On the latest smoke and mirrors from LJ

[briarwood]

Reposting from a comment I left elsewhere, for the record.

I agree that many in fandom have been behaving very badly over this. The cat macros? How exactly was that supposed to be helpful?

But I don't agree that the recent lj_biz post was clear. They still have not defined what is "questionable" in their eyes and the refusal to address clearly defined hypothetical scenarios indicates that they want huge grey areas in the policy that will allow them to do this again. And again.

Don't forget, after the first strikethrough they promised that no further journals would be deleted without warning. And promptly broke that promise. Now they have posted a policy which appears once again to promise warnings but in fact, if you read between the lines, allows them to delete without warning any time they feel like it.

What makes it worse is they continue to use the term "child pornography" when what they mean is "material that may or may not be obscene under the Miller Test" or, more accurately, "pictures we don't like".

Child porn is illegal in every western country (and many others, too). Child porn means stuff that hurts children. I used to work on the abuse team of an ISP: I know what child porn looks like because it was my job to view it. By continually (mis)using that term they are publicly equating two members of fandom to child rapists and there has been no hint of an official apology for that.

As a member of fandom that is what I want: formal recognition that they've lied about those two women. That is what it will take for me to believe Six Apart actually want fandom here.

Everything they've posted so far is just smoke and mirrors.

LJ want to operate a "two strikes" policy? Fine. So will I. Absent a public apology (and I do mean from the corporation, or its head, not from one of their employees), this was strike two.