail from a lady telling me what a horrible person I am for luring children in with Barbie stuff and then showing them porn. Sure enough, one of the doll domains had been bought out as a "doll" domain, and this lady for some reason thought that I had actually gone through the trouble of creating a site with all this info on doll collecting (and I'm sure 7-year-olds find listings of flaws discovered upon deboxing a doll fascinating) just to lure kids into a porn site. Oh, and that was the day I learned not to put my home address on my online resume.

Re:Bad summary and random story!

[EricJay]

IAWTC.

If you read the text of the exchange liz_marcs had with LJ Abuse, you'll see this:

The LiveJournal Abuse Prevention team only investigates material which has been reported to us. Should a link be reported in a case where it is clear from the context that any violation of the Terms of Service is entirely unintentional and caused by a change in the page content after the time the link was made, the action LiveJournal would take would be to ask the user to remove the link; it would not count as a "strike" under the "two strike" rule.

Am I the only one who finds this to be TOTALLY reasonable? The summary, and many of the comments here, seem to be all up in arms about how if a page changes, someone is going to have their LiveJournal deleted... when the words quoted above make it pretty clear that unless a user mentions the illegal content in the context of the link, they're just going to let you know that the content changed, and ask you to remove the link!

Re:Bad summary and random story!

[compro01]

nope. sounds perfectly sensible to me also, speaking as a livejournal user myself.

though it remains to be seen if they will actually follow what their policy says.

Re:Bad summary and random story!

[Yinepuhotep]

IF it is applied that way, yes. However, past history with LJ demonstrates that WE CAN NOT TRUST THEM to apply it this reasonably.

Re:Bad summary and random story!

[Hooded One]

Thank you! While SixApart completely fucked up the initial process, suspending users based on interests and such, some users have gone overboard with the crazy in response. In response to the quote you gave, the user apparently just said "I don't believe you, so nyah." Well then why ask, if you've already judged what you feel the "correct" answer to be?

SixApart is never going to take a laundry list of "hypothetical" situations and give a response that "1, 2, and 5 are child porn, but 3 and 4 are absolutely ok, because Snape is only thinking of raping Harry while Dumbledore watches, not actually doing it. Have a nice day!" Just because some poor employee got tired with answering the same questions over and over again does not make you right.

They're also stuck between a rock and a hard place because obscenity laws are arbitrary and open to wildly different interpretations, and they can't do a damn thing about it.

In short, please, go ahead and boycott, since I couldn't give any less of a damn about fanfic (of any sort).

Re:Bad summary and random story!

[makomk]

Basically, after the "interests" screw-ups, LiveJournal made certain reassurances to the users, prior to trying to sell them permanent accounts. The left telling them "oh, we'll ban users on sight for sexually explicit drawings of under 18s, based solely on what age we reckon they are" until after the permanent account sale was on.

They can hardly say they didn't know about it or didn't realise users would want to know this before they shelled out $150 - there's this thread in response to their initial reassurances (barakb25 is their CEO). Also, the first two banned users got in trouble for posts to pornish_pixies, which was one of the communities suspended in the previous screw-up.

Be that as it may...

[Anonymous Coward]

While it may not be government censorship, I don't see why we can't publicly decry these actions as idiotic.

After all, who will learn from their example if no one makes an example of them?

Re:Be that as it may...

[rhizome]

The government.

Re:Be that as it may...

[bi_boy]

While it may not be government censorship, I don't see why we can't publicly decry these actions as idiotic.

It's because we're not talking about Microsoft.

Re:Be that as it may...

[Oligonicella]

Because we , for the most part, aren't LJ users (I am). If the LJ users want to decry, fine, but a bunch of uninvolved people standing on the sidelines screaming about the practices of a particular company that provides a service for friggin' free (unless you want a subscription) are just interlopers.

After all, who will learn from their example if no one makes an example of them?

Good lynch mob mentality. Why not leave it to their actual user base to "make an example of them"?

Re:Be that as it may...

[Fozzyuw]

While it may not be government censorship, I don't see why we can't publicly decry these actions as idiotic.
After all, who will learn from their example if no one makes an example of them?

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.

Today, LiveJournal management have demonstrated a serious lack of understanding in how the internet works

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.

declaring that users are responsible for the content of the webpages that they link to in their blog entries

Yes, more sensational bullshit. I didn't see the LJ TOS specifically say that you are responsible for the content of another website. What I did read is as follows..

XIV.JOURNAL CONTENT

You agree to follow the following guidelines for posting Content to your online journal:

1. All Content posted to LiveJournal in any way, is the responsibility and property of the author. LiveJournal is committed to maintaining the Service in a manner reasonably acceptable to all audiences but is not responsible for the monitoring or filtering of any journal Content. Within the confines of international and local law, LiveJournal will generally not place a limit on the type or appropriateness of user content within journals. Those users posting material not suitable for all audiences must agree that they are fully responsible for all the Content they have posted anywhere on the Service. Should Content be deemed illegal by such law having jurisdiction over the user, you agree that LiveJournal may submit all necessary information to, and cooperate with, the proper authorities;
2. Should any Content that you have authored be reported to LiveJournal as being offensive or inappropriate, LiveJournal might call upon you to retract, modify, or protect (by means of private and friends only settings) the Content in question within a reasonable amount of time, as determined by the LiveJournal staff. Should you fail to meet such a request from LiveJournal staff, LiveJournal may terminate your account. LiveJournal, however, is under no obligation to restrict or monitor journal Content in any way;
3. LiveJournal claims no ownership or control over any Content posted by its users. The author retains all patent, trademark, and copyright to all Content posted within available fields, and is responsible for protecting those rights, but is not entitled to the help of the LiveJournal staff in protecting such Content. The user posting any Content represents that it has all rights necessary to post such Content (and for LiveJournal to serve such Content) without violation of any intellectual property or other rights of third parties, or any laws or regulations;

XVI. MEMBER CONDUCT

You understand that all Content, including without limitation, all information, data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages, or other materials, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, are the sole responsibility of the person from which such Content originated.{snip}

13. [you cannot] Promote or provide instructiona

Re:Be that as it may...

[mdwh2]

Because we , for the most part, aren't LJ users (I am).

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:Be that as it may...

[mdwh2]

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.

If only that were true. Part of the problem is that recently Six Apart like to interpret the TOS in ways that aren't explicitly stated in the TOS. They have recently posted "clarifications" where they vaguely explain what the TOS is meant to say. They have explicitly stated that content you link to is subject to rules just the same as if it was posted on your journal.

Yes, the TOS doesn't say it (in fact, I believe it says that LJ isn't responsible for any external links, ironically...) but that's all the more reason the situation is rather silly and confusing.

But then again, I'd rather cough up $3 a month to have my own website/blog than use a social networking site.

Some people cough up money for LJ too. And if a hosting service had this policy too, I suspect the story would also be on Slashdot.

But I can tell you this, you'll still get banned by most hosts for linking to child p0rn even if it's your own site.

That's not what we're talking about.

Re:Be that as it may...

[conlaw]

Can we get some good articles back in /. instead of this crap?

Sure, go to the top of the page, click on "Firehose" and give your opinion on the submissions. That way, you can help the editors pick out the "good articles" before they're published.

Re:Be that as it may...

[budgenator]

Just seems to me that if WFI were doing this with any other group, it would be stalking. Let us try this, 150 years it was illegal for a black man to have sex with a white woman, now go to Warriors For Innocence and replace pedo and pedophile with nigger.

