LJ User Action Centers
Continued from the following posts: About that LJ Rumor..., Another Exchange of Emails, and A Swiftly Tilting LJ...
Continued in the following post: ALERT: WFI Site May Infect Your Computer (Programs to Combat Spyware)
Warriors For Innocence: You Made Us Do It, And It's Not Our Fault Anyway
Warriors for Innocence (deliberately no link) has updated their blog to take partial credit for the purge.
In short, WFI claims that they're responsible for LJ deleting "hundreds" of "pedophile journals," but refuse to take responsibility for the many, many more that ended up deleted because (for whatever reason) SixApart/LJ took these nutball's threats to go to the advertisers seriously.
I'm sure that you won't be shocked that WFI uses its latest post to...blame the victims. It's the fault of the deleted journals, y'see? They shouldn't have written about objectionable content. And they should've backed up their LJs. And they are not harming legitimate law enforcement efforts by publicly grandstanding.
Oh, and we're all a buncha whiners.
As always, their professionalism shines right on through, doesn't it?
Please be aware: Some people are reporting that they've been infected with spyware after visiting this group's site. Here's some tips to protect yourself if this is true.
ETA: Let me stress that WFI is taking credit, but LJ/SixApart have said squat. Something interesting, though: the WFI folks are tracking the individual journals and comms being pulled down on this page. (Should be safe.)
Note that in their world view that we are all "pedos" or "pro-pedo." Read over the list, because there are some really mystifying choices of comms and journals that have been deleted. A fan comm for what looks like Ghost World? Hunh? What's that doing there?
Per C-Net: Mass deletions were prompted by several activist groups, including WFI - SixApart
SixApart and LJ: *Silence*
Or Silent No More: Instead of giving their customers an official announcement, SixApart gave it to CNet. See: Mass Deletion Sparks LiveJournal Revolt. My favorite quote:
"We did a review of our policies related to how we review those sites, those journals, and came up with the fact that we actually did have a number of journals up that we didn't think met our policies and didn't think they were appropriate to have up," Barak Berkowitz, chairman and chief executive of Six Apart, said in a telephone interview. The site boasts about 13 million journals.
Great. We're on our own.
I want to be clear here: at the end of the day, SixApart/LJ caved. Our corporate overlords have not deigned to give us a response yet, despite numerous demands on the LJ news comm for an explanation and/or announcement.
Current rumor indicates that complaints and questions put up on support are being deleted as they are found by responders. While the deletions can't be proven, it's shocking that there's only a few scattered comments there, and all of them are that green "unanswered" color.
ETA, Now with Proof: Through the magic of screencapture
kajivar gives us proof that LJ is deleting support tickets that reference the journal and community deletions.
ETA, Possible Explanation:
hummingwolf notes that the deletions could be because of standing LJ policy.
ETA, Electric Boogaloo: DEBUNKED! The support requests complaining about the deletions cannot be deleted from the system. They are, instead, being passed on to someone from LJ/SixApart who can answer/deal with the problem. per
kutsuwamushi here and here.
Advice from Around LJ
LJ User Action Centers
ancarett has helpfully pointed to SixApart's corporate phone numbers. She points out that phone calls are going to make a much bigger impact than emails. Program 'em into your cells before the numbers disappear!
ETA (I lied, one addition):
acari has a very important list of links, including LJ back-up programs for Windows and Mac and news from around LJ.
ETA (I lied again, a second addition):
vichan is asking for people who have an LJ to support their fannish pursuits to stand up and be counted at
fandom_counts. All you need to do is "join" the comm. There's no need to post anything or answer questions. The whole point is to get a headcount, which may help the fandom wing of LJ decide what kind of mass action we can pull off to protest the deletions. (I can personally vouch for
vichan as she's in my fandom *grins*).
bookshop from
fandom_lawyers has a a call to action here.
bubble_blunder has one of the most reasoned lists of what we can realistically expect, and what we can't in a fantastic post here.
vichan has a good round-up post here.
femmequixotic has detailed her experience with the deletion of her HP fanfiction comm
pornish_pixies
ETA for more information: catrinella is back on the case with a massively, massively updated of news and helpful information. Right here is the real "news central."
