Tada! Instant Asshattery! Just Add Wank!   
12:08pm 08/08/2007
  I really need to download the latest version of Semagic and start using it again. I'm about to cross post all my recent posts.

Previously, on LJ... http://liz-marcs.livejournal.com/283323.html

Tonight, LJ makes a statement, and to absolutely no ones surprise, makes the situation even worse:

http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/241884.html

If they shoved their foot any deeper down their throat, or their head any further up their asses, they'd BE porn!

That LJ employee who publicly ridiculed, made fun of, and belittled its users? You'll be happy to know that they think he was doing some much needed blowing off of steam, and being, you know, how do you say? Ironic.

You wanna know what's ironic? How he doesn't even get a fucking REPRIMAND, and these PAYING users got BANNED FOR LIFE because of one drawing they posted. These people did not even receive a WARNING that they might be violating the Terms of Service that 6A just made up, right now. That's right. This employee, who brought PR to an all time stellar low by mocking the banned parties and their supporters without the slightest bit of regret or, you know, TACT, did not even receive so much as a warning before he was forgiven by his employers. We, who help pay this guy's SALARY, were mocked and ridiculed PUBLICLY, in the very place we pay him to help maintain, and he gets a free pass because, aw, he's under PRESSURE from the whole situation. Really? Maybe one post mistake, I could see, tolerate, forgive. But this guy posted again and again. The aforementioned BANNED FOR LIFE users only made ONE mistake, of which they could not even have been AWARE since the TOS has apparently, magically, changed to reflect whatever 6A's personal opinion of something is at any given time and is subject to change without notice. Apparently the standards for hiring and keeping LJ employees are very low. Much, MUCH lower than the standards it holds its customers to.

It is for all these reasons that I will not be renewing my paid account on LJ. I'm also going to talk Dom into stopping payment on his. I will, in fact, be moving gradually on to InsaneJournal, where I now hold a permanent account--which I paid all of $30 for. http://thenyxie.insanejournal.com

Just for the sake of not-arguing with people who might stop by here, understand that I am not a pedophile, nor do I support pedophiles. But I also don't support asshattery.

As I said over in the LJ '6A-Loves-to-Deep-Throat-Feet' Thread: It's not even about that. Not about free speech or censorship, which is a matter of OPINION when it comes to art or written word. It's about TERRIBLE customer service and inconsistency. It's about taking FIVE DAYS to address a problem. It's about being unclear with policy.

And the way they're trying to gloss over it all, to make it sound as if they're being entirely reasonable. As someone else over there succinctly summed up the 6A post: "Thanks for your money, now shut the fuck up."

And, you know. FUCK that.		  
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Clarification on the LJ Situation   
12:11pm 08/08/2007
  Not only did LJ get rid of the "strikethrough" function so we can no longer tell whose journals have been deleted. They have also announced that:

a) There will be a handy, dandy, report abuse button on EVERY SINGLE PAGE OF YOUR JOURNAL. For anyone to click on.

b) Now even your Flocked posts are subject to 6A's Terms of Service. Meaning that even though your posts are not PUBLIC, you could STILL get BANNED FOR LIFE for something you said in them.

The implication of B is that they will now be LOOKING for and punishing such things, even in Flocked posts. As [info]ghoulchick pointed out, of course, even Flocked posts were probably always subject to Terms of Service. I will address the established Terms of Service below, in a moment.

BUT FIRST, and most importantly: They JUST made NEW RULES (under the name of clarifications) with regard to all this, which they are NOT including in the ToS, which they intend to hold users to and will ban people according to, DESPITE that they are not including them in the ToS. And even if they DO include them in the ToS, users should be given the option to have their money refunded and leave LJ (NOT simply be banned out of hand), since the original Terms they agreed to pay their money to are null and void for all intents and purposes.

Now, let me clarify a bit more about what these changes mean with regard to the established ToS. As someone over in the LJ Not-an-apology thread said:

People can now therefore, join an over 18 community, report a LOCKED post and then get that user's entire journal deleted. Great.

So this means that even trying to protect and filter and keep out people who might be harmed by adult content gains you nothing. If someone decides to infiltrate a community because of a personal bias against LOCKED material (which one assumes is vaguely described on the community's User Info page), and they are accepted to the community with the usual understanding that they are OLD ENOUGH and WANT to be there, that person can get the person hosting the community banned for life if they report them for abuse. What this means, is, even though some people may be trying to protect others from adult content, they can still get screwed if ANYONE decides they don't like the community existing.

Is this wrong? Maybe not "wrong" according to the letter of the LJ law, but it IS a new development in practice. Prior to this, LJ did NOT care about what was posted privately, at least, not according to their actions and reactions.* Hell, they didn't even much care what was posted publicly. Suddenly deciding to become stricter and change the ToS (which they did, two months ago) and then make up new clarifications (which they JUST did), and enforce terms that were not enforced previously is going to cause an uproar. You're changing policy. And this does not just include fandom, artists and writers. This includes you if you use a friends locked filter to talk about more private aspects of your life, like swinging, or BDSM, drug recovery, anything that is outside the "norm". And unfortunately, the "norm" is now being driven by every single user who can click the "Report Abuse" button, and decided on a case by case, personal opinion basis by whoever is fielding that "Abuse" request at that time. There are no hard and fast rules. There is no "Abuse Team" in place who would be qualified to make even-handed decisions across the board. It's haphazard. Unpredictable.