Re:Be that as it may...

[Fozzyuw]

If only that were true. Part of the problem is that recently Six Apart like to interpret the TOS in ways that aren't explicitly stated in the TOS.

This isn't about how Six Apart or LJ likes to interpret the TOS. It's about how LJ users want to interpret the TOS. But lets put it a different way...

Premise A) The LJ TOS clearly states you cannot post "objectionable" material? objectionable being defined in the TOS under MEMBER CONDUCT but specifically item 1...

"Upload, post or otherwise transmit any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive to another's privacy (up to, but not excluding any address, email, phone number, or any other contact information without the written consent of the owner of such information), hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;".

No one has a problem with that, correct? Then lets go on to the next logical point...

Premise B) To put a link on your LJ blog, you have to post it. Correct? Any objections? There shouldn't be. Links cannot magically appear on your LJ blog.

Thus, since a link can be posted, and the contents of said link can be objectionable, it there for can be a TOS violation.

What those who are complaining are trying to argue is this...

That since a link does not literally contain the objectionable content (for example, an image), but is only a connection to said objectionable content, it cannot be objected to and it therefor does not apply to the TOS.

This premise if false. A link, a word, an image is content. ANY content can be objected to. That doesn't mean such an objection is always valid. It just means that someone could object it. LJ, in their clarifications, clearly pointed this policy out. They said: " any child p0rn objections will be followed up on, no matter what." They went on to say: "Only other objections that have been substantiated will be followed up on. Any objection that appears to be baseless will be ignored." (paraphrasing)

What's not to understand? Ironically, the blogger "liz_marcs" makes this comment...

Talk about a complete misunderstanding of how the Internet works.

The internet is nothing BUT links (aka connections) to material that is electronically transfered from one location to another. To go to a website, you have to make a link, a connection, to that website. Pictures on that site need to be linked too, even if they're on the same site, so your browser knows how and where to ask for them. I only bring this up because if you read "liz_marcs" conversation she posted to the LJ rep, it's clear "she" doesn't know how the internet works as she tries to be exclusive to some "links" but not others...

I'm not talking about displaying an objectionable image hosted on, say Photobucket, and linked using the "img" tag. I'm talking about linking to a site or an image using the "a href" tag.

So, it's not ok to link an objectionable image with an "img" tag, but it's ok to link to it with an anchor tag("a href")? An objectionable item is an objectionable item, it doesn't matter how you link it. You're directing (linking/connecting) others to it's access. That's the objection.

Some people cough up money for LJ too.

Good for LJ. Those who pay are a subset of those who have access for free. Everyone gets the "free" services, those who pay get more services. I just used the parent set of "free" people because everyone falls into that category.

And if a hosting service had this policy too,

A lot

Re:Be that as it may...

[jaydonnell]

You fail to see an important issue in this. It's important for users looking for a blog service to know such things, and how will they know if only current lj users are allowed to talk about it (by your logic) and even they they should just shut up and leave. Isn't it a little late to find that you hate the policies of a service once you've invested a year or more creating content that benefits them and getting to know a network of friends that you'll have to leave?

Re:Be that as it may...

[eyrieowl]

long winded much? The point I see here is that the person with the complaint linked to NON-objectionable material (AKA NOT violating TOS). At some later point, said link died, then became a link to objectionable material. So...that seems to be an issue to me, that a company would expect you to constantly vet any and all links you might have made at any point in time to verify that they are still non-objectionable. To me, that's a big WTF? Maybe you see that as a non-issue, but I think slashdot readers are being well-informed to learn that one (and where there's one there's usually more) company is holding users responsible for links not just when they are made but ad infinitum. Given that many people have blogs which span YEARS, it's hardly reasonable for anyone to expect that those people will continually sift through their old entries, vetting all the links for TOS compliance. Does that help you understand the significance of the story?

Re:Be that as it may...

[Fozzyuw]

long winded much?

One of those days. =p

Re:Be that as it may...

[mdwh2]

This isn't about how Six Apart or LJ likes to interpret the TOS. It's about how LJ users want to interpret the TOS.

No, it's about how LJ have been interpretting the TOS. Yes, customers may disagree, and complain just like customers of every other company do.

Anyhow, I agree that the TOS can be interpretted to disallow links - I mean, it's broad enough to ban you for any reason.

Those who pay are a subset of those who have access for free.

So whine about the free users. And I hope you whine about every other story that complains about a company, where the users aren't paying customers, too.

A lot [1and1.com]of hosting services [bluehost.com] have this kind [myspace.com] of policy [facebook.com]. All hosting companies have a policy for objectionable material that is illegal.

The issue is how they act, and yes, whether they include a link in their definition of objectional content (which isn't something which is necessarily true). If those companies actively policed content and banned without warning for things which might be illegal, if they'd banned 500 accounts because a 3rd party group told them, and now they were saying that simply a link can get you banned for the content on the site you're linking to, then I bet there'd be a Slashdot story there too.

No, it wouldn't because it's... not... news. It's community whiny and spreading FUD for not understanding a TOS (if they even read it).

You're the one whining about Slashdot posting a story you don't like. I mean, Slashdot are a private entity, they can do what they right like? Go elsewhere if you don't like it, right?

Plenty of stories on Slashdot are about the TOS or small prints that companies have - unlike most stories which are based on hypotheticals of what a company might do, this story is based on a history where we know what LJ have done.

Yes, yes it is.

No, it's not. The concern here is obscenity, not child porn.

This seriously appears to be a non-issue and doesn't deserve /. attention. Though, anyone is free to try and counter-argue the significance of this story.

Then don't read it. How about we discuss the story, and not have some meta debate about whether you think it is worthy or not?

Re:Be that as it may...

[mdwh2]

Given that many people have blogs which span YEARS

All good points - also, I presume this applies to comments that people make in each others' blogs. It's at least a conceivable task, if very time consuming, for people to skim back over their blog history. But with thousands of comments made all over LiveJournal, and with no method of keeping track of them, it's an impossible task (and comments can't be edited either, only deleted).

Could be symptomatic of a deeper problem ...

[ScrewMaster]

One wonders how such a long-established blogging company can be so ignorant about the nature of the world wide web.

Perhaps they are in need of some of those Alzheimer's implants referred to in another recent story.

mmmmK

[Televiper2000]

There's absolutely nothing unfair about this policy. LiveJournal is holding their members accountable for the content of their journals and they're simply extending it what is on the other side of the hyper link. There's correspondence from the people who run LiveJournal in the article that specifically states that the user will first be asked to remove the offending link. It's an EVERYDAY thing on the internet to use journals and blogs and a front door for distributing illicit material that's stored in other locations on the internet. Honestly, if YOU are that much smarter about how the internet works, get your webserver.

Re:mmmmK

[Anonymous Coward]

Holding someone accountable for something they have no control over (the current contents of something they linked to in the past) is pretty definitionally "unfair".

Write a link-checker widget

[jihadist]

They love widgets at LiveJournal, or is that FaceBook? Or MyFace or whatever it's called.

Anyway, write a widget. It stores the URL and two unique phrases, visible only to the owner of the widget, it must find on that page. Every night at midnight, it scans your links and if it doesn't find those phrases, temporarily yanks the link and drops you an IM.

Or is LiveJournal too primitive for this? If so, maybe they need to fix that. The future is the widget, man.

Re:Write a link-checker widget

[emurphy42]

Seems like a good idea, but how best to prevent this from becoming a DDoS vector?