This post in
innocence_jihad has more listed.
lolaraincoat has more lists of deleted comms/people here and in comments here.
Fandom Tossed over on Greatest Journal is still serving as a very strong central point for information and links to action centers. It is also now syndicated on
fandomtossed
And don't forget
fandom_lawyers have a discussion thread here. Something that should either cheer you up or strike fear into your hearts. If you've got a deleted journal or comm, the lawyers would like to hear from you.
ETA:
dogemperor over on
dark_christian notes that the "anti-pedo" campaign of WFI may, in fact, be more accurately termed as a Christianist campaign. Their real target? Anything that is GLBT-positive, including slash and femslash.
innocence_jihad has more here.
Three new communities have been set up to fight back:
I know I've missed a lot of stuff here, some of which was mentioned in my own comments, but I'm not supposed to be online at the moment (shhhhhh! work!). Please browse the comments here and here. I know some additional links were thrown in there. However, if you've got news/information/additional links, feel free to post them in comments below this post.
As for Me, I Owe Someone an Apology
Just days ago, in this very post in fact, I fluffed off the "urban legend" that some outside pressure group was going after LJ to delete certain accounts and communities.
I didn't believe it. I fluffed it off. I was more than a little snotty about the information.
I was wrong. Even though I didn't attack anyone or name anyone, if my skeptical attitude and less-than diplomatic wording hurt anyone, I apologize.
On a personal note...
I'm going to be off line for the rest of the day due to RL. I hope the above list will be helpful for you to get started if you wish to protest SixApart/LJ's actions.
Continued in the following post: ALERT: WFI Site May Infect Your Computer (Programs to Combat Spyware)
Warriors For Innocence: You Made Us Do It, And It's Not Our Fault Anyway
Warriors for Innocence (deliberately no link) has updated their blog to take partial credit for the purge.
In short, WFI claims that they're responsible for LJ deleting "hundreds" of "pedophile journals," but refuse to take responsibility for the many, many more that ended up deleted because (for whatever reason) SixApart/LJ took these nutball's threats to go to the advertisers seriously.
I'm sure that you won't be shocked that WFI uses its latest post to...blame the victims. It's the fault of the deleted journals, y'see? They shouldn't have written about objectionable content. And they should've backed up their LJs. And they are not harming legitimate law enforcement efforts by publicly grandstanding.
Oh, and we're all a buncha whiners.
As always, their professionalism shines right on through, doesn't it?
Please be aware: Some people are reporting that they've been infected with spyware after visiting this group's site. Here's some tips to protect yourself if this is true.
ETA: Let me stress that WFI is taking credit, but LJ/SixApart have said squat. Something interesting, though: the WFI folks are tracking the individual journals and comms being pulled down on this page. (Should be safe.)
Note that in their world view that we are all "pedos" or "pro-pedo." Read over the list, because there are some really mystifying choices of comms and journals that have been deleted. A fan comm for what looks like Ghost World? Hunh? What's that doing there?
Per C-Net: Mass deletions were prompted by several activist groups, including WFI - SixApart
SixApart and LJ: *Silence*
Or Silent No More: Instead of giving their customers an official announcement, SixApart gave it to CNet. See: Mass Deletion Sparks LiveJournal Revolt. My favorite quote:
"We did a review of our policies related to how we review those sites, those journals, and came up with the fact that we actually did have a number of journals up that we didn't think met our policies and didn't think they were appropriate to have up," Barak Berkowitz, chairman and chief executive of Six Apart, said in a telephone interview. The site boasts about 13 million journals.
Great. We're on our own.
I want to be clear here: at the end of the day, SixApart/LJ caved. Our corporate overlords have not deigned to give us a response yet, despite numerous demands on the LJ news comm for an explanation and/or announcement.
Current rumor indicates that complaints and questions put up on support are being deleted as they are found by responders. While the deletions can't be proven, it's shocking that there's only a few scattered comments there, and all of them are that green "unanswered" color.
ETA, Now with Proof: Through the magic of screencapture
kajivar gives us proof that LJ is deleting support tickets that reference the journal and community deletions.
ETA, Possible Explanation:
hummingwolf notes that the deletions could be because of standing LJ policy.