And, getting back to me, personally, I feel rather insulted, unsafe, fairly outraged, preemptively violated, and would prefer to take my business elsewhere. A place where the people in charge AREN'T freaking out and creating PR nightmares.

Also? I've toured that LJ Not-an-apology thread. Fandom is there, sure, of course. But the majority of what I read over there does not appear to be from fandom. In fact, a lot of it appears to be from people who are NOT part of fandom, or on its fringes, who strongly disagree with how 6A has handled this situation and the lack of clarity on their Terms of Service. I see far less people defending 6A, this time. There are no "stupid pirate songs" (as one insulting user so blatantly put it), and very few fandom icons. 6A is ROYALLY fucking up if its pissing off its "normal" user base.

*ETA: Thank you [info]wesleysgirl, for this clarification on the ToS: Under XIV, Journal Content:
Should any Content that you have authored be reported to LiveJournal as being offensive or inappropriate, LiveJournal might call upon you to retract, modify, or protect (by means of private and friends only settings) the Content in question within a reasonable amount of time, as determined by the LiveJournal staff. Should you fail to meet such a request from LiveJournal staff, LiveJournal may terminate your account. LiveJournal, however, is under no obligation to restrict or monitor journal Content in any way;

So, YES. I wasn't 100% positive what the ToS stated, but I was fairly sure it had always been implied that friends locking a post was the equivalent of keeping yourself safe from scrutiny. They are now saying this is NOT SO.

ETA2: ( Here is the policy with regard to handling an Abuse offense, according to the ToS )
This policy was NOT followed two months ago, and it was also not followed with regard to the two recent BANNED FOR LIFE cases.		  
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A World of Wow   
06:03pm 08/08/2007
  This has gotten deeper and deeper as 6A digs their own grave. The following post occurs because of one LJ employee, who spoke in an admitted official capacity FOR LJ. They spoke in response to a post where a user asked: Encouraging self-harm is against the LJ TOS. And yet pro anorexia communities aren't suspended. Please explain why you are policing child porn, but not the rest of your TOS.* This user's abuse report letter about said communities and the following correspondence with LJ can be found here. That said...

Jesus fucking Christ, LJ!

So, you say pro-anorexia communities on LJ do not violate the ToS you're so fond of spouting everywhere, because, and I quote from an official LJ source, "it's not illegal to aspire to be thin"? The asshattery inherent in that statement--! MY GODS. I don't even have the words. Luckily, other people do.

And why, when you have modified your terms of service to reflect that anything encouraging child abuse to be a violation of the ToS, have you ignored multiple complaints of abuse have been submitted against communities on LJ that encourage child abuse based on appalling books like this (<--MY GODS! The sickness!)? Why would you choose to focus on banning two artists who drew pictures of fictional characters who appear to be of the age of consent when you have communities that QUITE CLEARLY violate your ToS, with NO artistic merit involved? Barnes and Noble will not even carry this book because it is so very WRONG! And yet you ignore abuse complaints against this community repeatedly. More complete info about these communities here.

This makes your banning look even more foolish, not to mention, calculated. Apparently, the basis for getting banned centers SOLELY around homosexual content. Child abuse and starving yourself to death with the help of a community of supporters, however? That's just peachy!

You are losing more users by the minute. Gag your employees. And please, hire a PR person.

I almost feel sorry for you. Everything you say is under scrutiny now, and you'd be crucified for the slightest misstep, most likely. But the statement quoted above, just wow. Nothing about that is SLIGHT. Keep this up and you're going to end up offending ALL your customers.

* I have a slight correction, the quote made by the LJ employee was actually in response to this post, which grew out of her initial asshatted response, which was the official LJ answer to the original question quoted above.

Yeah. Wow about sums it up.

ETA1: [info]thevelvetsun has written an incredibly detailed and intelligent letter to 6A/LJ outlining why she think banning pro-anorexia groups on this site is a good idea. If you'd like to read it and sign, go here

ETA2: An article about how harmful these communities/groups actually are can be found here

As stated by a recovering anorexic in this article: She used to log on to these groups to seek justification for what she was doing.

"When you are actively in your eating disorder, you desperately want someone to understand, and a lot of time you find groups like the pro groups on Facebook that are supportive of you continuing your eating disorder," she says.

"When you are in the middle of it and don't want to give it up, you cling to these sites that tell you what you are doing is OK. Recovery is hard, staying sick isn't, so it's easier to hide behind these sites claiming that you are making a lifestyle choice, rather than admitting that you are sick and trying to get better."

Maybe I should have just bolded the whole thing.		  
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