Re:Write a link-checker widget

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a database of links/phrases. You grab each link once and only once, no matter how often that link is referenced by your users. You look at a user's link, grab your local, cached copy of said link, and regexp for the phrases.

I guess people are lazy though, and would probably just try to retrieve a page each and every time there was a link to it. :P

Re:Write a link-checker widget

[vux984]

You have a database of links/phrases.

Heh. That's how it starts.

We just wanted a widget to check links. A wee little WIDGET!!

Then it turned out it needed an enterprise level database engine behind it for efficiency and security. (Just the sort of feature creep IT departments love most.)

I suppose the next step is that once this massive database is checking links... well it only makes sense to harvest the data for advertising trends, pagerank, and so forth and try to make some money off it...

Re:Slideshow

[Anonymous Coward]

Slideshow title: Slashdot Memories by Goatse

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:Oh and....

[kokoba]

Didn't you know? The entire Internet userbase consists of Harry Potter fanficcers and artists. Old IRC adages about men, women, children and FBI agents no longer apply.

Upkeep

[Joebert]

What do you mean I'm responsible for the baby dieing in the tub, she was alive when I put her in there.

Re:Upkeep

[Ablakmaniac]

What do you mean I'm responsible for the baby dieing in the tub, she was alive when I put her in there. I don't understand how that bizarre metaphor got modded up as insightful. (Note, it got modded back down to flamebait while I was writing this, thank heavens.)

If I'm understanding the situation (having not used livejournal in a couple of years now), a better (though still imperfect) metaphor would be the curator of a small library of up to several thousand books, not simply having to check the books when they're purchased, but also having to go through all the stacks regularly to make sure rogue publishers never sneak in and replace an existing book with a pornographic book of the same name and external appearance. Because even though it's uncommon, the library is going to be held responsible when it happens, and shut down if it happens twice.

I don't see how this is in any way a sensible practice. It would seem more reasonable for LJ to issue warnings--perhaps to automatically remove the link and send you an email explaining the situation--and not take punitive action unless there's evidence of a pattern to indicate that the violations are deliberate.

For that matter, would it be difficult for LJ to implement a list of sites you're not permitted to link to, and make it publicly available, as well as automatically checking newly submitted links against that list and giving a real-time warning?

BTW I mostly agree with the people who say "just leave for another blogging site"; that's probably what I'd do, since nearly any web community that approaches LJ's scale seems to turn to shit, following changes in policy that (nearly) always come with that kind of population.

I don't know if it's economics that makes it inevitable--that at that size, it becomes impractical to run it any other way and still survive financially; see for instance the way Fark had to adapt to satisfy their advertisers, to exist at their current scale--or just that you get so many bad apples that the policies have to be re-written to revolve around them.

But I sympathize with people who have built up extensive communities on LJ, with their own blog being part of an extended online family. People actually build deep connections that way, for better or for worse. They may not have a legal right to force LJ to accomodate them, but they have my complete support if they want to fight the changes to their online homeowner's association (so to speak), rather than nonchalantly accept the eviction and find another town.

Re:Upkeep

[Joebert]

I like my metaphor, it's straight & to the point.

Re:Upkeep

[Yinepuhotep]

For that matter, would it be difficult for LJ to implement a list of sites you're not permitted to link to, and make it publicly available, as well as automatically checking newly submitted links against that list and giving a real-time warning?

That would require LJ to have a firm and reliable policy for what is and is not permitted, and as we found out when we asked them to simply state their criteria for what is an acceptable journal, LJ does not have any such policy.

Re:Upkeep

[Ablakmaniac]

I like my metaphor, it's straight & to the point. It's concise, but I think it's an impossibly bad fit to the LJ situation. You don't collect hundreds of babies and put them in tubs throughout thousands of rooms, moving on after each baby, where they're going to be left for months and years (and never taken out unless they've drowned), and still have sole responsibility for checking on them constantly. And a baby has a good chance of drowning if left alone in a tub, so you're probably going to stay with that one baby the entire time and then take it out.

If you leave a baby alone in the tub--let alone hundreds of babies--you're almost guaranteed a dead baby, or a fat pile of them. That's not true of blog links; they might become invalid eventually, but most of them don't later change without warning to a porn site, and they certainly don't need constant undivided attention to keep them from doing so.

IMO putting a baby in a tub and leaving it there, is nothing like putting a link in one of your blog entries and moving on. There is an obvious responsibility to stay with that one baby until it is out of the tub, and not move on and do other things with your life and (wrongly/dangerously) trust that the baby will be ok on its own. There is no such responsibility for blog links, and attempting to force one is ridiculous and doomed to fail.

Re:Upkeep

[Joebert]

A baby had to drown before people knew they couldn't leave them in the bathtub unattended, it wasn't a piece of knowledge humans were born knowing.

Links are the new babies.

LJ's own ToS shows their hypocrisy

[Grond]

LJ's own ToS contains a clause denying LJ's responsibility for external links:

The Service, or relevant third parties, may provide links to other web sites or resources. Because LiveJournal has no control over such sites and resources, you acknowledge and agree that LiveJournal is not responsible for the availability of such external sites or resources, and does not endorse and is not responsible or liable for any content, advertising, products, or other materials on or available from such sites or resources. You further acknowledge and agree that LiveJournal shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such site or resource.

Why would they deny their users the same legal protection? Or maybe users should simply put a modified version of this clause on their blogs. That way, if LJ wants to deny that a user's ToS is valid, it would be shooting itself in the foot.

Re:LJ's own ToS shows their hypocrisy

[faedle]

LiveJournal's staff has clearly stated that they believe LiveJournal's Terms of Service is not to be taken literally, and that it in no way shape or form dictates actual LJ policy. What document does state that is left as an exercise to the reader.

Re:LJ's own ToS shows their hypocrisy

[Yinepuhotep]

...assuming there is an actual document, that is.

I see this in the future, and my thoughts

[dacarr]

See, this is why, whenever I link to a site, I try and make sure that it's not going to be something nefarious. Granted, the occasional meme has turned up a pic of Goatse.

What I see happening is this: LJ, with their history, will provide a warning. If it was a meme and it got goatse'd, then yeah, the blogger is technically responsible, but I'm fairly sure they won't be ToS'd because of some fuckwit's prank that they apparently think is laughable. On the other hand, if the person is posting links to child porn and it's clearly intentional...well, as near as I can tell, this is what it's for.

I'll have to toss this by my attorney, see what s/he thinks of it.

Re:I see this in the future, and my thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't make sure the site you link to will still be "good" three years from now. If the domain expires, and gets bought by a porn company, you now have links pointing to porn.

LJ is saying you're responsible for the content of the sites you link to... even years later.

(Elfwreck)

Appearently their mascot had this to say.....

[x1n933k]

"Take that biiaaaache" says Frank.

[J]

Whine some more

[Anonymous Coward]

Holding users responsible for the content of hyperlinks they post is standard practice on just about every electronic bulletin board I can think of. Even 4chan does it. How should this be any different?

Goatse anyone?

[thatskinnyguy]

They could do like /. did with the whole goatse thing (back when that was all the rage) and show the domain name next to the link. This would leave it up to the users' discretion whether to click or not to click.

Re:Goatse anyone?

[flowsnake]

Although this would generally be a good thing to do, it doesn't help at all if the linked page changes. The URL remains the same, but the content has changed from that which was present at the time the blogger linked it.

What problem?

