Strikethrough 2007
I had originally intended this first entry, post-joining the ranks of paidmembers to be a happy one - singing all praises of the glorious magnetgirl, hallowed be her name. For she is the bestest. But alas.
Hopefully I will get back to that entry later on, since she definitely deserves it, even if LJ doesn't, but for now I have other fish to fry.
For a detailed roundup of what's been going on, please check http://catrinella.livejournal.com/151812.html
Basically the situation is this: due to what may be the actions of a particular watchdog group, supposedly meant to purge the internet of child predation and other "illegal" activities, or possibly due to some coincidence of greater or equal stupidity, LJ & SixApart have permanently suspended numerous accounts that listed certain triggers as lj interests. Such triggers include "incest," "rape" etc. In the process, journals and communities that have been targeted include participants in: fanfiction/fanart, discussion of Nabokov's Lolita, fashion communities, and oh yes, perhaps most embarrassing for those concerned: survivor communities. And also, some communities that appear to be purely pornographic in nature.
Most people who have written about this, many of them more eloquent on the matter than I, have started out their posts saying some variation of, "Well, I certainly agree with the philosophy - it's just that it's been handled wrong. I certainly support catching online predators!!"
I was all but heartbroken to read Warren Ellis' blog entry on the subject
.
The outcome, therefore, has been pure comedy, with comments that read very much like “I love spending all day reading about forced underage incestuous sex with squirrel fisting on top, but of course I’m not interested in that in real life - that’d make me a pervert!”...
All that said: if you listed “rape” as an interest on your LiveJournal user profile, you must have known that someday someone was coming to see you about that.
And from his previous entry,
Personally? I have an eleven year old daughter. I’m with Warriors For Innocence on this.
What gives, Spider Jerusalem?
I think I'm about to express a brutally unpopular opinion here, but I actually think that policing of the internet is probably about the least effective measure a society could take to decrease child-molestation. I also think that pornography has nothing to do with actual child molestation, and the fact that we still believe it does, is pretty mind-boggling.
If your 12 year old, or 14 year old can leave the house and meet up in a hotel or a house with a strange adult that they met on the internet, you have done something terribly wrong somewhere, and the fact that the child is going to pay horribly, both for your mistakes, and their own naivete/stupidity/hormones, doesn't change the fact that policing the internet and laying traps for people based on their imaginary acts isn't going to save anyone. If your child is younger than 10 or 11, and you allow them to roam the streets alone, without giving them the knowledge they need to protect themselves, that you have committed an even more egregious fault.
All actions have consequences; some of us learn that more painfully than others. People are no doubt going to attack me for saying this, but I firmly believe it to be true. And without going into detail, believe me, I know this as personally as it is possible to know such a thing. So take some responsibility. It's not the internet, or cell phones or video games. It's you. It's me. That's it.
The other thing I have to say on this matter is that fantasy, creativity, conversation and pornography are weapons. They cast light into dark places; or rather, they make dark places your own. They are the instruments of reclamation. If you can take something terrible and, by some manner of strange alchemy, make it into something beautiful and transformative, or at the very least, fun, then how dare anyone pass judgment on that? And if I should be brave enough to share that with the world? No one is being forced to look. You can always click past.
I do believe that children deserve special protection under the law; we do not hold them accountable in the same way that we do adults, and that we must make sure they are fed, schooled, kept emotionally and physically healthy, and in general provided for. Similarly I believe that everyone has a right to exist in their society without undue fear of being aggressively acted upon. However, I know two things for sure:
1)We will never have a society that is completely free of these things.
2)Preventing people from talking about them, in whatever forum, be it discussion or fiction or titillation, is the surest way to defeat us all.
Added to all this of course, is the incredibly moronic way that LJ has handled the whole kerfuffle - suspension without investigation, utter lack of communication, and a basic breach of trust between users and service.
The thing is you shouldn't just care if you're someone whose journal got suspended, or if you're someone who was just trying to cope with a terrible experience. You shouldn't only care because you're someone who liked a story or a poem or a painting or a play once that had these elements in them, or if even, god forbid, one of these things turned you on. You shouldn't only care if you're a fetishist or kinked, and these are the only fantasies that get you going.
You should care because we should be able to talk and think and imagine whatever the hell we want. Even if it's deviant. Especially if it's deviant.
If enough people hate it, and don't click, don't read, it will die.
But if we lived somewhere where people could express their darkest desires in play, in fantasy, in thought...well, who knows? We might be able to save the world.
