conuly

Granted the First Amendment does not apply to this situation BUT in the past, LJ Abuse/Support/TPTB have touted the support of "Free Speech" when faced with complaints about journals with blatantly illegal and offensive content.

One user who had two RPG journals deleted (that contained no pornographic content at all) tracked down and contacted the CEO of SixApart personally. She received a much politer response than the snippet quoted on CNET.

Right now its sit back, have some popcorn and wait. The ball is in 6A/LJ's court now. I'm curious how they're going to handle this colossal blunder in customer relations.

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conuly

BUT in the past, LJ Abuse/Support/TPTB have touted the support of "Free Speech" when faced with complaints about journals with blatantly illegal and offensive content.

Yeah, but I'm specifically annoyed at people complaining about their 1st amendment rights.

I'm curious how they're going to handle this colossal blunder in customer relations.

You too?

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Yeah, but I'm specifically annoyed at people complaining about their 1st amendment rights.

I must be scanning right past those. There's a post in stupid_free community that's pretty hilarious. The last posting in news has gotten maxed out at 5k comments.

By tomorrow its going to be front page news on Slashdot and then the traffic will probably bring down LJ's databases. There were already problems earlier in the evening.

Yes, I've been following this since the rumours on Friday. I'm sick (physically, not mentally), my tv shows are over and I can't afford any new books. LOL

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To many people, First Amendment rights and free speech rights are synonymous. I know they are not, but the fact is, LJ doesn't have a legal leg to stand on here.

They're using it as an excuse, when people who have reported stalkers, harassers, and - yes - pedophiles in the past have been brushed off. Why now? There's no good reason for this change.

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I'd say the TOS gives LJ every legal right they need. I don't like it, but thems the rules and everyone with an LJ agreed to them.

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Actually, thems not the rules. The TOS specifically states that fictional depictions are not subject to deletion.

And yet they violate their own TOS on the panicked accusations of a nutcase from offsite.

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IIRC the TOS also say that LJs can get the boot "for any reason".

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And if they want to keep their customers, they ought to be consistent - which they have not been.

LJ only has as much power as I give it. I'd rather stay, but each incident that happens like this makes me less willing to do so.

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That's one way of looking at it.

I see it as a bump in the road of the changing way modern culture and media works.

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Glad I'm not the only one who's been thinking that. Free speech on the net is a surprisingly iffy thing if you really get technical about it.

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If paid or permanent accounts are getting banned, they might have better legal recourse that way anyway.

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l33tminion

Not really. The TOS pretty much covers them in that case, too.

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Even without refunds?

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l33tminion

Probably.

The TOS says:

XI. TERMINATION

You agree that LiveJournal, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, journal, or account, and remove and discard any content within the Service, for any reason, including and without limitation... You agree that LiveJournal shall not be liable to you or any third-party for any termination of your access to the Service. Paid accounts that are terminated will not be refunded.

If that was there when you agreed to the TOS and paid for your LJ subscription, you wouldn't have a case. If it wasn't there when you paid, the TOS also says:

XXIII. REVISIONS

LiveJournal may at any time revise these Terms of Service by updating this posting. By using this Site, you agree to be bound by any such revisions and should therefore periodically visit this page to determine the then-current Terms of Service to which you are bound.

I'd say there's some legitimate doubt as to whether a clause that allows a contract to be unilaterally renegotiated at any time without consent or knowledge of the other party is valid. However, IANAL, and I'm certainly not confident that such a clause wouldn't stand up in court.

(Also, I'm not saying I think such contracts are fair. I think they're absurd. (But that didn't stop me from agreeing to it anyway when I signed up for a paid account...))

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(Also, I'm not saying I think such contracts are fair. I think they're absurd. (But that didn't stop me from agreeing to it anyway when I signed up for a paid account...))

::snerk:: Yeah, and ditto. I just didn't think LJ was such a wanky group at the time.

I sort of hope they might reconsider if there were enough lawsuit threats, though. Maybe.

I should just give up, shouldn't I? :-P

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l33tminion

Lawsuits threats are only threatening when coming from people with copious spare time and money. Especially money.

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See, my idealistic hope is that enough people will be angry enough to band together with money. And maybe they'll piss off some lawyers too, and . . .

Yeah. :-P

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Oh!!! And all the time we stop wasting on LJ will give us copious spare time!!!!!!!

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neurotica0.livejournal.com

I was just talking about this with someone and they *assumed* I was taking a First Amendment stance, which I wasn't, so that pissed me right off. I was talking about it from a Terms of Service point of view. That is, we agreed to TOS that said X (namely, that mentioning criminal activity was allowed, but inciting it was not) and I feel like this possibly goes over that line (but, like you, I don't know the whole story, so I don't know for sure).