[Mundocani]

Honestly, I don't see it. How could you get ToS'd maliciously? They only said that you were responsible for sites you link directly to, not that you are responsible for every site they in turn link to. Being that it's only sites you link to yourself, I think this seems like a reasonable CYA policy. You should be responsible for sites you link to, you're the one sending your readers there. I doubt that means they'd (necessarily) throw you off the service (unless you'd linked to something really egregious, though I'm not sure what that'd even be). But if you direct people to a site that's illegal and the feds come knocking, why shouldn't you have to be the one to answer the door?

Re:What problem?

[pclminion]

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:What problem?

[JeffSh]

Your point is valid but irrelevant. The whole point of this post is about LJ deleting journals for violating TOS, specifically, linking to things that violate TOS like pedophiles and other things of that nature. LJ's actions have little or nothing to do with the aspect of direct linking you describe. I'm certain that those culled from LJ were found to be affirmitively in violation of TOS and not just accidently.

Re:What problem?

[pclminion]

Your point is valid but irrelevant.

Irrelevant to the story, perhaps. But I was responding to a user comment, which claimed that we should all be responsible for the content we link to. Clearly, that's not feasible, as it would destroy the web.

Re:What problem?

[Mundocani]

You can be responsible for the content you link to by being accountable to your government (yeah, I'm no fan either, but there they are) if you violate a law. If you point people to a site where they can hook up with other men who like diddling kiddies and providing a link like that is illegal in your country, then I think it's reasonable for LiveJournal to say that they'll close your account if they're required to under those circumstances and that they'll probably provide your identity to your government as well if they're required to.

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:What problem?

[pclminion]

You can be responsible for the content you link to by being accountable to your government (yeah, I'm no fan either, but there they are) if you violate a law. If you point people to a site where they can hook up with other men who like diddling kiddies and providing a link like that is illegal in your country, then I think it's reasonable for LiveJournal to say that they'll close your account if they're required to under those circumstances and that they'll probably provide your identity to your government as well if they're required to.

But this misses the fundamental point -- the Internet can change at any time. What if I link to a site: http://www.cutebabies.com/ which is full of pictures of newborns for new parents to gawk at. Suppose the registration on this domain expires, and it's replaced with a site full of child porn -- babies engaging in sex, or whatever. If I'm responsible for that, then... I'm not going to link to anything.

Re:What problem?

[Mundocani]

Yeah, but the legal system isn't actually blind, they do actually look at context. If your link is surrounded by text that says stuff like "My wife and I just had our baby and we found the cutest site! Check it out at www.cutebabies.com. Be sure to check out page 3 where you can find pictures of our little Jessica-Amber -- it's under the Oh-no-she-didn't! category!", then I bet the judge, hell even the cops will probably think "WTF? Does this guy know what's on that site?" and LJ will simply ask you to remove the link and threaten you with suspension or cancellation if you don't. And, given the scenario you described, I bet you'd be more than happy to take down a link like that.

Re:What problem?

[pclminion]

Yeah, but the legal system isn't actually blind, they do actually look at context. If your link is surrounded by text that says stuff like "My wife and I just had our baby and we found the cutest site! Check it out at www.cutebabies.com. Be sure to check out page 3 where you can find pictures of our little Jessica-Amber -- it's under the Oh-no-she-didn't! category!", then I bet the judge, hell even the cops will probably think "WTF? Does this guy know what's on that site?" and LJ will simply ask you to remove the link and threaten you with suspension or cancellation if you don't. And, given the scenario you described, I bet you'd be more than happy to take down a link like that.

"Take down" a link that's been hard-archived on a million places on the web? Not even possible. How am I supposed to go erase the links from Google cache and any other site that archives web content? For that matter, what if LJ doesn't allow me to redact my posts? Why the hell should I be threatened with "suspension or cancellation" because some OTHER SITE on the Internet changes?

Re:What problem?

[Mundocani]

Why do you have to erase caches? LiveJournal would just want the links off of their own site, which you can easily comply with. This issue isn't about you being responsible for your links existence in history, it's about you being responsible for the present.

Re:What problem?

[Mundocani]

By the way, you must realize that if a cached copy somewhere could be used to implicate you, then a cached copy would also exonerate you as well since there would be copies of the original site that you actually linked to as well.

Re:What problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

which is why i was forced to delete links to political blogs after my account was suspended for violation of TOS, eh?

Re:What problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm certain that those culled from LJ were found to be affirmitively in violation of TOS and not just accidently.

Well you're very wrong. I suggest you go read a bit more about the whole situation before making more blanket statements. LJ is clearly in the wrong here, as they originally provided the blog owners no notice or warning before taking down their blogs, some of whom paid for a "liftime account".

Re:What problem?

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Perhaps we need links that contain a message digest, so if the page changes the link self-deletes or gets flagged in the browser as pointing to a now changed page.

Re:What problem?

[pclminion]

This issue isn't about you being responsible for your links existence in history, it's about you being responsible for the present.

Why am I responsible for ANYTHING? If you're going to hold me responsible, I'm not going to link. Period.

Re:What problem?

[Mundocani]

If you really believe that the sorts of sites you're likely to link to are the sort that might land you in trouble with the law, I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to link to them. Hell, I wouldn't link to them either.

But if you're seriously worried that somehow an old link will come back to haunt you, remember that things like records of domain ownership changes, your dated journal entries, cached copies of the web, etc. would all clearly show what happened. All this concern about some nightmare scenario seems way overblown.

Re:What problem?

[pclminion]

But if you're seriously worried that somehow an old link will come back to haunt you, remember that things like records of domain ownership changes, your dated journal entries, cached copies of the web, etc. would all clearly show what happened. All this concern about some nightmare scenario seems way overblown.

I'm not concerned about a "nightmare scenario" -- I'm attacking the fundamental CONCEPT that a person is somehow responsible for the content of a site they link to. It's no different than telling somebody to go down to the corner of 5th and Garden Street -- there's a great Thai restaurant there -- but when they arrive, it's actually been replaced with an illegal dog fighting ring. No sir, not my responsibility, even in principle.

Re:What problem?

[Mundocani]

I agree completely, that's not your responsibility. I also agree that if someone changes the site out from underneath a link you provided that's not your responsibility either. My only point is that, as far as LiveJournal is concerned, you're the one who is going to have to explain it to the cops if they come. That's all their policy is saying. Not guilt, not your fault, just you're the one who's going to have to work it out with the authorities, not them.

As far as whether linking to any content whatsoever should ever be illegal, well that's another issue and is outside the scope of this article and LiveJournals policy. That's an issue between citizens and their governments. My point was never to try to define *that* boundary.

Lame kids.

[pseudosero]

Obviously Livejournal doesn't understand the rapidly changing nature of the internet, It lost fad status long ago. If you're still on livejournal then what the FUCK are you doing. If you're on a SNS the you're obviously trying to be cool, in which case you need to keep up with the current trends. And I want to see some animated gifs of girls on your site too. Extra twinkly please.

Devil's Advocate

[Enderandrew]

I'm leaving LJ personally because a bunch of their BS policies lately, but let me play devil's advocate for a moment.

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.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[Sibko]

If I owned Six Apart, I'd have the same policy simply to cover my ass. If I owned Six Apart, I think I'd just move the company/servers to a different country.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[pipingguy]

a guy had a user-pic of masturbating with a barbie doll

Now we know why Slashdot doesn't allow photos in user pages. Seriously though, what type of message is that supposed to send? Freedom of expression is a great thing, but who is this person trying to impress? Is it a vague demonstration of independence of thought, an obsure political statement or just an attempt to get attention? Scratch the surface and you'll find out its a troll.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[Enderandrew]

Suddenly I'm thinking of the PennyArcade comic where they discuss the potential implications of taking pictures and posting them to XBox Live. Tycho was flooded with pics of Gabe's "man berries".

