Livejournal to Ban LGBTQ Content
Mitch Wagner writes, "LiveJournal is a venerable online community that predates Facebook and even blogging. It got acquired by a Russian company a few years ago, but some of its American and British users hung on, including sf and fantasy writers and fans. Lately, I know one of my friends was scrambling to leave, but I'd been too busy to look into why."
"Now I know: LiveJournal changed its terms of service to require obeying Russian law, which requires "protecting" minors from discussing "sexual deviancy" -- LGBTQ issues. This is evil. I agree with many political pundits that it's better to coexist with Russia than to go war, even seek common ground where possible. And I agree that much of the current hostility to Russia in Washington, D.C., is cynical politicking by people who are using Russia panic to gain advantage. But this is evil. "
I probably stuck with LJ for too long, because back in the day I paid for a perpetual premium account-unlimited access and no ads: the urge to get one's money's worth out of something you've paid for is hard to resist. But the rot has finally gone too far. This Tuesday Livejournal pushed out a revision to their terms of service that emphasize the service runs under Russian law, and specifically requires compliance with Russian law on minors-which makes any discussion of "sexual deviancy" (aka LGBT issues) illegal or at least a violation of the ToS.
So I'm currently migrating my entire Livejournal presence to Dreamwidth, a service set up by some of LJ's original founders that focuses on providing a Livejournal-like set of services for creative types (and, significantly, is not subject to Russian law because it's not based in Russia).
I tried submitting this to ONTD and it got rejected with this note: "This is not celebrity news, multiple posts have been rejected. Please do not resubmit."
Source: Boing Boing
"Now I know: LiveJournal changed its terms of service to require obeying Russian law, which requires "protecting" minors from discussing "sexual deviancy" -- LGBTQ issues. This is evil. I agree with many political pundits that it's better to coexist with Russia than to go war, even seek common ground where possible. And I agree that much of the current hostility to Russia in Washington, D.C., is cynical politicking by people who are using Russia panic to gain advantage. But this is evil. "
I probably stuck with LJ for too long, because back in the day I paid for a perpetual premium account-unlimited access and no ads: the urge to get one's money's worth out of something you've paid for is hard to resist. But the rot has finally gone too far. This Tuesday Livejournal pushed out a revision to their terms of service that emphasize the service runs under Russian law, and specifically requires compliance with Russian law on minors-which makes any discussion of "sexual deviancy" (aka LGBT issues) illegal or at least a violation of the ToS.
So I'm currently migrating my entire Livejournal presence to Dreamwidth, a service set up by some of LJ's original founders that focuses on providing a Livejournal-like set of services for creative types (and, significantly, is not subject to Russian law because it's not based in Russia).
I tried submitting this to ONTD and it got rejected with this note: "This is not celebrity news, multiple posts have been rejected. Please do not resubmit."
Source: Boing Boing