I never was one of these people...

[brainofck]

...who seriously considered the possible need for an exit strategy.

But this post makes it clear that there is no free speech on LJ.

This woman was the mod of a community called pornish_pixies, which was deleted for content after someone complained to LJ that the community discussed and wrote about incest.

According to her post, she was told by LJ Abuse:

They further say the reason for this is that material which can be interpreted as expressing interest in, soliciting, or encouraging illegal activity places LiveJournal at considerable legal risk. When journals that contain such material are reported to us, we must suspend them. Because LiveJournal's interests list serves as a search function, and because listing an interest enables other people also interested in a similar topic to gather and/or congregate, we have been advised that listing an interest in an illegal activity must be viewed as using LiveJournal to solicit that illegal activity....

We recognize that many people list these types of interests for shock value, as a method of expressing opposition for these illegal activities, or to indicate fictional activity. Unfortunately, the Abuse team does not have any discretion in these cases; if a journal profile contains interests that support illegal activity, we must suspend the journal. Journals, on the other hand, may express or imply interest in illegal activity or express or imply a desire to meet and/or interact with others with similar interests, but only if the journal clearly (1) is in opposition to or condemnation of the illegal activity, (2) does not encourage the illegal activity and (3) is not used in furtherance of any illegal activity.

I do recognize that your community account may not necessarily be the type of content that this policy is directly intended to remove from LiveJournal. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned, the Abuse team has no discretion in how these instances must be handled. Because your account was reported to us, and because it contained illegal activities in your interests list, we must permanently suspend it.

Two obvious issues here.

First. As best I can tell, these people were writing fiction. About an illegal activity, sure. But fiction is not reality, people. It seems appropriate that LJ Abuse, or somebody in charge of LJ Abuse, should be able to make some kind of distinctions about what is Abuse and what is Free Speech.

Second. Incest? I mean, yeah, it's illegal. But unless these people are all blood relatives, how can the fact that they are congregating be a threat? They can't all have incest together, surely? Are they all plotting how best to have sex with their siblings? Molest their cousins? What? And I note that they DID NOT say anything about, I dunno, child molestation or something. THAT might, possibly, worry me, if a bunch of people got together to actually discuss the best strategy to get your nephew alone or something. And yet, writing a story about somebody who molests their nephew is not a crime. That's a protected First Amendment right. (Oh, don't start, alpha_strike. We all know you have been ranting forever years... :p)

Anyway, apparently censorship just happens on LJ. LJ Abuse has no discretion or control over it. Some lawyer whispers "increased liability" in their ear (about INCEST!) and passive voice censorship ensues.

Anyway, is it paranoid for me to be considering what to do, for real, if they choose to strike out at our slash communities? One obvious solution would be to fall back on a yahoo group, should fan fic communities go down due to copyright issues or something. What groups are out there for Stargate? Anybody? How active are they?

I'm also interested in getting contact info on people I care about. If you'd like to stay in touch if things ever go south, feel free to e-mail me at brainofck at g mail dot com. Heh. You can subscribe to my newsletter...

Comments

[cocoajava.livejournal.com]

Because your account was reported to us, and because it contained illegal activities in your interests list, we must permanently suspend it.

So, basically an Incest Survivors Group could be shut down because they list 'incest' in their interests. Even though it's there to help FIGHT against incest.

Sweet.

[brainofck.livejournal.com]

It bugs me that they actually say two things...

One: "Journals...may express or imply interest in illegal activity or express or imply a desire to meet and/or interact with others with similar interests, but only if the journal clearly (1) is in opposition to or condemnation of the illegal activity, (2) does not encourage the illegal activity and (3) is not used in furtherance of any illegal activity."

and

Two: "Unfortunately, as I've mentioned, the Abuse team has no discretion in how these instances must be handled. "

So it's OK to have certain content, but they will have no discretion and will delete it anyway because of how it is labeled. Even though it is OK. That doesn't make sense at all. Which is why I think this is a bogus, mealy-mouthed explanation of what they did. They are trying to hide behind a policy about the incest label but actually deleted them for some other reason. Bad stuff.

[seleneheart]

Sadly, I went and locked my entire personal journal last night. I need to consider going through all the comms I've posted on and grabbing that fic to put it somewhere safe. And I haven't decided what to do about my fic journal yet. I may post more intense disclaimers on the info page, but I really don't want to lock it.

Actually, there is no free speech on LJ and there never was.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

It's completely counter-intuitive, but the law for internet service providers (like LJ) says that as long as they keep their noses completely out of journal content, they are safe from liability. Which for years has meant that people could post their BDSM stories, etc., despite other people's complaints about squick. Those previous complaints dealt with individual posts -- once someone else pointed out to them, "Hey, this post has kiddie porn pictures in it," LJ could tell the poster he was violating the TOS and delete.

Unfortunately, their lawyers have for some reason decided that Interests, because they are a networking tool, can be construed as promoting illegal activity and LJ's hands are still tied about keeping their noses out of journal content. They aren't searching out "pedophilia" interests on their own, but when a self-righteous, batshit-crazy group contacts them and says, "This journal is promoting pedophilia," and pedophilia is in the interests, LJ cannot look at the content and make any kind of judgement call whatsoever. The networking tool itself is the violation. It could be kiddie porn, it could be fictional, it could be a survivor group -- doesn't matter. Because theoretically the individual/comm could post actual illegal stuff in the future, and LJ would be liable because they were warned about them and did nothing. What has been protecting freedom of expression so far is now harming it.

Livia has a great post here (http://liviapenn.livejournal.com/467077.html). fandom_lawyers is on it here (http://community.livejournal.com/fandom_lawyers/36677.html) and here ().

So far there hasn't been a definitive ruling on either fanfic or real person fic. cesperanza has a really excellent post in defense of fanfic here (http://cesperanza.livejournal.com/161806.html), and many people have written on the comparative legal defensibility of RPS -- a few examples here (http://telesilla.livejournal.com/311344.html) and here (http://darkrosetiger.livejournal.com/255739.html). If there does come a time when there is a legal ruling against either FPF or RPF, then LJ will be in a tougher position when someone makes a complaint against specific posts/journals. (And the copyright question in FPF is interesting, as corporate America seems to be moving simultaneously in both directions -- some pushing Congress for more draconian laws and others attemting to capitalize more directly on fan creation as a marketing tool.)

If, someday, the hammer should fall, you know how to reach me -- I'm not gonna lose you!!! *clings*

It would suck to lose the communities, though. LJ has the best interface of any I've seen -- I just can't stand the way Yahoo groups and various bulletin boards are set up. Mass migration to GreatestJournal? Of course they'd probably be int he same boat...

[amise.livejournal.com]

Anyway, is it paranoid for me to be considering what to do, for real, if they choose to strike out at our slash communities?

No, it's not. Not if this is an example of how they handle these sorts of complaints.

I've set up an account on GreatestJournal and friended everyone I could find. I'm thinking of looking into Journalfen next week.