Live Journal, Voltaire and Me -Thoughts on the Wave of BS known as the Strikeout of 2007
I told a friend earlier today that I was going to wait for LJ/Six Apart to make an official statement, to see what comms and journals were restored and apologized to and then make a post about it. In thinking about it, I decided to speak now. Because I realized, that not saying anything was going against my conscience in this situation and in order to live with myself, I couldn't stay quiet. Too much is wrong with the picture we are faced with.
One of the greatest philosophers of the 18th Century, Voltaire, wrote about prejudice and tyranny in an age where people were fighting for the freedoms that most of us enjoy, take for granted and abuse today. I could not help but think of him in reading over the website of the group who seemed to have brought this "Strikeout 2007" to pass. I think that this situation would have amused and distressed him, to see the same concepts of censorship and prejudice playing out in the virtual world of blogging.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."Voltaire
This quote, in my mind, succinctly sums up the First Amendment and my personal opinion of what has happened here. Live Journal is a paid service. They are paid to give people the bandwith and cyberspace to express themselves. Naturally, abuse (as in the case of KNOWN communities that cater to active pedophiles, etc.) should be policed and banned. This is proper and very much good internet citizenship. The truth of the world we live in is that you may have a pedophile living right next door to you, and you would not know it - unless you investigated them and then protected your family (locks on doors, no unsupervised play in the front yard, etc..)The same is true of the internet, folks. You don't like the criminals next door, report them, for sure, but protect yourself. So, Bravo to LJ for deleting groups that were truly guilty of victimizing people. By the same token, though, You have violated your own terms of service by not giving warnings to the affected groups. This is unacceptable, and is grounds enough to restore more than a 'dozen' of the groups and journals. LJ/Six Apart willingly accepts money for the services they provide, which makes them responsible to their paying subscribers, just as they are to their advertisers. I wonder what would happen if advertisers were treated this way by Live Journal? Would the subsequent financial loss make them change their mind? I believe that it would.
Where Voltaire and I are in concord, is over the groups/journals that were deleted simply because they listed certain 'hot' words in their interests or discussed them, through fic or simply by being an open ear to victims of sexual predators. How can groups that exist to help survivors of sexual abuse be bad? Taking away a viable and anonymous forum for people who have been victims is reprehensible and completely unacceptable. Victims of sexual violence have already been beaten into muteness. If they can find their voice through connections with groups on Live Journal, through creative expression in their own journals, why have they been singled out? Discussing a wrong that has been done to you is not the same as inflicting that wrong on someone else.
How can literary discussion groups be wrong? Our society has had some dark moments, to be sure, burning books on high school football fields, decrying styles of music as indecent because of the beat or how it's danced to. It is very telling that such behavior has begun to surface on the internet, as it speeds through it's cultural evolution. Who is anyone to say that someone else's art is offensive enough to be purged from existence? "Catcher In The Rye", "Lolita", "Of Mice and Men", just to name three, have all at some point, been considered indecent and were burned, banned and blacklisted. I personally have read all three, intensely dislike two and can take or leave the third. I would not burn them. I would not ban or delete them. Instead, I would fight the actions of censoring them. Freedom of Expression includes Freedom of Choice. Like a chain, or dominoes, they depend on each other. To remove someone's choices (To discuss Nabokov's work, for example)is unconstitutional and wrong. To remove a creative outlet (a venue for writing fiction that deals with highly sensitive and provocative topics) is criminal and wrong.
I don't like slash/mpreg/underage/noncon...etc..fics. I don't read them, and I don't write them. HOWEVER....I will defend the people who express themselves using these tools to do so. Provocative themes in literature and art educate, inspire and enlighten, showing the darkness of humanity's soul.
Think for yourselves, and let others enjoy the privilege to do so as well
Voltaire - Essay on Tolerance
Where does it end? People have been asking this question throughout the day, in comments, in their journals, to each other in instant message conversations. At what point do the thought police that have seized Live Journal by the throat become satisfied that the world is safe enough through their control to move on? When all writing that is sexually explicit is purged? Or user pictures that reflect a person's interests and personality is removed? Or maybe when someone's user id is deemed pornographic and offensive? Will that be enough? To have a homogenized, pasteurized LJ world where no one thinks for themselves and certainly doesn't feel free to use their blog to talk about what they are thinking and feeling? I certainly hope not. I believe that is the kind of Live Journal that I would not want to be a part of. I don't list the 'hot' topics in interests. I never have. I probably never will. But neither do I want to see people that do being targeted by some self appointed group. We are able to think for ourselves - to use the tools given to us by Live Journal themselves, filters, post locks - to protect those who are underage from being exposed too soon.
It is dangerous to be right, when the government is wrong Voltaire
The government, in this case, is Live Journal. Their own terms of service expressly say that this kind of event will not happen. A Government is only as good as the laws it upholds. Every law that is circumvented, ignored or defied weakens the structure. Let's take a look at the terms of service, which are the laws that govern our Live Journal community.
http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos.bml lays this out.
Item XI - Termination: This section clearly delineates the actions Live Journal CAN take if a Journal is objected to. CAN take.
I say can, because the definitive language is modified by Item XIV, Sections 1 and 2. These sections very clearly define the actions Live Journal can take as well as the ultimate responsibility of the posted content of journal or community. I find it extremely interesting that the defined mode of conduct was not followed by Live Journal in this case and I object to how they caved to a special interest group and abandoned the very structure they designed to protect themselves AND their subscribers.
In conclusion, my dear flist, to migrate away from Live Journal is entirely up to each and every one of you. I suggest that instead of fleeing, we try to take back our freedoms here. This is a matter of principle, and precedent. Am I migrating to Greatest Journal? I've opened accounts there, as more of an effort to keep in touch with dear friends on my flist that are going. In time, I may migrate my fics there, and keep a non fic journal as well. I don't know. We are each answerable to our own conscience, in the end. I hope that Live Journal listens to their conscience, as well as the outcry of their subscribers and does what is really the right thing.
