Here we go again.
Jul. 20th, 2007 10:08 amhttp://firefox.org/news/articles/511/1/Livejournal-Bans-Underage-Adult-Fanfiction/Page1.html
Okay, so the only part that bothers me is this:
"This includes threats of physical harm against the President or other executive officers"
So under the banner of 'STOP PEDOS' comes political dissent.
Okay, sure, I do see that the word is 'threats'. Saying, "I wish Shrub would
fall in a wood-chipper." isn't a 'threat', but saying, "I wish I could take a brush-hog
to that Bush and prune off all its limbs." is a threat, if an idle one.
The problem, of course is that LJ can't possibly enforce this by filtering. I could easily have been talking about yard work in my examples above. That means that it will be enforced by self-appointed vigilantes. Read: Conservative ass-hats that will run screaming about anything they disagree with. I faced something similar on a MU* many years ago. Because I'm a rather vocal atheist and something of a hothead, the good christians took it upon themselves to report me every time I said 'ass', 'damn', or talked about anything even mildly inappropriate to a 'PG' area.
Other people of course, were free to talk about brutal rape and say 'fuck'. After getting banned a couple of times, I just started logging everything and was able to point out a half dozen examples where other people said/did similar or worse things.
MU*s are small though. A few hundred people at most. You can get your case reviewed. Something like LJ with millions of accounts? I'm skeptical. So hurray! One more win for the gestapo.
Okay, so the only part that bothers me is this:
"This includes threats of physical harm against the President or other executive officers"
So under the banner of 'STOP PEDOS' comes political dissent.
Okay, sure, I do see that the word is 'threats'. Saying, "I wish Shrub would
fall in a wood-chipper." isn't a 'threat', but saying, "I wish I could take a brush-hog
to that Bush and prune off all its limbs." is a threat, if an idle one.
The problem, of course is that LJ can't possibly enforce this by filtering. I could easily have been talking about yard work in my examples above. That means that it will be enforced by self-appointed vigilantes. Read: Conservative ass-hats that will run screaming about anything they disagree with. I faced something similar on a MU* many years ago. Because I'm a rather vocal atheist and something of a hothead, the good christians took it upon themselves to report me every time I said 'ass', 'damn', or talked about anything even mildly inappropriate to a 'PG' area.
Other people of course, were free to talk about brutal rape and say 'fuck'. After getting banned a couple of times, I just started logging everything and was able to point out a half dozen examples where other people said/did similar or worse things.
MU*s are small though. A few hundred people at most. You can get your case reviewed. Something like LJ with millions of accounts? I'm skeptical. So hurray! One more win for the gestapo.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-20 06:32 pm (UTC)Why this wasn't posted in
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-20 10:14 pm (UTC)