MILES to GO || before I sleep

ceruleansan, I'm sorry I didn't come back online tonight. I walked home in 3" high heels (over crappy sidewalk) and wanted to take a nap when I got home... said nap turned into a 6 hour affair, during which I was incapacitated by my rebellious stomach. :( Please tell me more about Veer-Zaara the next time I see you online!

That said... this is (I hope) my last post on ST07. But because it's such a... well, proliferative topic these past few days, I'll honor those who Really Don't Give Two Shakes or Simply Aren't Involved and ( toss it behind a cut here )

If you have anything to do with fandom (and a majority of my FList does in some size, shape, or form), head on over to fandom_counts and join so your journal can be counted as one of the many -MORE THAN A DOZEN- journals that represent fandom and its voice.

The community has no posts and no posting access; it exists as a "body count" for any and all fandom journals. Unfortunately, there is no way for fandom-related communities to be added, but all other fandom journals (including icon journals, fiction journals, layout journals, and roleplaying journals) can and should join.

LiveJournal's released a statement of sorts to CNet. Still nothing official in the news community, though. And traffic to fandom_wank's post on the subject has overloaded JournalFen's servers FOUR times in the past day and a half. While JF may not be as robust as LJ, that should be enough of a wake-up call to realize that fandom has a strong voice. LJ's own servers have been going off and on intermittently, especially the one where the the original news post is located. If you get the chance, read some of the comments. Add your own. Realize why this is important not just to ordinary LJ users who SHOULD NOT be afraid of censorship, but fandom journals of all flavors, because this affects us more directly than anything ever has before.

We are NOT pedophiles or monsters -we are people creatively trying to express our interests. I may not use rape in my fics, talk about shota in discussion comms, or like Loli very much, but that doesn't mean that those that do discuss those things intelligently should be persecuted for no reason. For the journals that were unfairly deleted WITHOUT TRUE CAUSE and INVESTIGATION, I'm standing up and letting MY voice be heard.

I do not think that WFI was genuinely seeking out real pedophile's blogs and reporting them the way I would report something that I was positive broke the law or a site's TOS. They have a clear political agenda, and plenty of communities and users that were not approving, endorsing, or at all encouraging the things that have become so hot-button to WFI. That said, just because I'm fighting for the suspended journals doesn't mean I don't believe we should protect our children. If I had a child, I would be monitoring their Internet usage, using filters and blockers whenever and wherever I could. While I don't think a parent or a child can take all of the blame for what they see on the Internet, trying to expunge journals for mere mentions of things that might raise questions is going FAR OVER THE LINE.

There is a modicum of responsibility that EVERY party must bear, and when it comes to journal content, it is the journal owner's responsibility. Thus, said journal owner should be contacted if there is anything questionable or illegal ABOUT that content. But so many journals were suspended WITHOUT prior notice, which goes against LJ's own policies, from what I've heard. And when it comes to determining who is a pedophile and who's not, LJ should not rely on the word of WFI or its bloggers; they should see for themselves, on a CASE-BY-CASE basis (because you CANNOT lump individuals together, and I thought LJ was about expressing one's individuality, if nothing else!). I don't care if they don't have the staff or manpower for it-- if they can reject other abuse reports about this same subject on the basis of "lack of evidence that is contributory to an actual crime," then this should sure as hell fall within those same boundaries. At least looking at a HANDFUL of the journals thoroughly before deletion might have prevented this in the first place. But it doesn't sound like they were.

Mass-deletion of anything never SOLVED anything-- this whole incident proves that even if some things were deleted in error, it's getting a lot of people riled up. It's a big deal, and it SHOULD be. LJ should take the people that are so upset seriously, and give ALL LJ users an open, honest, and thorough explanation beyond "we thought what WFI said was right, and we wanted to establish community rules" or whatever. Talking about Nabokov's "Lolita" isn't trying to inspire child molestation. Cosplayers wanting to dress up like Lolis aren't trying to appeal to pedophiles.

I'll be going to San Francisco on June 4th as planned; if this hasn't somehow been resolved or otherwise discussed WITH USERS by then, I plan on seeing if I can stop by SixApart's offices. I encourage all my San Francisco friends and fellow LJ-users to come with me. At the very least, I'll get an interview with someone, since I'll be working for the Sundial in the fall and can squeeze a story out of that. Otherwise, it's good practice. At the most, we can just stage a rally of Bay Area LJ users-- and I know there are a hell of a lot of us. I don't have a set date or time for going; you'll hear from me again as we get closer to the date; I'll be posting updates that are relevant here.

For more information on this, I highly recommend checking out Fandom Wank's entry on it, which includes extensive links to resources, discussions, and analyses of the TOS and "mission statements" involved.

If you're feeling dangerous (and have good spyware/malware protection on your computer), check out the site that seems to have started this all: WarriorsForInnocence.Org. Be warned; they track IP referrals, so you might want to make use of an anonymizer, such as NoRefer.

I think innocence_jihad might be a bit much (declaring "war" on WFI), but the community is actually quite informative, with links to sites that are blogging about Strikethrough '07, news articles on it, and more.

If you want some banners, check out this post on I_J with some nice ones.

Also, this is something particularly interesting I found from F_W: WFI is not what it seems. As usual, politics play a large role in this. "Sue" the woman who emailed LJ about all the "bad" people's journals, has a blog which is connected to a number of neo-Confederate, militia-sympathizing, super-far-right-wing dominionists. I didn't even know what a "dominionist" was until this wank broke out. It's really shocking. Read the post there for yourself. It's enough to warrant the use of a new mood: gobsmacked, just like the OP did on F_W.

If LJ becomes so censored that my Mokuba "The Internet is for Porn" joke icon becomes "illegal," my $150 can burn; I'll go back to hosting my own private LJ if it comes to that. In the meantime, even if you don't think your journal may be at risk, BACK IT UP.