Re:Devil's Advocate

[makomk]

True, if "children" is defined as "anyone under 18", "content in regards to sex with children" is defined as "drawings and stories about teenagers having sex", and "illegal" is defined as "could possibly be illegal but probably isn't". Personally, I find the content in question distasteful - but trying to associate it with images of child sexual abuse is even more distasteful IMO.

To make it perfectly clear: the new rules explicitly prohibit, by intention, types of material that have been found to be constitutionally protected free speech in the US. Personally, I'm not too worried about the so-called "child porn". Both the other rules and the way they've handled the whole thing make me want to move elsewhere. (The timing seems to have been calculated to make sure that people don't find out about it before they've paid $150 non-refundable on a permanent account, for a start.)

Re:Devil's Advocate

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

LJ admitted they over-reacted initially and deleted some communities they shouldn't have.

That would be like nuking a city because of a few miscreants in it.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[Enderandrew]

They did a search for certain terms like "Lolita" and deleted any communities where it popped up multiple times, including book clubs that discussed the book.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[Enderandrew]

Those terms would be state and federal laws, and last time I checked on-line businesses that operated out of the US needed to follow those laws. If you're upset, I wouldn't take your gripes to LJ but rather US lawmakers.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[strikethree]

"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."

Why is pedophilia worse than anything else in the world? Even it were the absolute worst crime that could ever be committed, why would you only cover your bases on this one crime and not all crimes? This is all rather creepy to me.

strike

Re:Devil's Advocate

[Enderandrew]

I'm not attempting to establish a system of morality here, merely stating the way things are. Watchdog groups are going after certain websites and groups in particular. If you really dig-deep into the LJ scandals of late you'll find some interesting contraversies that I didn't get into because I feel they were a bit off-topic. However the watchdog groups that submitted TOS violations for a bunch of pedophilia-related communities included a bunch of slash-fic sites that focused on gay porn. They had nothing to do with pedophilia, but it was a hidden agenda thrown in because apparently all gays have a thing for little boys. LJ has also had recent contraversies over banning pictures of breast-feeding, even if a nipple isn't shown, because apparently breastfeeding is inherently evil. That is where I saw the barbie-doll-masturbation thing pop-up. You could have that as a user-pic, and it wasn't offensive so long as it wasn't your default pic. However a default pic that featured breastfeeding was against the TOS.

There is also a current controversy because the TOS clearly state that no community may encourage self-harm, but the largest pro-anorexia community on the internet is hosted on LJ. They openly encourage women to not eat and in their own words "starve themselves" even if they haven't eaten in days and are experiencing medical symptoms of malnutrition. They encourage self-loathing and insecurity, and the moderator for the community already committed suicide. In response, they are all calling for even more starving to honor her. Several young girls on the community have also discussed suicide, and instead of encouraging these women to seek professional help, LJ for som strange reason is standing behind this community.

I'm playing devil's advocate in that I would have similar policies on pedophilia because I would be bound by law. However in principle they are deleting people's journals because they wrote a fic about two Harry Potter students getting it on, while LJ defends a pro-anorexia community. Their priorities are a little off. Either they try to avoid censorship as much as possible, or they establish firm rules on what they won't allow and enforce them uniformly.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[runderwo]

Why is pedophilia worse than anything else in the world? Even it were the absolute worst crime that could ever be committed, why would you only cover your bases on this one crime and not all crimes?

Same reason it's okay to watch actors murder one another on public television every evening, but a display of a single female breast on national television provokes a national uproar that hasn't ended.

Re:Love it or Leave it

[Domo-Sun]

Fine. Let's say that K-mart decided that any person they deem to be gay looking will be forcefully ejected from their store. Yes, gay people can shop elsewhere, but they shouldn't have to. Moreover, simply shopping elsewhere isn't going to change anything, if we assume that gays make up 10% of the population.

Who else would be responsible?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Someone/something's got to be responsible for illegal content posting, and I for one don't want that person/thing to be the automated posting system, or the operators of the system. It'd be a disturbing precedent if a company is held responsible for content posted on their sites. It'd result in draconian measures to prevent inappropriate content being posted, and generally hurt the site. Personally, I'm in favour personal responsibility.

Re:Who else would be responsible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, say there's a grocery at some address in your town. You know the grocery, and you don't have any problems giving out the address to others. Now one day, the grocery shuts down and the next day an adult shop opens at the same place. Now someone who got the address from you goes there (or even e.g. sends his underaged son there to buy something), and at the destination address he finds that adult shop. Now would you say he could hold you responsible for that event, because you gave him that address (at a time where there really was a grocery at that address)?

This is actually the same situation, except instead of a street address it's an URL (i.e. a web site address), and passing the address is done not by telling or by writing on a piece of paper, but by writing to an internet blog. Why should that cause any change of responsibility?

Re:Who else would be responsible?

[AndyG314]

Someone/something's got to be responsible for illegal content posting

Crazy idea here, but how about the person who posts it, rather than people who link to that site.

It's good to know.

[CamoCoatJoe]

I have a LiveJournal 'blog, and have posted links on it. I do not review the LJ ToS or the content of the sites I link to regularly. I'm glad that I was informed about this through /. .

Maybe it's time to fire up wget, unless someone here knows a better way to get a dump of all your LJ posts. I really should be keeping a backup of my 'blog anyway.

Re:It's good to know.

[Yinepuhotep]

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

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

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.

The way I got booted?

[Xenographic]

I made a steganography program once (hidden message) that hid a message in spam. It didn't and couldn't send email to anyone, but you could hide short messages in a "spam" email and copy/paste it to your friends. It got taken down as a "spam tool" even though I can't imagine it could ever be helpful to spammers.

Anyhow, now that we've established that ToS violations can occur for stupid things, have you never heard of trolls? Apparently, all one needs to do is get someone to link to some site they control, then change that site & report the person who linked it. Certainly not out of the question if you have anyone on the internet who hates you (yes, that might require that your blog have readers, so many LiveJournals will be immune...). Even on Slashdot, people like to submit links to things like TinyURL, then swap them out for Goatse after they get modded up. Hell, at least one troll group put out a random redirector that would send you to Goatse some % of the time while giving you normal content the rest. They could redirect all traffic from the LJ ToS enforcers to porn/Goatse/whatever with a simple modification of a script like that.

Got any LJ blogs you hate? Just convince them to link to you, report them, and they'll be down in no time at all, apparently.

Re:The way I got booted?

[Mundocani]

I think that something like that is highly unlikely ("convince them to link to your site" just for the sake of pranking them? seriously? how does that really work out in reality). I can see that it is plausible regardless of how unlikely though. However, I don't think the outcome of a situation like that is that you get your account canceled. I think you get your account canceled when the government breathes down LJs neck, and I think that only happens if the person who pranked you put up something extremely bad themselves, in which case I'm pretty sure they're going to get more than a warning from LJ -- they're going to get prosecuted by the government.

Re:The way I got booted?

[Mundocani]

For those who prefer their reading material in story form, here's another way of looking at it:

EvilKenny72: Hey Sheryl69, I made a cool site, link to it in your blog!

Sheryl69: Ok strange person, I like friends!

