(Untitled)

[thistlerose]

- Could someone please explain to me what's happening with LJ, or point me to someone who lays it out simply? I read the update and it sounds a little dodgy, but I don't quite get it. Looks like people are abandoning ship. I was already thinking of letting my paid account expire in September, and just focus on DreamWidth

Comments

[cruisedirector]

What's happening is that LJ is asking everyone to agree to a translated version of the user agreement, which 1) no one is sure contains everything the Russian version says and 2) LJ itself is saying may not be legally binding since it's a translation. As far as I can tell, nothing practical has changed: LJ reserves the right to boot you for violating US and Russian law as they see fit, which may include gay porn since that's illegal in Russia but at least the translated agreement doesn't say anything about gay material. Whether they actually intend to delete American journals for violating Russian laws is not at all clear.

My feeling is that when Russian users ask Americans to stop using LJ because it's enabling SUP to suppress their free speech, then I'll stop using LJ, but American bloggers telling me that by being here I'm supporting suppression of free speech in Russia makes no sense; if anything, a huge exodus of non-Russian users could give the Russians an excuse to shut down LJ altogether, thus making a whole lot of Russian blogs disappear. I am not contributing to LJ's bottom line since I have a permanent account and in fact am costing them money/resources -- there's nowhere else I could host so many photos for free, it's not even a paid option at DW -- so I am staying until LJ itself makes it impossible.

[cruisedirector]

Oh and I have an outline of a Leia story too, since before Carrie died (I have a friend who's a Vader fanatic and this bothers me far more than it should; it's a story about how while Leia understands why Luke can forgive their father, having grown up far away from the Empire and the worst of its atrocities, her most intimate memory of Vader is of him holding her still while Tarkin blew up her planet and the people she considers her parents). It's somehow too depressing to work on.

[thistlerose]

Heh, my story has a scene like that too! In mine she confesses (probably to Lando, since this takes place post-TFA and I want a scene where they're grieving for Han together) that she's glad Luke wasn't able to bring Vader home alive, and she still thinks of Bail and Breha as her real parents.

[ragdoll]

Thank you for the rational explanation, esp since it jibes with what I'm taking from all of this. I have a permanent account so costing LJ money by still being here, and I've had so many friends going on about the sky falling without any actual evidence of the sky falling (including claims of journal deletions but it's always 'I heard frm someone who heard from someone) that it's nervewracking.

[thistlerose]

Yeah, I wasn't getting apocalyptic vibes from LJ's statement. It just seems that, with so many people moving, as long as I'm paying for only one account, it might as well be DW. I'll probably still cross-post and occasionally check LJ, unless something dire happens.