livejournal saw there was genderfail and wanted in on the action
livejournal decided it was time to add to the genderfail rolling around right now and so it's about to make gender a required field upon account creation (not sure about existing accounts), plus it's going to take away the "unspecified" option and force users to choose whether they are "male" or "female". which is obviously a big deal to the large number of users and potential users who do not identify within the gender binary for whatever reason. while you won't have to make the information public, you will still be forced to choose.
this is pretty obviously being done so lj can offer more targeted personal info to advertisers -- which of course means that anyone listing "female" is likely to be getting ads about dieting, and those listing "male" will probably be getting even more of those "get ripped in four weeks without exercising!" ads i keep seeing everywhere.
synecdochic has a good post on the whole thing over on dreamwidth: http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/366609.html
meanwhile, the code change is likely to go into effect very soon (thursday or maybe thursday next, i think?), so spread the word and send livejournal (polite!) feedback here.
meanwhile, this all reminds me i actually have a journal at dreamwidth. which i should probably start using. hmmmmm.
this is pretty obviously being done so lj can offer more targeted personal info to advertisers -- which of course means that anyone listing "female" is likely to be getting ads about dieting, and those listing "male" will probably be getting even more of those "get ripped in four weeks without exercising!" ads i keep seeing everywhere.
synecdochic has a good post on the whole thing over on dreamwidth: http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/366609.html
meanwhile, the code change is likely to go into effect very soon (thursday or maybe thursday next, i think?), so spread the word and send livejournal (polite!) feedback here.
meanwhile, this all reminds me i actually have a journal at dreamwidth. which i should probably start using. hmmmmm.