Kill Your LJ.

[tablesaw]

Just now, I turned off my automatic renewal for my LJ account "tablesaw." I did this in response to the the recent banning which of several accounts based on the unannounced decision of the abuse team that "listing an interest in an illegal activity must be viewed as using LiveJournal to solicit that illegal activity" (http://jamoche.livejournal.com/28973.html, as of 12:15 p.m. PDT 5/30/7).

That this undisclosed standard merits the canceling of my account (for, if it merits the cancellation of any account now, it may be applied to my account in the future) is unacceptable to me. It was not a part of the Terms of Service, and it was not part of the description of "interests" when I filled them out.

Although my account is prepaid for several more months, I currently intend not to renew it and to revert my journal to the non-ad-supported basic account. I am encouraging all of my friends to do the same.

Your actions (and most definitely your inactions) in the coming days and the coming months will weigh greatly as I decide whether or not I will ever again support LiveJournal financially, and whether or not I will continue to use LiveJournal at all. I sincerely hope that you act swiftly, transparently, honestly, and morally to protect both the free speech of your users and the trust that your users had placed in you that they could speak freely.

Tablesaw

If you don't understand what I'm talking about, you probably don't follow LJ fandoms. I certainly didn't know about it until mice wondered what the hell was going on. I thought about saying something about it last night, but I was a bit busy at work, and I spent my spare time working on the May Enigma instead. (I know! It's been freakin' forever, right?)

Anyway, I would've been all hip talking about it then, but now the news has already spread to Boing Boing. Live Journal/Six Apart has apparently "permanently suspended" hundreds of accounts because they "expressed interest in" illegal activity. Leaving aside the question of whether "expressing interest" in an illegal activity is a violation of the Terms of Service (it currently only forbids "promot[ing] or provid[ing] instructional information about illegal activities"), how did these users "express interest"?

By putting things in the "interests" section of ther userinfo pages.

Two journals have reprinted responses from the LJ Abuse team explaining the suspensions. jamoche has a general letter:

Dear LiveJournal user jamoche,

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, we have no discretion in these cases; if a journal profile is reported to us and 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.

Regards,

LiveJournal Abuse Team

(Emphasis mine.) femmequixotic has about the same response except that it is specifically regarding the pornish_pixies community and it explains, "In particular, the interest that you had listed on your profile that qualify as expressing interest in, soliciting, or encouraging illegal activity was 'incest'." The page also explains that the community was an uncensored Harry Potter fanfic community. But this response includes another kicker:

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.

Remember that expressing interest in in an illegal activity in the journal is acceptable, but if the interests include or have at any time included something, then it's beyond the pale.

So apparently using the interests features of your journal might violate the terms of service in ways that were never disclosed at any time, causing the immediate suspension of your account. Context does not matter, as LJ has admitted, and as jamoche is chronicling.

This is unacceptable. As users, we have the right to know that the contracts we agreed to when we became users are being respected consistently. If we feel we are not, we remove our support.

I have decided to boycott LJ. In a way, my boycott is more of a promise of a boycott—My paid account continues to be paid until December, and LJ doesn't give refunds. What I did was cancel my automatic renewal.

I encourage you to do the same. If you have automatic renewal, cancel it. If you're on a "Plus account" (meaning that you're letting LJ/SA make money off of you by letting them run ads), I encourage you to switch back to a basic account. If you can't make an active choice, then commit, right now, to not financially supporting LJ/SA. Then e-mail them and tell them why you did it. Let them know why they can no longer count on your money. Let them know why.

LiveJournal and SixApart have been quiet on this issue. The FAQ and Terms of Service still have not been updated to reflect the draconion bylaws that their volunteer hatchetmen have been following. On the other hand, this means that things could still be resolved in favor of comon sense and free speech. But they need to know that by disregarding their obligations to their users, they will suffer. And posts like this will never be as effective as explaining to them why they won't get another $20 this year.

Comments

This is my third time trying to post this.

[spatch]

Wonder how many of these people just bought the recently-released Permanent Accounts.

Look at all those bills sprouting wings...

Hi! Six Apart just bought us but don't worry, dudes, everything's gonna be fine, we're still gonna be grooOUR LEGAL COUNSEL HAS ADVISED US FROM USING THE TERM "GROOVY" AS IT CAN BE APPLIED TO SOME KIND OF CHILD PORN SITUATION I'M PRETTY SURE OF IT AND EVEN JUST HINTING AT A WORD WHICH MIGHT RE-HINT AT ANOTHER WORD FOR ILLEGAL ACTIVITY IS GROUNDS FOR PROMOTING LEGAL ACTIVITY IN LJ, THAT'S WHY THE WARRIORS OF INNOCENCE HAVE DESCENDED UPON US AND PERSONALLY BETWEEN YOU AND ME I THINK THEY'VE GOT SOME NASTY STUFF ON OUR LEGAL COUNSEL BECAUSE THERE'S NO OTHER REASON WE CAN COME UP WITH FOR CAVING FASTER THAN A MEXICO CITY SINKHOLE ON THIS ONE.