EvilKenny72 changes his site to an illegal movie download site

LiveJournal: Sheryl69, we have complaints that you are providing a link to an illegal download site. If you don't remove the link immediately your account will be terminated. Thank you for using LiveJournal.

Sheryl69: OMG! How did that happen! I'm so sorry, it's gone now, I don't know how that happened I swear.

FBI: EvilKenny72, you own a website containing illegal content, we'd like to talk to you right now.

EvilKenny72: D'oh!

Re:The way I got booted?

[CmdrGravy]

FBI: EvilKenny72, you own a website containing illegal content, we'd like to talk to you right now.

EvilKenny72: I Russian, hah hah good lucks with your prosecutions Yankie.

Re:The way I got booted?

[makomk]

The trick is to use not a movie download site, but sexually-explict drawings that look under 18 - LiveJournal is quite happy to ban users over them (until people kicked up a fuss, they got the same treatment as, say, a photo of someone raping a baby), but they're not necessarily illegal and the FBI couldn't care less.

Re:The way I got booted?

[Miraba]

Someone on LJ did that with a meme he created and spread all over the place. After X number of days he changed the image to something NWS.

Re:The way I got booted?

[Xenographic]

> I think that something like that is highly unlikely ("convince them to link to your site" just for the sake of pranking them? seriously? how does that really work out in reality).

It's not that hard. One way is to troll them into responding to some article on your site. Obviously, if you're on to the game, it won't work, but don't underestimate how little it takes when no one knows what's going on.

> However, I don't think the outcome of a situation like that is that you get your account canceled. I think you get your account canceled when the government breathes down LJs neck, and I think that only happens if the person who pranked you put up something extremely bad themselves, in which case I'm pretty sure they're going to get more than a warning from LJ -- they're going to get prosecuted by the government.

From what I've read, I'm less convinced of that. And given the motivation of many Slashdotters, I won't be surprised if something like I described above happens to that WFI site. Then again, because of the higher profile of that site, they may be more reluctant to do anything to it, even if there's good cause for it. You never know. A lot of it depends on which random support nobody answers the complaint and there's no good way to predict that.

But I can tell you that sites are generally deaf to any appeal of ToS violations, no matter how stupid the original case was.

Uh huh...

[wdr1]

One wonders how such a long-established blogging company can be so ignorant about the nature of the world wide web.

The real wonder is how Slashdot hasn't hired them yet.

-Bill

Slashdot

[pipingguy]

Someone please explain to me why this couldn't happen to Slashdot.

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Because everyone knows that most of the external links on /. are to Goatse anyway.

Re:Slashdot

[hjo3]

You seem to be making the assumption that the vast majority of /.ers think this could never happen here.

Re:Slashdot

[porcupine8]

Well, for one thing, once you post to /. you have no ability to go back and edit your post. If LJ finds a link that doesn't seem to have intended to go to a child porn site originally, they will notify the user and give them a couple days to go back and change the link - /. can't do that, so it seems less defensible to make users responsible for changed links. Plus, even if /. decided to take away your account if it's obvious that you knowingly linked to something bad, there's still anonymous posting.

If you don't like it... Leave...

[Colin Smith]

But it's very difficult to say "If you don't like the way things are run here, you can just leave." But that's the nature of a marketplace. You don't like something, move on elsewhere.

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. Well if your ethics are less important than the your apathy then what's the problem? Just stay where you are.

If it matters and you want out they don't exactly make it difficult for you:
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?f aqid=8

Re:If you don't like it... Leave...

[Junior J. Junior III]

You don't like something, move on elsewhere.

Right, like it's that easy.

How fickle do you have to be to drop your diary and all your friends at the slightest inconvenience? How much inconvenience will you tolerate before you will move? You don't like something, you weigh your options. Taking your business elsewhere almost always the last resort, not the first option one would consider.

When you're closely tied up in social relationships with other customers in the community, it's very difficult to leave that behind. The strength of these social bonds is a human virtue, and those bonds provide the possibility of strength through solidarity if the community can pull together to demand what it wants from the community's caretakers.

There are more options than "take it" or "leave it". There's negotiation. There's protest. There's speaking out. If you just walk away silently every time you're sufficiently dissatisfied with something, you eventually find that you've run out of places to run to in the hopes of finding something that pleases you perfectly. You then start to realize that maybe the only way to get what you want in life is to work for it, and if necessary, to fight for it.

Re:If you don't like it... Leave...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, like it's that easy.

Sure it is, after all, the grandparent divorced his wife of 30 years when he discovered that her mother's brother's wife's great grandparent owned a slave trading ship. He also left his car in the middle of the road and walked home when he heard on the news that the car manufacturer had used slave labor to make the iron in it. Last I heard, he swore off food after hearing about conditions in commercial farms, and eats moonbeams and fairy dust.

Story (sort of) ripped off

[Anonymous Coward]

Note the story in the Firehose - http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=270479
Now note that this story is identical, except for the fact that samzenpus removed the "An anonymous reader writes" part and claimed it as his own work. This anonymous coward is a little bitter.

mod_rewrite to the rescue

[Anonymous Coward]

For any inbound links with livejournal in the HTTP referer, serve or redirect to hello.jpg instead.

The person responsible for the content of 3rd party linked web pages is the 3rd party. What's so hard to understand for these LJ assholes?

Re:Here's An Idea:

[Stooshie]

Erm... isn't that how the web works? Linking to information on other sites? It was, in fact, the whole reason HTML was invented in order to link one document to another.

Anyway, it seems people are leaving

[Lonewolf666]

If we believe Liz Marcs (the user mentioned in TFA) there is already a significant number of users leaving for Wordpress. I have not verified this but it sounds credible.
We'll see if that has an effect on the policies of LJ ;-)

LJ will censor anything controversial

[Brian Ribbon]

"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."

They also "took action" against my journal, which was a legal pro-paedophile journal containing only political text, with links only to legal political sites and news articles. It was similar to my current blog. LJ told me that my journal was removed because it "sexualised children," which was bullshit, but was apparently the best excuse they could find for caving in to pressure from vigilantes.

If you wish to host a legal but controversial blog, try InsaneJournal, GreatestJournal, or if you're prepared to pay for hosting and install the blog software, try NearlyFreeSpeech.Net

Re:LJ will censor anything controversial

[Anonymous Coward]

Just want to let you know that I'm reading your blog right now, even though I'm at work, and I'll bookmark it when I get home. I find it quite interesting, as a pedophile who will never actually hurt a child.

Re:Here's An Idea:

[digitig]

Or link through an indirection service, similar to the UserFriendly Indirectotron 9000 (http://www.uftoolbox.info/indirectotron/indirecto tron.php)

wordpress.com

[r6_jason]

At http://wordpress.com/ you can get a free blog rolling in no time, so there is little reason to be using LJ at this point, I would encourage everyone to switch over to wordpress.com at once and the problem will fix it's self in no time. I in no way, shape, or form have anything to do w/ wordpress or wordpress.com other then being a user or intended user.

Re:wordpress.com

[Stan92057]

looks like they have a similar TOS also the Content is not obscene, libelous or defamatory (more info on what that means), hateful or racially or ethnically objectionable, and does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party; and

So?