But yes, I think the biggest thing to be said about it is the illogic. I really fail to see how it makes sense that fandom stuff--fictional stories about fictional people*--got lumped in with real people talking about real law-breaking activity. And I'm not concerned about whether the latter is "right" or should be allowed. From a free speech standpoint, I can hate what someone has to say, but still defend their right to say it. LJ doesn't have to guarantee us the right to say anything, but I think it should at least live up to its TOS, which I believe, (at least prior to this) does/did not prohibit such speech.

*I'd see that being a copyright issue before I'd ever see it being a predation issue.

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Granted the First Amendment does not apply to this situation BUT in the past, LJ Abuse/Support/TPTB have touted the support of "Free Speech" when faced with complaints about journals with blatantly illegal and offensive content.

One user who had two RPG journals deleted (that contained no pornographic content at all) tracked down and contacted the CEO of SixApart personally. She received a much politer response than the snippet quoted on CNET.

Right now its sit back, have some popcorn and wait. The ball is in 6A/LJ's court now. I'm curious how they're going to handle this colossal blunder in customer relations.

From:

conuly

BUT in the past, LJ Abuse/Support/TPTB have touted the support of "Free Speech" when faced with complaints about journals with blatantly illegal and offensive content.

Yeah, but I'm specifically annoyed at people complaining about their 1st amendment rights.

I'm curious how they're going to handle this colossal blunder in customer relations.

You too?

From:

Yeah, but I'm specifically annoyed at people complaining about their 1st amendment rights.

I must be scanning right past those. There's a post in stupid_free community that's pretty hilarious. The last posting in news has gotten maxed out at 5k comments.

By tomorrow its going to be front page news on Slashdot and then the traffic will probably bring down LJ's databases. There were already problems earlier in the evening.

Yes, I've been following this since the rumours on Friday. I'm sick (physically, not mentally), my tv shows are over and I can't afford any new books. LOL

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To many people, First Amendment rights and free speech rights are synonymous. I know they are not, but the fact is, LJ doesn't have a legal leg to stand on here.

They're using it as an excuse, when people who have reported stalkers, harassers, and - yes - pedophiles in the past have been brushed off. Why now? There's no good reason for this change.

From:

I'd say the TOS gives LJ every legal right they need. I don't like it, but thems the rules and everyone with an LJ agreed to them.

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Actually, thems not the rules. The TOS specifically states that fictional depictions are not subject to deletion.

And yet they violate their own TOS on the panicked accusations of a nutcase from offsite.

From:

IIRC the TOS also say that LJs can get the boot "for any reason".

From:

And if they want to keep their customers, they ought to be consistent - which they have not been.

LJ only has as much power as I give it. I'd rather stay, but each incident that happens like this makes me less willing to do so.

From:

That's one way of looking at it.

I see it as a bump in the road of the changing way modern culture and media works.

From:

Glad I'm not the only one who's been thinking that. Free speech on the net is a surprisingly iffy thing if you really get technical about it.

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If paid or permanent accounts are getting banned, they might have better legal recourse that way anyway.

From:

l33tminion

Not really. The TOS pretty much covers them in that case, too.

From:

Even without refunds?

From:

l33tminion

Probably.

The TOS says:

XI. TERMINATION

You agree that LiveJournal, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, journal, or account, and remove and discard any content within the Service, for any reason, including and without limitation... You agree that LiveJournal shall not be liable to you or any third-party for any termination of your access to the Service. Paid accounts that are terminated will not be refunded.

If that was there when you agreed to the TOS and paid for your LJ subscription, you wouldn't have a case. If it wasn't there when you paid, the TOS also says:

XXIII. REVISIONS

LiveJournal may at any time revise these Terms of Service by updating this posting. By using this Site, you agree to be bound by any such revisions and should therefore periodically visit this page to determine the then-current Terms of Service to which you are bound.

I'd say there's some legitimate doubt as to whether a clause that allows a contract to be unilaterally renegotiated at any time without consent or knowledge of the other party is valid. However, IANAL, and I'm certainly not confident that such a clause wouldn't stand up in court.

(Also, I'm not saying I think such contracts are fair. I think they're absurd. (But that didn't stop me from agreeing to it anyway when I signed up for a paid account...))

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(Also, I'm not saying I think such contracts are fair. I think they're absurd. (But that didn't stop me from agreeing to it anyway when I signed up for a paid account...))

::snerk:: Yeah, and ditto. I just didn't think LJ was such a wanky group at the time.

I sort of hope they might reconsider if there were enough lawsuit threats, though. Maybe.

I should just give up, shouldn't I? :-P

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l33tminion

Lawsuits threats are only threatening when coming from people with copious spare time and money. Especially money.

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See, my idealistic hope is that enough people will be angry enough to band together with money. And maybe they'll piss off some lawyers too, and . . .

Yeah. :-P

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