Memo to the new LJAB Member

[eruditeviking]

Earlier today I posted the following message to our newly elected Live Journal Advisory Board member. I have not yet gotten a response back from her, but I am hoping that she may chose to either join our group or at the very least create a forum where we can express our goals and ideas to her for consideration by the board. I will update the

Comments

[insomnia]

I don't think the new changes necessitate changing our goals, as those should be constant.

Judging from the changes, I see some real possibilities that their policy changes might actually lead to further restrictions against users.

They have, for example, indicated that they are actually expanding the definition of what is hate speech. But what if that's not really hate speech, per se, but parody, comedy, etc? What if it's the LJ equivalent of ginger kids? Or what about the example recently of a LJ user in Russia who faces imprisonment for suggesting that corrupt police be publically burned in town squares? Clearly, that's hate speech now too under these new definitions, even though it only focuses against corrupt cops -- criminals, essentially -- and not against any racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual orientation, as any true hate speech legislation would ordinarily be limited by. And again, no limits as to context.

"(Insert politician / dictator) should die." Hate speech?!

Likewise, they have called for researching and possibly taking actions against behavior that may cause self-harm. Cutting... pro-ana... but what about fiction vs. reality? What guarantees will be in place to protect BDSM or numerous unsafe sexual practices? Discussion of drug use -- real or fictional.

So, while you may see improvements, I see a real risk that they are backing away slightly on a few issues that got them into trouble, while actively threatening rights on several new fronts.

If you want to make a post about the changes at this time, please feel free to do so. The real issue is what should happen -- and what we should do -- if they get these changes wrong.

[eruditeviking]

There was a reason I stated "partly", I see some slippery slope on a few of them, but a few issues were resolved to some satisfaction at least regarding the human breast. It's why I think we should post them up and go over them with more chance of getting some discussion about them here rather than just on the News post where it's to cluttered to follow much.

[insomnia]

Yeah, probably a good idea, at least to open it to discussion.