ETA, Electric Boogaloo: DEBUNKED! The support requests complaining about the deletions cannot be deleted from the system. They are, instead, being passed on to someone from LJ/SixApart who can answer/deal with the problem. per
kutsuwamushi here and here.
Advice from Around LJ
- Edit your user profile. Remove any interest that may even conceivably be considered offensive. There are several "hot button" words, including "rape," "incest," "lolita," "shota," and "pedophilia," that are being targeted.
- Remove NWS icons. Again, this is just a rumor, and I'm including it for completions' sake. If you have a NWS icon, save it to your hard drive and remove it from your profile. There's one journal claiming it was removed because of an icon. While it's unconfirmed at the moment, better safe than sorry.
- Backup your LJ. All of it. You can find the latest version of LJ Archive here, although it's windows-only at the moment. LJ Book is compatible with Windows and Macs and turns your LJ into a PDF. Both programs appear to preserve comments and icons from individual entries.
- Start migrating your entries to LJ-like sites that aren't owned by SixApart. As mentioned before, Greatest Journal and JournalFen are two options, with GreatestJournal the easier of the two to sign up for. In addition, I'd like to add the very intriguing InsaneJournal as a third option. (Thanks
bubble_blunder for the pointer to InsaneJournal!)
- Start migrating your fannish art and writing to the proper archives. At the very least, you'll have online back-ups of your work that you can transfer elsewhere or point to with a link.
LJ User Action Centers
ancarett has helpfully pointed to SixApart's corporate phone numbers. She points out that phone calls are going to make a much bigger impact than emails. Program 'em into your cells before the numbers disappear!
ETA (I lied, one addition):
acari has a very important list of links, including LJ back-up programs for Windows and Mac and news from around LJ.
ETA (I lied again, a second addition):
vichan is asking for people who have an LJ to support their fannish pursuits to stand up and be counted at
fandom_counts. All you need to do is "join" the comm. There's no need to post anything or answer questions. The whole point is to get a headcount, which may help the fandom wing of LJ decide what kind of mass action we can pull off to protest the deletions. (I can personally vouch for
vichan as she's in my fandom *grins*).
bookshop from
fandom_lawyers has a a call to action here.
bubble_blunder has one of the most reasoned lists of what we can realistically expect, and what we can't in a fantastic post here.
vichan has a good round-up post here.
femmequixotic has detailed her experience with the deletion of her HP fanfiction comm
pornish_pixies
ETA for more information: catrinella is back on the case with a massively, massively updated of news and helpful information. Right here is the real "news central."
This post in
innocence_jihad has more listed.
lolaraincoat has more lists of deleted comms/people here and in comments here.
Fandom Tossed over on Greatest Journal is still serving as a very strong central point for information and links to action centers. It is also now syndicated on
fandomtossed
And don't forget
fandom_lawyers have a discussion thread here. Something that should either cheer you up or strike fear into your hearts. If you've got a deleted journal or comm, the lawyers would like to hear from you.
ETA:
dogemperor over on
dark_christian notes that the "anti-pedo" campaign of WFI may, in fact, be more accurately termed as a Christianist campaign. Their real target? Anything that is GLBT-positive, including slash and femslash.
innocence_jihad has more here.
Three new communities have been set up to fight back:
reasoned_speech (user info here)
- the very small
fandompays (user info here) which is proposing an organized economic boycott
- the larger and more active
innocence_jihad (user info here), which appears to be planning an online protest action
I know I've missed a lot of stuff here, some of which was mentioned in my own comments, but I'm not supposed to be online at the moment (shhhhhh! work!). Please browse the comments here and here. I know some additional links were thrown in there. However, if you've got news/information/additional links, feel free to post them in comments below this post.
As for Me, I Owe Someone an Apology
Just days ago, in this very post in fact, I fluffed off the "urban legend" that some outside pressure group was going after LJ to delete certain accounts and communities.
I didn't believe it. I fluffed it off. I was more than a little snotty about the information.
I was wrong. Even though I didn't attack anyone or name anyone, if my skeptical attitude and less-than diplomatic wording hurt anyone, I apologize.
On a personal note...
I'm going to be off line for the rest of the day due to RL. I hope the above list will be helpful for you to get started if you wish to protest SixApart/LJ's actions.