Summary of Terms of Service update

[theljstaff]

We felt it was important with the changes to the Terms of Service to have a post here which identifies some of the key changes. We also want to give you all the opportunity to ask any questions you have regarding the changes, or any questions you have about the Terms of Service & Privacy Policy in general

Comments

[palmer_kun]

There's a lot of content on LJ that's suitable for teens.
Quite frankly, the vast majority of content is teen-appropriate. There's not actually that much adult content.

Also, 13 is the age that US law says children can make their own accounts for online services.

If you want an 18+ platform, try JournalFen

[expectare]

not to mention quite a lot of content is made by teens.

[burningmarl]

I started on LJ at 14 and I know that my writing, my drawing, my self esteem and my political opinions were shaped in no significant way by LJ. I'd like that to continue with new generations! I think it's important for young people to talk to people all over the world, and also to have their own little private space to hash all those burgeoning thoughts and feelings out.

[feralbirdgirl]

This - and it was pretty darn easy to avoid adult content back in the day. Haven't really looked into comms much since then, but I've made fantastic friends prior to 18 on lj and many of them still exist (holy crap I'm 25 now).

[burningmarl]

Same! I'm 21 :D

I did read porny HP fanfiction when I was younger but I never got involved with anything actually, idk, "damaging"? And I pretty mich did type in "Harry Potter fanfiction", I didn't ever just stumble upon adult content.

[feralbirdgirl]

Wow, yeah, I wasn't even that risque - I was into being vegetarian (veggie pr0n?) and saving the world and... same stuff I'm still into. Nerds and science and biology and whatnot. Oh, and history. Oooh, the scandalousness!

[musicianking]

Well, look at it this way. No one was fighting. It sometimes seems like adults grow up and forget what they used to be like when they were young. Not including all adults though because I know some people lived really good young lives.

[eruditeviking]

As opposed to the pornographic, violent, or distressing content found just about everywhere, online and off. LJ is actually safer than a lot of other forums.

As for coping and understanding, you're doing what I see a lot of parents do. You're not giving kids much credit. They're a whole lot smarter, more put together, and frankly knowledgeable than we adults tend to give them credit for. I love watching when the epiphany hits parents, that they no longer have just a kid, but a thinking, rational, emotionally complex, sexual, and opinion laden human being. The mark of distinction is when you realize that, how well you adjust from your "child" to being your "peer".

You have your decisions to make, but don't claim to be "old fashioned", that's just a bogus co-out. It's not like it ever really was "that way" anyway, it's mostly a myth cooked up by hindsight bias.

[lsjcandy]

I agree with this. A lot of parents/adults underestimate kids. They're smarter than you might give them credit for. Nowadays, kids grow up with internet, tv and a lot of media. It's unavoidable. Plus, you can't compare their childhood with yours, because they just grow up in a different time.

[jesskat]

Yes, this. Amusingly enough, most of the content I've seen on LJ that I would describe as pornographic, violent etc. over the years is created by people under 18 years of age. It's not always a bad thing, either. Sometimes it's a way of expressing their thoughts in a safe and harmless way, coming to terms with their inner musings through writing. Kids are a lot more knowledgeable about things like sex, violence and politics than their parents give them credit for.

[matgb]

So you're going to ban them completely from the internet until they're 18?

I somehow don't think that's going to work. My fiance was taking the decision to raise shrublette with an awareness of how to stay safe online. The overwhelming majority of LJ content is perfectly safe for a kid to browse around, if well supervised, and I know if we tried to ban her from stuff she'd work around it.

Overall, I'd say LJ is generally safer than a simple Google search. It's certainly somewhere we can supervise her properly, not that she wants to use it much currently, she's all about finding game walktrhoughs on YouTube.

[holyschist]

One would also have to ban kids from the movies, TV, and the library in order to shelter them from all that is pornographic or violent...we're not even talking about children here, but teenagers--who tend to be interested in sex and very good at finding explicit sexual material if they want it (I was very good at using the library as a teenager, personally), are allowed into violent PG-13 movies unsupervised, and learn about--and debate--contentious, distressing things in school (as they should

[matgb]

Exactly, utterly pointless and for most, counter productive.

And don't get me started about one of my own bloody ministers thinking it's a good idea to encourage kids to learn how to use proxies. Sorry, 'ban porn from households with children'