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wilderthanSince I'm thinking that this page will be linked by people, I'll just specify first that I am also known as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shanaqui and edenbound, and I've formerly mostly been involved under shanaqui's username. But it's all one. Also, this post isn't a comprehensive round up of information, and nor does it claim to be unbiased.
This post is related to the recent events surroundingponderosa121 and elaboration, and their suspensions. They were both suspended for posting Harry Potter fanart of an explicit nature. There's debate over whether the fanart was intended to portray underage characters, but I haven't heard anyone say that the characters were clearly, say, ten years old. There's room for doubt.
ponderosa121 was certainly well known, and so this has stirred up the fandom community like you wouldn't believe. People have responded by declaring their intentions to leave LJ, with communities such as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fandom_flies, and demanding statements from LJ about what is going on.
First of all, let me specify that I don't believe this is an issue concerning the First Amendment. A company such as Six Apart can, legally, choose what to host on their servers, and what not to host. It is, however, for many people, about freedom of speech and freedom of artistic expression.
Why are people getting so bothered about it?
A large amount of the reaction, I believe, is due to what we refer to as "Strikethrough 07", in which many users and communities, regardless of their content, were suspended because of interests they had listed. The implication was that all these journals were devoted to encouraging and promoting paedophilia, and therefore had to be removed. In a move to pacify those protesting, the CEO of Six Apart came forward and promised that they would be reviewing the journals and returning all of them which were fiction related. This was, in fact, done.
However, since then there has been a lack of communication about the issue. Clarifications issued only posed more questions, and those questions went unanswered. The Terms of Service we're all held by have not been changed. And then came the two recent suspensions, sparking fears that Six Apart's apparent tolerance for fandom was simply feigned to persuade those in fandom to buy permanent accounts.
The suspension ofelaboration proves that a permanent account is no defence against having your content deleted without warning or chance for recourse.
In addition, both of the users were suspended over slash fanart, which is to say, depictions of homosexual relationships. There is speculation that this demonstrates homophobia on the Abuse Team's part.
LiveJournal, apparently, decided that the fanarts that caused the suspensions had no artistic merit. The test applied was, according to their clarifications, the Miller test, in which something is judged by the standards of the community. It is quite plain that many members of the community whose standards they should be using do not believe that at least one of the pieces of art in question had no artistic merit -- and many of them believe that there were no underage characters in it, either.
The anger, frustration, confusion and fear has not been in the slightest bit abated by the lack of response from LiveJournal. Well. Apart from that one thread where Abe Hassan (burr86) had time to mock us, instead of helping us.
People fear that all the LiveJournal/Six Apart management cares about is money. That fear is fuelled by the timing of all this -- Strikethrough, reassurances, permanent account sale, Boldout. People have found that of the places the donations from permanent accounts went to, most of them lead to charities somewhat connected to Six Apart, which was not disclosed: this could be a coincidence, but it's a worrying one. It's not helped by the fact that Six Apart has introduced ads to the site, including "sponsored moodthemes", which even those who shelled out $150 have to see. It's not that we don't want them to make money -- it's that we don't want them to make money while trampling all over their customers.
Why is it a freedom of speech issue?
The issue here is not defending child pornography, or paedophiles, because that's not what is apparently being banned. What is involved here is fiction. There are no real children involved. I'm not a US citizen, so I'm not very up on the laws, so I would ask you to look at the comment thread involvingpretentioustfu to see a more detailed explanation, here.
On the other hand,synecdochic posts: "In the eyes of the United States government, "child pornography" is defined as -- elisions and boldface mine -- "a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that [...] depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex [...] It is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist."".
Who are these people?
Concerned users of LiveJournal. They are no one thing. They are people who are unhappy at what has happened and that is all there is to it. They do not all like chan, they do not all likeponderosa121 or elaboration, they're not even all from fandom. They are just people who want to be heard.
What do these people want from LiveJournal, then?
I've seen people asking for many things. Among them:
-Clear guidelines as to what can and cannot be posted
-An apology for suspending people before such clear guidelines are produced
-An apology for making us wait for an answer
-An apology from Abe Hassan
-For Abe Hassan to lose or give up his job
-For the two artists to be unsuspended
Note: I do not necessarily want all these things. This is just a summary of what I've seen people asking for.
