Tempest Meet Teapot
A number of posts have already popped up on my FL in response to LJ's announcement of it's new 'feature' - so I suspect we're in for at least a week's worth of foofahrah over it.
Of course, there's already misinformation spreading like wildfire about it... and while I understand why someone might not be terribly appealing to some folk, I hate it when people get upset over things that aren't true. So I'm going to take a second to point out a few things.
1) The 'feature' is really a couple of features lumped under one banner.
3) The Safe Search filtering options only filter SEARCHES - not content on your FL. So if you use that little box at the top of many pages that says "SEARCH" in front of it, your results will be filtered by that setting.
Okay, so what has changed? a) you have the option to keep younger readers from reading what you think is inappropriate content accidentally, b) there's a widget that automates reports of explicit material and prompts review from LJ abuse rather than requiring you to go fill out a form as was done previously, c) there's a link that redirects you to the abuse page for any other abuse rather than requiring you to look it up in the FAQs. d) rather than getting banned or suspended for inappropriate content, all LJ abuse will do over sexually explicit material is tag it so it isn't viewable by minors. e) the default setting on the search feature only is non-adult but you can change it easily.
This isn't censorship folks. Minors have never had the "right" to read or view explicit content. It would be like getting pissed off about a movie theater adhering to the NC-17 rating.
I realize that 6Apart has a tendency to put both feet in it with their new policies - but in this case, they've actually gone to great lengths to both keep in line with the law and to keep adults able to continue posting whatever they want to on their own LJs... They've actually done an excellent job on this so far.
Of course, there's already misinformation spreading like wildfire about it... and while I understand why someone might not be terribly appealing to some folk, I hate it when people get upset over things that aren't true. So I'm going to take a second to point out a few things.
1) The 'feature' is really a couple of features lumped under one banner.
- The ability to filter your own content so that a User's Profile age determines whether they can see it or not. You have unfiltered by age, 18 & over, or 14 and over. This is optional
- A flag that lets you report someone else's content as inappropriate for 18 & under due to either graphic sexuality, or adult content -- this feature doesn't allow you to do anything other than report it. It will require several people flagging an item for an LJ Abuse Team member to review it.
- Under the same icon, there are 3 options that do not flag content, but instead redirect to the regular Abuse Report page.
3) The Safe Search filtering options only filter SEARCHES - not content on your FL. So if you use that little box at the top of many pages that says "SEARCH" in front of it, your results will be filtered by that setting.
Okay, so what has changed? a) you have the option to keep younger readers from reading what you think is inappropriate content accidentally, b) there's a widget that automates reports of explicit material and prompts review from LJ abuse rather than requiring you to go fill out a form as was done previously, c) there's a link that redirects you to the abuse page for any other abuse rather than requiring you to look it up in the FAQs. d) rather than getting banned or suspended for inappropriate content, all LJ abuse will do over sexually explicit material is tag it so it isn't viewable by minors. e) the default setting on the search feature only is non-adult but you can change it easily.
This isn't censorship folks. Minors have never had the "right" to read or view explicit content. It would be like getting pissed off about a movie theater adhering to the NC-17 rating.
I realize that 6Apart has a tendency to put both feet in it with their new policies - but in this case, they've actually gone to great lengths to both keep in line with the law and to keep adults able to continue posting whatever they want to on their own LJs... They've actually done an excellent job on this so far.