A Swiftly Tilting LJ...
Continued from the following posts: About that LJ Rumor... and Another Exchange of Emails,
Continued in the following posts: LJ User Action Centers
*waves because I'm tired*
I've been linking around trying to get the straight dope on the real deal, and then I got thinking about doing a round-up.
Luckily for me, other people have done it.
Most of the pertinent information seems to be in comments to various posts in LJ, but again, it's hard to separate fact from fiction.
Also, I'm not seeing anything official from LJ (and I'm on all the LJ News Communities). All information about LJ's thought process is second- third- and fourth-hand at this point with various people reporting what they were told with regards to the deletion of RP communities and fic communities.
Other points:
Note: This list is by no means is exhaustive, but it should give everyone a good start.
I've disabled comments to this post. Please comment to About the LJ Rumor... and Another Exchange of Emails where people are sharing information with each other in some spots.
Thank you for your patience. And my apologies for being somewhat absent (I'm only clicking in to my own LJ long enough to make sure nothing is getting out of hand).
ETA, the Revenge: Another theory seems to be emerging over on Fandom Wank on JF (which I can't actually get to) that Perverted Justice may actually have a hand in this. They apparently list LJ as a "aggressive corporate sex offender." The information is a bit buried on their web site, but I did find it.
At this moment, however, Perverted Justice has not had any comment on their site regarding LJ beyond the listing as a "corporate sex offender."
Continued in the following posts: LJ User Action Centers
*waves because I'm tired*
I've been linking around trying to get the straight dope on the real deal, and then I got thinking about doing a round-up.
Luckily for me, other people have done it.
Most of the pertinent information seems to be in comments to various posts in LJ, but again, it's hard to separate fact from fiction.
Also, I'm not seeing anything official from LJ (and I'm on all the LJ News Communities). All information about LJ's thought process is second- third- and fourth-hand at this point with various people reporting what they were told with regards to the deletion of RP communities and fic communities.
Other points:
- Warriors For Innocence (deliberately no link) can't seem to decide whether to take credit or not on their blog. But at this point, it's looking like they wrote an email to SixApart/LJ e-threatening the ad money on May 18. LJ Abuse (obviously) deleted journals using the "interests" list in the user information as their guide in response to that threat today.
It should be noted that they started the campaign against LJ on April 6 so they've had these public posts out in the open for almost 2 months at this point. All of these posts are easily found by a Google search. In short, they gave ample warning to legitimate predators who may have been watching their blog. (Thanks guys!)
Again, let me stress something: I do not oppose legitimate policing of cyber-predators. My problems is WFI went about it the worst way possible. They knew little about LJ or the various subcultures when they sent that email. Instead of quietly working with LJ Abuse and/or a legitimate law enforcement agency like many other professional sites do, they were very public with their campaign.
As a result, legitimate predators were probably already underground, moved, or had altered their user info when the Great LJ Strikeout of 2007 happened. In fact, in comments in their latest LJ-related post, they accused one commenter of doing just that to get around the LJ ban-hammer.
I don't even want to get into the fact that this action may have harmed any ongoing investigations. Obviously that last statement is speculation, but let's just say my past experience as a reporter who's done her share of crime reporting tells means that I wouldn't be shocked if that was the case.
However, until we get more information from LJ itself, we honestly don't know the entire story from either the WFI angle or the LJ angle.
- There's a blog set up over at Greatest Journal called Fandomtossed. It looks like it was started by fandom's own Internet Lawyers over on
fandom_lawyers. It looks like they're collecting information and discussing the situation.
- Don't forget: there are some non-Six Apart alternatives to LJ that uses LJ code that you can use to back-up your stuff.
Greatest Journal is open for sign-ups. I know that quite a few fandom folk already have accounts there. If you don't, get one. Sign-ups are open and free.
A second alternative is JournalFen. However, JF is for people 18 and over only. In addition, signing up can be problematic since open season for free sign-ups is a random thing. I know there are some circumstances that you may be able to get on (i.e., if you can get "invites" from a friend who already has a paid account there). I'm not sure about all the details for signing up since JF is being wonky for me tonight, no matter how many times I clear my cache. I haven't been able to get on all day.
catrinella has a great round-up here of the list of deleted communities, links to software that'll let you backup your LJ if you're concerned about being banned, links for more information, and current "best practices" to avoid the ban-hammer.
Of note: helpful advice on how to recover "lost posts" if your LJ was purged or if you posted fic or artwork to a purged community: check your email, especially if you use Gmail or AOL mail.
Note: This list is by no means is exhaustive, but it should give everyone a good start.
I've disabled comments to this post. Please comment to About the LJ Rumor... and Another Exchange of Emails where people are sharing information with each other in some spots.
Thank you for your patience. And my apologies for being somewhat absent (I'm only clicking in to my own LJ long enough to make sure nothing is getting out of hand).
ETA, the Revenge: Another theory seems to be emerging over on Fandom Wank on JF (which I can't actually get to) that Perverted Justice may actually have a hand in this. They apparently list LJ as a "aggressive corporate sex offender." The information is a bit buried on their web site, but I did find it.
At this moment, however, Perverted Justice has not had any comment on their site regarding LJ beyond the listing as a "corporate sex offender."