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

[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

[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

[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

[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...

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...

[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...

[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...

[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.

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!

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.

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:Big deal?

[Tribbin]

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

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...

[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

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.

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.

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: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.