What are these people doing?
Some are making and posting on communities such asfandom_flies. Others are posting entries like this one. Some are trying to get the news sites interested in it. There are angry phone calls to the Six Apart offices, faxes, emails, support requests... Some people are spamming on news and lj_biz. Some people have cancelled their paid accounts payments and reverted their plus accounts to basic. Others are trying to contact the advertisers. Personally, I'm with the commenters over at news, which is what prompts the next header. I'm not reverting this account back to basic, at this stage, because I like having lots of icons and I don't believe it will do any good.
What good do the people spamming onnews think they're doing?
We're protesting. I know that some of it does fandom no credit in people's eyes: cat macros, song lyrics, youtube videos, macros involving the banned picture... But at least we're not sitting on our arses ignoring the thing we care about. The content there might not be good, but it's a visible protest. A large, visible, and easy to organise protest. For sheer volume there is nothing to beat it. And there are intelligent comments there. Truly. I know every now and then I stop to reiterate why I'm doing it and what we want. I do think that if every single person there makes sure to do something else as well -- write an open letter, write an email to Six Apart management, etc -- then what we're doing will be much more effective.
Why the hell won't we just leave already?
Some people have done so. Some people are in the process of doing so, over atfandom_flies. Some of us don't want to leave, because we love the service. Some of us have poured so much energy into this site that it hurts to try to tear ourselves away: our fanworks, our meta, our communities, our friends, our entries -- entries which contain our hopes, our dreams, our loves, our fears, our desires... We've made friends here. I know I've made friends right there in the spamfest. There are strong ties binding us to this site and we want to stay. We want the management to hear us and say "yes, we recognise the concerns of our customers". This isn't a question of free speech as far as the First Amendment goes. But it is an issue of how a company will treat its customers.
Editlog:
-Added a section on freedom of speech.
-Corrected the comments on "charities linked to Six Apart".
-Tweaked a bit so that I'm not speaking for the whole of fandom.
-Clarified the issue with money.
-Added a link tosynecdochic's post.
shanaqui and edenbound, and I've formerly mostly been involved under shanaqui's username. But it's all one. Also, this post isn't a comprehensive round up of information, and nor does it claim to be unbiased.This post is related to the recent events surrounding
ponderosa121 and elaboration, and their suspensions. They were both suspended for posting Harry Potter fanart of an explicit nature. There's debate over whether the fanart was intended to portray underage characters, but I haven't heard anyone say that the characters were clearly, say, ten years old. There's room for doubt.ponderosa121 was certainly well known, and so this has stirred up the fandom community like you wouldn't believe. People have responded by declaring their intentions to leave LJ, with communities such as fandom_flies, and demanding statements from LJ about what is going on.First of all, let me specify that I don't believe this is an issue concerning the First Amendment. A company such as Six Apart can, legally, choose what to host on their servers, and what not to host. It is, however, for many people, about freedom of speech and freedom of artistic expression.
Why are people getting so bothered about it?
A large amount of the reaction, I believe, is due to what we refer to as "Strikethrough 07", in which many users and communities, regardless of their content, were suspended because of interests they had listed. The implication was that all these journals were devoted to encouraging and promoting paedophilia, and therefore had to be removed. In a move to pacify those protesting, the CEO of Six Apart came forward and promised that they would be reviewing the journals and returning all of them which were fiction related. This was, in fact, done.
However, since then there has been a lack of communication about the issue. Clarifications issued only posed more questions, and those questions went unanswered. The Terms of Service we're all held by have not been changed. And then came the two recent suspensions, sparking fears that Six Apart's apparent tolerance for fandom was simply feigned to persuade those in fandom to buy permanent accounts.
The suspension of
elaboration proves that a permanent account is no defence against having your content deleted without warning or chance for recourse.In addition, both of the users were suspended over slash fanart, which is to say, depictions of homosexual relationships. There is speculation that this demonstrates homophobia on the Abuse Team's part.