Please, if you have a moment, take some time to write a letter to LJ (feedback@livejournal.com) and register your opinion. Thanks.
Hopefully I will get back to that entry later on, since she definitely deserves it, even if LJ doesn't, but for now I have other fish to fry.
For a detailed roundup of what's been going on, please check http://catrinella.livejournal.com/151812.html
Basically the situation is this: due to what may be the actions of a particular watchdog group, supposedly meant to purge the internet of child predation and other "illegal" activities, or possibly due to some coincidence of greater or equal stupidity, LJ & SixApart have permanently suspended numerous accounts that listed certain triggers as lj interests. Such triggers include "incest," "rape" etc. In the process, journals and communities that have been targeted include participants in: fanfiction/fanart, discussion of Nabokov's Lolita, fashion communities, and oh yes, perhaps most embarrassing for those concerned: survivor communities. And also, some communities that appear to be purely pornographic in nature.
Most people who have written about this, many of them more eloquent on the matter than I, have started out their posts saying some variation of, "Well, I certainly agree with the philosophy - it's just that it's been handled wrong. I certainly support catching online predators!!"
I was all but heartbroken to read Warren Ellis' blog entry on the subject
.
The outcome, therefore, has been pure comedy, with comments that read very much like “I love spending all day reading about forced underage incestuous sex with squirrel fisting on top, but of course I’m not interested in that in real life - that’d make me a pervert!”...
All that said: if you listed “rape” as an interest on your LiveJournal user profile, you must have known that someday someone was coming to see you about that.
And from his previous entry,
Personally? I have an eleven year old daughter. I’m with Warriors For Innocence on this.
What gives, Spider Jerusalem?
I think I'm about to express a brutally unpopular opinion here, but I actually think that policing of the internet is probably about the least effective measure a society could take to decrease child-molestation. I also think that pornography has nothing to do with actual child molestation, and the fact that we still believe it does, is pretty mind-boggling.
If your 12 year old, or 14 year old can leave the house and meet up in a hotel or a house with a strange adult that they met on the internet, you have done something terribly wrong somewhere, and the fact that the child is going to pay horribly, both for your mistakes, and their own naivete/stupidity/hormones, doesn't change the fact that policing the internet and laying traps for people based on their imaginary acts isn't going to save anyone. If your child is younger than 10 or 11, and you allow them to roam the streets alone, without giving them the knowledge they need to protect themselves, that you have committed an even more egregious fault.
All actions have consequences; some of us learn that more painfully than others. People are no doubt going to attack me for saying this, but I firmly believe it to be true. And without going into detail, believe me, I know this as personally as it is possible to know such a thing. So take some responsibility. It's not the internet, or cell phones or video games. It's you. It's me. That's it.
The other thing I have to say on this matter is that fantasy, creativity, conversation and pornography are weapons. They cast light into dark places; or rather, they make dark places your own. They are the instruments of reclamation. If you can take something terrible and, by some manner of strange alchemy, make it into something beautiful and transformative, or at the very least, fun, then how dare anyone pass judgment on that? And if I should be brave enough to share that with the world? No one is being forced to look. You can always click past.
I do believe that children deserve special protection under the law; we do not hold them accountable in the same way that we do adults, and that we must make sure they are fed, schooled, kept emotionally and physically healthy, and in general provided for. Similarly I believe that everyone has a right to exist in their society without undue fear of being aggressively acted upon. However, I know two things for sure:
1)We will never have a society that is completely free of these things.
2)Preventing people from talking about them, in whatever forum, be it discussion or fiction or titillation, is the surest way to defeat us all.
Added to all this of course, is the incredibly moronic way that LJ has handled the whole kerfuffle - suspension without investigation, utter lack of communication, and a basic breach of trust between users and service.
The thing is you shouldn't just care if you're someone whose journal got suspended, or if you're someone who was just trying to cope with a terrible experience. You shouldn't only care because you're someone who liked a story or a poem or a painting or a play once that had these elements in them, or if even, god forbid, one of these things turned you on. You shouldn't only care if you're a fetishist or kinked, and these are the only fantasies that get you going.
You should care because we should be able to talk and think and imagine whatever the hell we want. Even if it's deviant. Especially if it's deviant.
If enough people hate it, and don't click, don't read, it will die.
But if we lived somewhere where people could express their darkest desires in play, in fantasy, in thought...well, who knows? We might be able to save the world.
Please, if you have a moment, take some time to write a letter to LJ (feedback@livejournal.com) and register your opinion. Thanks.