[MasterOfMagic]

I had a LiveJournal, and when their terms of service changed in a way I didn't like, I closed my account (and then grew out of the "look-at-me" complex that normally fuels blogs). If you don't like what they're doing, then go somewhere else. There are plenty of other blogging services that aren't as idiotic and clueless. I'm not saying what LiveJournal is a good thing, nor am I arguing that they're right. I am saying that LiveJournal doesn't have a monopoly in the free blog world, and if you really want, you can go somewhere else easily. Since you control the content of your blog, if you're worried about people not seeing you've moved, post an entry in your LiveJournal linking to your new blog. Should be fine by their Terms of Service.

Re:So?

[makomk]

LiveJournal is, in many ways, more like a social networking site than a blog site. It allows you to restrict which users can read entries, provides a way of keeping track of other people's journals (your friends page) as long as they're on LiveJournal.com too, and even has "communities", which are a sort of cross between a group blog and a forum. Getting up and going elsewhere isn't easy.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people HAVE left. Since the initial Strikethrough at the end of May, there have been twenty THOUSAND new accounts created at Insanejournal alone. It doesn't mean people can't be upset. That's like saying "if you don't like one of your government's laws, why don't you leave the country?" It's not always that simple, for starters. And even if it is, that seems to imply that people aren't allowed to worry about governments of other countries doing stupid/horrible/unfair things.

The issue with Livejournal is that they say they'll warn people, that there'll be two- or three-strike rules, and then they go and suspend people with no warning. It isn't a matter of "oh but we want to post child porn!" Almost everyone involved does NOT want to post child porn, and the fact that Livejournal is calling them pedophiles is incredibly offensive and slanderous. The issue is that people are posting DRAWINGS, not photos, where one of the people involved could be aged somewhere between sixteen and twenty, depending on your point of view and how much you try to be offended, and getting permanently banned for them. Was it stupid to post the drawings when so much of the policy is unclear? Yes. Very stupid. Was it fair for them to get banned for it? Absolutely not.

And with the policy so unclear on content being posted, people are naturally worried that it will also be unclear for links. Links to text, links to drawings, links to websites that you posted about three years ago and have since been changed. People who've been on Livejournal for eight years and post regularly could have tens of thousands of links in their blog. It's simply not practical to check ten or twenty thousand (or more) links regularly to make sure they're not porn.

the swiftboating of cutegirl184u

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Have catfight with bitchy girl-from-school on LJ
2) Send link to photobucket pic with ZOMG KITTENS
3) Wait for her to link it...annnd....change pic to ZOMG GOATSE
4) Report her to LJ
5) Re-create her old LJ name
6) Steal rich boyfriend
7) Profit!

Business sense

[Delight-Delirium]

One wonders how such a long-established blogging company can be so ignorant about the nature of the world wide web.

Because knowledge of blogging and the intertubes does not translate into knowledge of legal compliance. Those are some very murky waters to navigate. Dilemma - who should be held responsible for content of links. A) the sites they are linked to, in which case, LJ will not be able to do anything about it, and will have to accept the legal exposure from them. Option B) the user that linked them - in which case, they have some avenue for compliance and reduce their exposure.

Internet common sense is not the only consideration in these sorts of decisions.

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:Congratulations.

[that IT girl]

Just because you don't agree with me doesn't mean I wasn't thinking critically. Don't patronize me.

This is not their fault

[MobyDisk]

The problem is that the court system says that LiveJournal is responsible. Naturally, the only way they can deal with the problem is to say that the poster is responsible. Because for some odd reason, the person who actually put the content there is not responsible. LiveJournal is acting to protect themselves from stupid court rulings so naturally, their decision looks equally stupid.

The issue here is that this is not so black-and-white. If I say "try this new application" and link to goatse, then I'm responsible. But if I say "here's good information on raising your child" and I link to information about sexuality and you are offended by it, then you are responsible. If I link to "buy illegal drugs here" then the person who is selling illegal drugs is responsible. If I like to "try this cool app" and the web site is replaced with goatse a year later, then while that company + goatse is responsible, I am the only one who can fix the link. This is all silly though because LiveJournal should never be responsible in any of these cases.

About Legal Culpability, Not Networks

[reallocate]

This is about legal culpability, not network design. Without that statement, they are vulnerable to claims that they haven't taken due diligence to ensure their servers are not being used by pornographers and pedophiles. The statement is an indication that they have exercised some due diligence by telling their customers that they, the customers, are responsible for the content they post, and for what happens to it after they post it. That's a bit -- not much, I think -- of legal protection. The alternatives are, first, to assert customers are not responsible for the content they post, or, two, that no one is responsible for changes made to content after it is posted.

The fact that a third party may be able to redirect links after they are posted is an issue that needs to be demonstrated after a legal challenge arises. The law isn't going to be premised on a "stuff happens" notion.

Re:Here's An Idea:

[Just Some Guy]

Don't link to sites you don't control.

...says the guy linking to Slashdot in his user profile.

Won't matter.

[Grendel Drago]

People with principles may leave, but there's an infinite line of thirteen year old kids who'll use that "Sponsored Account" option to get extra bling on the their journals while providing tons of sweet ad revenue for Livejournal.

Getting rid of the chaff--people who use the service but don't feel a need to gnaw at the ad-supported teat--is good business for them. Now that LJ is ad-supported, the users are no longer their customers; the advertisers are. Cry moar, emo kid, but you're not the kind of user LJ sees in its future business plan. They may bleat platitudes about "community" and the like, but their actions speak louder.

(I mean, does anyone remember when Livejournal promised to never have ads? Or that the SixApart takeover wouldn't change anything? It's amazing anyone believes a damned thing that comes out of a corporate mouth at this point.)

Re:Won't matter.

[Lonewolf666]

So they get a bunch of thirteen year old kids as new bloggers. This far, I can follow you.

But will it keep Livejournal a website that is worthwhile to read? I doubt that. The advertisers may be the paying customers, but they will pay only as long as there is actually an audience. As one guy put it in a similar discussion, the userbase is the product that gets sold to the advertiser. No product, no income.

So LJ has to ask itself if it can do without the bloggers it has now. Because if the infinite line of thirteen year old kids cannot keep the readers interested, they'll have a problem ;-)

Re:Won't matter.

[Deagol]

Tweens and teens are one of the hottest demographics for sets of eyeballs that advertisers want. Very impressionable and able to be indoctrinated into a lifetime of product recognition and loyalty. Plus, kids that age have access to the parents' purse strings. The GP is absolutely correct in this regard.

You weren't being patronized.

[Grendel Drago]

You were being criticized for making a simple and obvious error.

The fallacy you're engaging in can be seen when someone uses the word "terrorist" around a fear-filled American. It acts to shut down debate, as anyone saying, for instance, "perhaps we shouldn't tap our citizens' phones without some form of oversight" or "shouldn't the tradition of habeas corpus prevent suspects who haven't been convicted of anything from being disappeared in the best tradition of Pinochet or Stalin", will be accused of being soft on the terrorists, or wanting them to win, or the like. Is this really the sort of argument you want to make?

Objecting to ham-handed measures taken against a despicable group doesn't mean you support that group.

Re:You weren't being patronized.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, we shouldn't make people go to Gitmo and disappear.

We should behead them in a sports stadium and televise it nationally, show those fuckers we will do it to them.

They did it to us in Afghanistan.

No, that's not true.

[Grendel Drago]

Projects which are community-owned actually can legitimately use the name "community"; open source development projects can't be whisked away by corporate overlords; neither can Wikipedia or the media collection at the Wikimedia Commons, or freedb for that matter. Sure, any corporation that uses the word for their cattle--err, whoops, make that users--is lying like a rug, but there do exist legitimate instances.

