Fandom, lj, and crusades
May. 30th, 2007 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkSo a while back livejournal sold out and started running advertisements.
I objected rather strongly to this, although I was told I was foolish for doing so, as it wouldn't affect my lj experience at all, and nobody was going to force me to get the add-enhanced journal or visit the ljs full of adds. I continued to object on the grounds that if they sold out on this, what was next?
Well, it turns out I may haven been more sadly right than I knew.
Because once you're taking money from somebody, whoever's giving you that money has leverage over you. And somebody had taken advantage of that leverage to force lj to delete hundreds of journals, mostly fandom writing journals, that had "pedophile" content, even though that content was fictional.
Yup, if you write about Harry Potter banging somebody, anybody, because good ol' Harry is under age, you can get your journal deleted.
Now me, I am not really a fan of slashfic. I roll my eyes a lot at it, I think it's silly. I've written no slash of my own unless you count joke slash written to horrify those portrayed therein. (The Bob/JJ fic I wrote back when I was fairly new to FLEET comes to mind...) And I'm even less of a fan of slashfic that's about the really icky stuff. But if censors and lawyers and crusaders against smut stop distinguishing between fiction and reality, we're in some deep trouble here. And while I am HUGELY in favor of going after actul pedophiles, people who write Harry Potter slashfic are not the ones I think we should be targeting. And honestly, even though I find those who enjoy stuff like cub and shota to be... squick-worthy, if they're only fantasizing, If they express those urges through fiction and art instead of doing something about it, then that's probably a good thing. And I really don't want to live in a world where the thought, rather than the deed, becomes the crime.
And to add to the fun, they were using interest keywords as the guide to what to delete. And weren't being very discriminating in what they took down. So even people with no actual objectionable content had their journals removed, including at least one case I've heard of where an incest rape survivor got her journal deleted, because of the keywords she had listed.
If you want more info about what's going on with this, you can find good coverage of it here and in a number of previous entries by that author, who's been talking directly with the crazy crusading group that's responsible for the whole mess.
I objected rather strongly to this, although I was told I was foolish for doing so, as it wouldn't affect my lj experience at all, and nobody was going to force me to get the add-enhanced journal or visit the ljs full of adds. I continued to object on the grounds that if they sold out on this, what was next?
Well, it turns out I may haven been more sadly right than I knew.
Because once you're taking money from somebody, whoever's giving you that money has leverage over you. And somebody had taken advantage of that leverage to force lj to delete hundreds of journals, mostly fandom writing journals, that had "pedophile" content, even though that content was fictional.
Yup, if you write about Harry Potter banging somebody, anybody, because good ol' Harry is under age, you can get your journal deleted.
Now me, I am not really a fan of slashfic. I roll my eyes a lot at it, I think it's silly. I've written no slash of my own unless you count joke slash written to horrify those portrayed therein. (The Bob/JJ fic I wrote back when I was fairly new to FLEET comes to mind...) And I'm even less of a fan of slashfic that's about the really icky stuff. But if censors and lawyers and crusaders against smut stop distinguishing between fiction and reality, we're in some deep trouble here. And while I am HUGELY in favor of going after actul pedophiles, people who write Harry Potter slashfic are not the ones I think we should be targeting. And honestly, even though I find those who enjoy stuff like cub and shota to be... squick-worthy, if they're only fantasizing, If they express those urges through fiction and art instead of doing something about it, then that's probably a good thing. And I really don't want to live in a world where the thought, rather than the deed, becomes the crime.
And to add to the fun, they were using interest keywords as the guide to what to delete. And weren't being very discriminating in what they took down. So even people with no actual objectionable content had their journals removed, including at least one case I've heard of where an incest rape survivor got her journal deleted, because of the keywords she had listed.
If you want more info about what's going on with this, you can find good coverage of it here and in a number of previous entries by that author, who's been talking directly with the crazy crusading group that's responsible for the whole mess.
