Communitites and journals are getting shut down on LJ. People are outraged. Where is the freedom of speech? I should be able to write stories of Harry Potter having sex with Ron Weasley, right? Graphic anal sex! There’s nothing wrong with two underage kids having sex right? Or better, Snape pounding Draco in the butt! And then I’ll post it all on the internet for me to share with like-minded people.
So the Purity Police have discovered fanfic on Livejournal and numerous Livejournal fanfiction communities have been deleted after complaints were filed. Some of the communities had been in existence for years. Multiple communities have been deleted as well as some private journals.
Miss femmequixotic posts the text from one of the legal responses, as to why her (or someones, not sure) journal got suspended.
In particular, the interest that you had listed on your profile that qualify as expressing interest in, soliciting, or encouraging illegal activity was “incest”.
Our legal counsel advises us that it would increase LiveJournal’s liability if we were to allow your journal to be unsuspended for you to delete the illegal interests from your profile. This is because if someone were to remove the illegal interests from his or her profile, but was in fact using LiveJournal to coordinate, solicit, or participate in illegal activity, LiveJournal would most likely be considered to have foreknowledge of that activity and thus become liable.
From what I understand, LJ did NOT wipe the account on its own. It was wiped because it was reported and only because of that.
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.
Some people are annoyed that these guys, Perverted-Justice.com, are ‘judging them’ and possibly inspiring this ban rampage.
LiveJournal.com/Six Apart - LiveJournal.com is the “other big one” when it comes to blogging/social networking websites. Existing for well over a half a decade, LiveJournal or “LJ” as it’s known, is a hotspot for kids, adults, teens… and of course, pedophiles. The problem is, LiveJournal is as welcoming of pedophiles as they are kids, adults and teens.
LJ is just covering their ass. Is it restricting freedom of speech? Possibly. Do I care? Not at all. I’m a pretty open-minded guy, but writing pretend stories of underage kids having sex (or being gay with each other) is not healthy. My rage also gets fanned (lol?) because I get aggrivated at the word and I guess the concept of ‘fandom.’ Possibly it’s the filmschooler in me, it’s one thing to do things like make like fan films that honor the original authors vision, but to create ‘original’ erotic stories using the same characters, that’s just messed up. Fanfiction walks a thin line; it’s one thing to love an intellectual property or created world, it’s another thing to want to perpetuate it, it’s another thing masturbate on it.
And I don’t need to hear that fan-fiction ‘is not all about porn,’ I’m well aware you can write perfectly non-sexual stories about characters and whatnot. I do, however, pose the question, if non-adult themes were the rule, rather then the exception, why is it that most all posted fan-fics have a movie-scale rating, (like G, PG, PG-13, or R? or even higher?) and a description of the sexes and ‘pairings?’
This shit is up there with self-fostering eating disorder communities.