LiveJournal, apparently, decided that the fanarts that caused the suspensions had no artistic merit. The test applied was, according to their clarifications, the Miller test, in which something is judged by the standards of the community. It is quite plain that many members of the community whose standards they should be using do not believe that at least one of the pieces of art in question had no artistic merit -- and many of them believe that there were no underage characters in it, either.
The anger, frustration, confusion and fear has not been in the slightest bit abated by the lack of response from LiveJournal. Well. Apart from that one thread where Abe Hassan (
burr86) had time to mock us, instead of helping us.People fear that all the LiveJournal/Six Apart management cares about is money. That fear is fuelled by the timing of all this -- Strikethrough, reassurances, permanent account sale, Boldout. People have found that of the places the donations from permanent accounts went to, most of them lead to charities somewhat connected to Six Apart, which was not disclosed: this could be a coincidence, but it's a worrying one. It's not helped by the fact that Six Apart has introduced ads to the site, including "sponsored moodthemes", which even those who shelled out $150 have to see. It's not that we don't want them to make money -- it's that we don't want them to make money while trampling all over their customers.
Why is it a freedom of speech issue?
The issue here is not defending child pornography, or paedophiles, because that's not what is apparently being banned. What is involved here is fiction. There are no real children involved. I'm not a US citizen, so I'm not very up on the laws, so I would ask you to look at the comment thread involving
pretentioustfu to see a more detailed explanation, here.On the other hand,
synecdochic posts: "In the eyes of the United States government, "child pornography" is defined as -- elisions and boldface mine -- "a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, that [...] depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex [...] It is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist."".Who are these people?
Concerned users of LiveJournal. They are no one thing. They are people who are unhappy at what has happened and that is all there is to it. They do not all like chan, they do not all like
ponderosa121 or elaboration, they're not even all from fandom. They are just people who want to be heard.What do these people want from LiveJournal, then?
I've seen people asking for many things. Among them:
-Clear guidelines as to what can and cannot be posted
-An apology for suspending people before such clear guidelines are produced
-An apology for making us wait for an answer
-An apology from Abe Hassan
-For Abe Hassan to lose or give up his job
-For the two artists to be unsuspended
Note: I do not necessarily want all these things. This is just a summary of what I've seen people asking for.
What are these people doing?
Some are making and posting on communities such as
fandom_flies. Others are posting entries like this one. Some are trying to get the news sites interested in it. There are angry phone calls to the Six Apart offices, faxes, emails, support requests... Some people are spamming on news and lj_biz. Some people have cancelled their paid accounts payments and reverted their plus accounts to basic. Others are trying to contact the advertisers. Personally, I'm with the commenters over at news, which is what prompts the next header. I'm not reverting this account back to basic, at this stage, because I like having lots of icons and I don't believe it will do any good.What good do the people spamming on
news think they're doing?We're protesting. I know that some of it does fandom no credit in people's eyes: cat macros, song lyrics, youtube videos, macros involving the banned picture... But at least we're not sitting on our arses ignoring the thing we care about. The content there might not be good, but it's a visible protest. A large, visible, and easy to organise protest. For sheer volume there is nothing to beat it. And there are intelligent comments there. Truly. I know every now and then I stop to reiterate why I'm doing it and what we want. I do think that if every single person there makes sure to do something else as well -- write an open letter, write an email to Six Apart management, etc -- then what we're doing will be much more effective.
Why the hell won't we just leave already?
Some people have done so. Some people are in the process of doing so, over at
fandom_flies. Some of us don't want to leave, because we love the service. Some of us have poured so much energy into this site that it hurts to try to tear ourselves away: our fanworks, our meta, our communities, our friends, our entries -- entries which contain our hopes, our dreams, our loves, our fears, our desires... We've made friends here. I know I've made friends right there in the spamfest. There are strong ties binding us to this site and we want to stay. We want the management to hear us and say "yes, we recognise the concerns of our customers". This isn't a question of free speech as far as the First Amendment goes. But it is an issue of how a company will treat its customers.Editlog:
-Added a section on freedom of speech.
-Corrected the comments on "charities linked to Six Apart".
-Tweaked a bit so that I'm not speaking for the whole of fandom.
-Clarified the issue with money.
-Added a link to
synecdochic's post.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-06 04:14 pm (UTC)