Livejournal Servers Now Located in Russia

[eveofrevolution]

As of a few days ago, the IP addresses for blogging service LiveJournal have moved to 81.19.74.*, a block that lookup services locate in Moscow, Russia. Now users -- especially those who do not trust the Russian government -- are leaving the platform and advising others to leave

Comments

[beuk]

I really didn't care until I read on that MF page that LJ is now HTTP rather than HTTPS. I mean, I'm using it right now, but uuugh.

[eveofrevolution]

[fiddlingfrog]

The thing is though is that LiveJournal has never had HTTPS for general reading, it was only ever enabled on the login page and the payment page. People who are complaining about the end of HTTPS service are remembering a feature that never existed.

I used to volunteer for LiveJournal Support and I still swing by the board and answer the odd request. As recently as this summer we'd still get the occasional request asking when HTTPS was going to be enabled for the entire site.

[eveofrevolution]

[mhfromnh]

ugh. that's all I got.

[ladypolitik]

Just here for the twinning

[mhfromnh]

excellent.

[shortsweetcynic]

that icon is fucking fantastic. :D

[lovedforaday]

i'm not worried but this just seems like another in a long line of nails in LJ's coffin.

[meadowphoenix]

1) Servers are now in Russia, and thus anything put on Livejournal is no longer protected under the First Amendment.

What?

This doesn't make sense as a sentence. The American government by all accounts can still not throw you in jail or fine you for your communications on this site which do not violate American law. Nothing I've ever seen in the case law cares where the server you are using to make the communication is stored. The American government still can't do that to the owners of Livejournal. And since that is the structure of the First Amendment, it's weird as hell to say communication is no longer protected.

I think what you're trying to say is that the Russian government now has legal jurisdiction over Livejournal (but frankly, not usually over non-Russian individual users, like there's no way Russia is going to ask the US to extradite someone over their livejournal). So the power they have here is to pressure LJ into content deletion, which is really bad, but not what the original sentence said.

[eveofrevolution]

[meadowphoenix]

I think people are confusing the philosophical notion of free speech with the 1st amendment notion of free speech. Thanks for changing it.

[numb3r_5ev3n]

They can't extradite anyone, but they can still delete or suspend your journal if they don't like the content, and your content is now subject to Russian monitoring. See this: http://das-sporking.livejournal.com/1334667.html

I think a lot of people do understand the difference, but this alone is enough for them to want to migrate to Dreamwidth or another service.

[amw]

Regarding this point, I am not a lawyer, but this sounds like FUD to me: "Servers are now in Russia, and thus anything put on Livejournal is no longer protected under the First Amendment

[eveofrevolution]

[amw]

Good update, meadowphoenix explained it much better and more succinctly than me :) I do think it's important that people understand what has happened, but it needs to be put into context too.