No, one doesn't wonder.

[DenaliPrime]

One wonders how such a long-established blogging company can be so ignorant about the nature of the world wide web. Simple answer: They went from being owned by a fairly clued in individual (Brad Fitz) to being owned by a group of individuals who have no clue (Six Apart). I predicted this on my LJ way back when the buyout was first announced. So you could imagine my shock over this stupidity.

Re:No, one doesn't wonder.

[teknotus]

Brad Fizpatrick sold LiveJournal so that he could concentrate on making cool software instead of managing a business. The software he has come up with is used throughout the internet. OpenID, and Memcached for example. Tim O'Reilly called Brad Fitzpatrick one of the heros of free software during a speech at OSCON. He gave up control of LiveJournal in order to do this, but he was still very influential. Now that he left SixApart I guess we are finding out how much he really was protecting us from their stupidity.

How far removed are you responsible for?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so I take this suggestion, and link through an indirection service... am I responsible if the page changes on the other end? OK, forget an indirection service, I link to a page I think is pretty cool, and that page doesn't change, but a page IT links to changes. Am I responsible? Am I violating the ToS? What if I link to Google? It provides an avenue to lots of pR0n, am I responsible if a year later my link to "Harry Potter" w/ "I'm Feeling Lucky" takes the user to goatse? (Now THAT would be a Google Bomb of immense proportions!) What is the "intervening act" that absolves one of responsibility?

I'd suggest that if LiveJournal wants to be able to police all the blogs for URLs that receive complaints, then they block direct URLs in the blogs, make everyone submit them to an internal redirector, and then they can individually deactivate those redirections if any complaints come in. They could email the author with the original referencing page, original link destination, and give the choice of updating the link, appealing the decision, or abandonning the link (default abandonned, serving static BLOCKED page). This will likely make them less popular, but "safer" (whatever that means to someone surfing the internet).

I guess it's just me

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't this making a big deal out of nothing?

The way I read the whole exchange with LJ is that yes, you are responsible for the content of your posts, including what you link to. I don't think that's *that* unreasonable - if I post a link to a Megaupload with a copy of the Windows Vista image, I shouldn't be surprised if I hear from Microsoft's lawyers. Links will change, but provided that the context in which the original post was made, an exception will be made for those cases.
Taking an example from the original post, if I were to post a link to an article on suicidegirls.com and it later redirected to a suicidegirls.com spread or something "inappropriate," it should be discernable that that wasn't the original intent, and so LJ wouldn't take any action against you, provided you noted that on the post.

So what's the big deal? I'm all for free speech and all, but if you're going to link to objectionable material to begin with, be prepared to deal with the flak.

You're a jackass

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet another bash is directed towards Christians. However, I don't believe I know any Christian feminists. So which is it, jackass?

why not xxx

[Anonymous Coward]

tell me again why the .xxx domain idea was bad?

shameless plug

[jaydonnell]

if you are looking for an alternative, try soulcast.com

We've had a persistent user claiming that any link to porn is viewable by children, and therefore illegal, but we haven't given in.

Oh, bloody hell....

[dacarr]

I just read the post. My earlier post here was correct - LJ isn't going to ToS somebody because a meme they linked to was pranked. The LJ entry is pure dramaqueenery.

People just need to grow the fuck up already.

Note to moderators

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no "-1, GTFO pedo" moderation option for a reason. Modding it as a troll is not a substitute.

Defensible position, Indefensibly punative actions

[geeknado]

I think that it's entirely reasonable for livejournal to hold its users responsible for the links associated with their blogs. If I knowingly link to goatse on my own blog, I will, likely, remove some remaining shred of innocence from my readers. If I hide it behind an innocuous link, well, shame on me. I wish /I/ had never seen that picture. Even if I advertise clearly what the link is, I am taking an action that exposes others to it. Unless you're taking the position that you're a random linking machine making no choices about what you present in your blog(right, sure), you do have some responsibility for those links.

The part that crosses the line here, though, is that the action taken against the users in question is the immediate lockout of their blogs. Users should be provided the opportunity to remove the questionable content before being banned. In the case of the fellow whose link was suddenly directed to porn, he should have been afforded the opportunity to either correct or remove the link. Blogs are a fire-and-forget medium. It's not reasonable to expect users to test every link associated with their posts on a daily basis lest a vagina should somehow be exposed there.

The fact is, links, cuts, and various other methods are used as a sort of quasi-policing system in many fan fic and otherwise alt communities with the idea that they are somehow "fine" from a legal standpoint if it's not sitting directly on the page front. The theory is that the reader, by clicking a link, is 'willingly' entering the forbidden zone, so the poster must be in the clear. While IANAL, this may or may not be the case. It's definitely true that pornographic works involving children are illegal in the US. Rather than deal with the possible legalities themselves, since, as the host of the content, LJ might well be viewed as being culpable, they're striking the offending content. It seems to me that the "oh, I didn't know what was there!" argument only holds so long as the originating blogger truly was naive of the page's contents.

I'm very much in favor of free speech, but, so long as there is such a thing as illegal content, companies are within their rights to take whatever steps they need to take to be in compliance with the law. LJ has become too aggressive, removing innocent users as well as their likely intended targets, and they may suffer for it since their community may feel betrayed. However, it seems unlikely that they "don't understand how the web works." I think that they're simply far more concerned with how the /law/ works.

Our rights

[oldenough]

Many of you may not be aware of this since it is a fairly recent ruling. If LJ/6A does make changes to their ToS, it's users have recourse. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070729-cour t-says-no-to-changing-terms-of-service-without-not ification.html

Advertising vs. Community

[psydeshow]

The wife is an avid LJ member, has a lifetime account and spends a lot of time keeping up with an extended circle of friends. I develop community software. We talk about this stuff constantly.

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.

I don't get this.

[Grendel Drago]

Aren't we supposed to be the good guys, full of delicious moral superiority and all? Aren't we supposed to be different because we don't behead random people off the street in order to induce fear in our enemies? Why is it that the same people who vociferously deny the existence of savage practices are so keen for us to engage in them? Why is it such a short jump from "we'll liberate those ignorant savages with our civilization" to "we'll show them what savagery really means"?

Sometimes it even seems like a child's whine. "But he gets to behead people he doesn't like whenever he wants--why can't I?" Left unspoken here is the question of why someone would enjoy "get[ting] to" behead people without so much as a whiff of due process.

who the f*^k is live journal - heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this some kind of free service? If so, grow up and get a real website.
They are idiots I don't disagree, but there are other web hosts out there.
Find one that don't have stupidity in the TOS

lj mojo

[zahl2]

Yeah, it was a stupid "quiz" that people posted the html results. Was goatseu the name of the NSFW picture? Does it matter?

It was an excellent example of why this policy won't really work. People post quiz results all the time without any context.

Re:lj mojo

[Miraba]

I found a reference, and yeah it was goatse. I wonder how long it's going to take before the backpedal this time.

checking old links not workable for many lj-ers

[Anonymous Coward]

most of the commenters don't understand the way lj works or is implementing these rules. My lj account has literally *thousands* of back entries... OK, so I only link to things occasionally on my journal, but even so it would be nearly impossible to check all those links ONCE, much less regularly. It's not like a regular website that has a few links to outside content, and it's not like streaming content where old stuff just goes away after a while -- I could get TOSed for a link I posted 5 years ago. That's what people are upset about.

Oh, and the fact that lj is lumping fictional teen romance in with real-life child abuse, but that's for another post.