One of the greatest philosophers of the 18th Century, Voltaire, wrote about prejudice and tyranny in an age where people were fighting for the freedoms that most of us enjoy, take for granted and abuse today. I could not help but think of him in reading over the website of the group who seemed to have brought this "Strikeout 2007" to pass. I think that this situation would have amused and distressed him, to see the same concepts of censorship and prejudice playing out in the virtual world of blogging.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."Voltaire
This quote, in my mind, succinctly sums up the First Amendment and my personal opinion of what has happened here. Live Journal is a paid service. They are paid to give people the bandwith and cyberspace to express themselves. Naturally, abuse (as in the case of KNOWN communities that cater to active pedophiles, etc.) should be policed and banned. This is proper and very much good internet citizenship. The truth of the world we live in is that you may have a pedophile living right next door to you, and you would not know it - unless you investigated them and then protected your family (locks on doors, no unsupervised play in the front yard, etc..)The same is true of the internet, folks. You don't like the criminals next door, report them, for sure, but protect yourself. So, Bravo to LJ for deleting groups that were truly guilty of victimizing people. By the same token, though, You have violated your own terms of service by not giving warnings to the affected groups. This is unacceptable, and is grounds enough to restore more than a 'dozen' of the groups and journals. LJ/Six Apart willingly accepts money for the services they provide, which makes them responsible to their paying subscribers, just as they are to their advertisers. I wonder what would happen if advertisers were treated this way by Live Journal? Would the subsequent financial loss make them change their mind? I believe that it would.
Where Voltaire and I are in concord, is over the groups/journals that were deleted simply because they listed certain 'hot' words in their interests or discussed them, through fic or simply by being an open ear to victims of sexual predators. How can groups that exist to help survivors of sexual abuse be bad? Taking away a viable and anonymous forum for people who have been victims is reprehensible and completely unacceptable. Victims of sexual violence have already been beaten into muteness. If they can find their voice through connections with groups on Live Journal, through creative expression in their own journals, why have they been singled out? Discussing a wrong that has been done to you is not the same as inflicting that wrong on someone else.
How can literary discussion groups be wrong? Our society has had some dark moments, to be sure, burning books on high school football fields, decrying styles of music as indecent because of the beat or how it's danced to. It is very telling that such behavior has begun to surface on the internet, as it speeds through it's cultural evolution. Who is anyone to say that someone else's art is offensive enough to be purged from existence? "Catcher In The Rye", "Lolita", "Of Mice and Men", just to name three, have all at some point, been considered indecent and were burned, banned and blacklisted. I personally have read all three, intensely dislike two and can take or leave the third. I would not burn them. I would not ban or delete them. Instead, I would fight the actions of censoring them. Freedom of Expression includes Freedom of Choice. Like a chain, or dominoes, they depend on each other. To remove someone's choices (To discuss Nabokov's work, for example)is unconstitutional and wrong. To remove a creative outlet (a venue for writing fiction that deals with highly sensitive and provocative topics) is criminal and wrong.
I don't like slash/mpreg/underage/noncon...etc..fics. I don't read them, and I don't write them. HOWEVER....I will defend the people who express themselves using these tools to do so. Provocative themes in literature and art educate, inspire and enlighten, showing the darkness of humanity's soul.
Think for yourselves, and let others enjoy the privilege to do so as well
Voltaire - Essay on Tolerance
Where does it end? People have been asking this question throughout the day, in comments, in their journals, to each other in instant message conversations. At what point do the thought police that have seized Live Journal by the throat become satisfied that the world is safe enough through their control to move on? When all writing that is sexually explicit is purged? Or user pictures that reflect a person's interests and personality is removed? Or maybe when someone's user id is deemed pornographic and offensive? Will that be enough? To have a homogenized, pasteurized LJ world where no one thinks for themselves and certainly doesn't feel free to use their blog to talk about what they are thinking and feeling? I certainly hope not. I believe that is the kind of Live Journal that I would not want to be a part of. I don't list the 'hot' topics in interests. I never have. I probably never will. But neither do I want to see people that do being targeted by some self appointed group. We are able to think for ourselves - to use the tools given to us by Live Journal themselves, filters, post locks - to protect those who are underage from being exposed too soon.
It is dangerous to be right, when the government is wrong Voltaire
The government, in this case, is Live Journal. Their own terms of service expressly say that this kind of event will not happen. A Government is only as good as the laws it upholds. Every law that is circumvented, ignored or defied weakens the structure. Let's take a look at the terms of service, which are the laws that govern our Live Journal community.
http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos.bml lays this out.
Item XI - Termination: This section clearly delineates the actions Live Journal CAN take if a Journal is objected to. CAN take.
I say can, because the definitive language is modified by Item XIV, Sections 1 and 2. These sections very clearly define the actions Live Journal can take as well as the ultimate responsibility of the posted content of journal or community. I find it extremely interesting that the defined mode of conduct was not followed by Live Journal in this case and I object to how they caved to a special interest group and abandoned the very structure they designed to protect themselves AND their subscribers.
In conclusion, my dear flist, to migrate away from Live Journal is entirely up to each and every one of you. I suggest that instead of fleeing, we try to take back our freedoms here. This is a matter of principle, and precedent. Am I migrating to Greatest Journal? I've opened accounts there, as more of an effort to keep in touch with dear friends on my flist that are going. In time, I may migrate my fics there, and keep a non fic journal as well. I don't know. We are each answerable to our own conscience, in the end. I hope that Live Journal listens to their conscience, as well as the outcry of their subscribers and does what is really the right thing.