Two things...

[telophase]

1) batwrangler just told off Edward Elric.

2) If you're on a major fic community or read fandom_wank, you've probably already come across this, but there is currently an overeager Protect the Chilllldrun group combing LJ for journals and communities with interests that could be linked to illegal activity, specifically child pr0n. (original debunking, re-bunking after the deletions started happening, f_w report) The group is overeager to the point of reporting obviously fictional journals, (i.e. the journal of Severus Snape for an RPG) for having illegal activity listed in its interests, and journals patently not about the pr0n (a Spanish community dedicated to reading Nabokov's Lolita)so for now if you have anything that could be construed as such in your journal, a fic journal, or an RPG journal, you might want to take it out.

I suspect the group is just doing searches on keywords in the interests and reporting everything that pops up, since there's no other rhyme or reason to the deletions.

Comments

[catystorm.livejournal.com]

Hee. I had a call-in named Edward Elric when I worked for Sprint. I had such a hard time keeping a straight face I think I confused my coworkers with the contortions. xD

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I never had anything like that, but when I worked for a phone company behind the scenes adjusting bills for a special plan on international calling, I ran across an account for one "Nick Carnivale." I commented to a coworker that it sounded like the name for a suave superspy in the vein of James Bond, and then scrolled down the account to the notes to discover that the guy's return address was the Pentagon. XD

[tirwen.livejournal.com]

I originally came across this guy in a work-related matter... but here's a headline about him -

Industry Veteran James Covert Named CEO of Honeywell Security Monitoring

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

jerks.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yup. I can see where someone unfamiliar with the concept of fanfiction or the properties being discussed would be alarmed at the stories contained within, but it's when journals that have a big THIS IS A FICTIONAL JOURNAL OF A CHARACTER FROM A BOOK right there on the profile are reported that it goes from well-meaning ignorance to just plain idiotic.

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

No, idiotic was the Nabokov discussion group that got suspended as part of this mess. God what crap this all is.

[darksumomo.livejournal.com]

I left a comment on Warriors for Innocence's site sneering at them and then giving them helpful advice in such a way that they'll never take it, or if they do, I can make it blow up in their faces in amusing ways. I should have copied and pasted it before I posted it, as there is no guarantee it will survive moderation. Here is about what I posted from memory.

"You have just provoked the following:

http://www.flamewarriors.com/warriorshtm/swarm.htm

Enjoy yourselves. I know I shall.

*Goes to make popcorn, pull up a chair, and watch WFI swat hornets for the next month.*

P.S. If you wish to be *really* helpful, create either a Google Groups account or an account at another News Service Provider (www.motzarella.org is giving out free accounts that you can read using Outlook) and subscribe to groups where real pedophiles and ephebophiles hang out, such as alt.fan.prettyboy, alt.support.girl-lovers, and alt.support.boy-lovers. There are lots of pervs to bash and shut down. Just don't be too upset when you find that your best allies are the shady characters who read alt.hackers.malicious. I'd like to see how willing you are to fight kiddy pr0n and abuse when you have to work with people who violate the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act on a daily basis. *evil chuckle*"

Let's see how they react to that mental hotfoot.

[catystorm.livejournal.com]

http://liz-marcs.livejournal.com/266024.html (http://liz-marcs.livejournal.com/266024.html) has a marvelous post about how this was exactly the wrong way to go about things; and has a response from The Group In Question she'll be posting up later.

I just want to bang my head through the wall at the stupidity of it all.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Oh, lord yeah.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I missed most of the drama and I still feel the same way.

[cicer.livejournal.com]

Huh. That's...worrying. Very worrying. Why, exactly, is LJ complying and deleting the journals in question? I don't understand that.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Basically, it's in the TOS that journals promoting illegal activities will be deleted as they are reported, and their lawyers advise that putting something in the interests can be interpreted as condoning that activity. If you read the LJ Abuse response in the 'journal of Severus Snape' response above, you can see their reasoning, which includes:

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.

In particular, the interests that you had listed on your two journals' profiles that qualify as expressing interest in, soliciting, or encouraging illegal activity were: child abuse, human sacrifice, kidnapping, killing, murder, paedophiles, paedophilia, rape, and beating people up.

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.

It goes on from there to say that they know people use these for many reasons, including fictional activity, but legally their hands are tied.

[cicer.livejournal.com]

Shit. That's...really stupid. I understand that LJ has to do what it has to do to keep from getting slapped with a lawsuit. It just seems like a horrible shame that they have to be that vigilant about protecting their asses. Sigh. The whole situation just sucks. I lay the blame directly at the feet of the overzealous whackjobs who are clearly way too excited about reporting stuff. Jeez.

[taer-silveroak.livejournal.com]

*hey, that's Maka maka!*

In other news... there are quite a few disgusting individuals out there that only add fuel to the fire of the zealots. As of 1-2 years ago, LJ supported free speech to the bitter end, even if it meant not doing a thing about somebody claiming in a public post that one would like to take an underage character and do unspeakable things to them in no uncertain terms. It's hard to know where to stand when litigation can make it messy...

[tokyoghoststory.livejournal.com]

this is intense. i write a bunch of oc-stories based on stuff like this, so it's pretty facinating. wow.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

This reminds me, I've been meaning to delete all of my interests, but I keep forgetting.

I sort of alternate between seeing how mangaka names I can spell correctly in my interests without looking them up, and reducing my userinfo to the bare minimum because it makes me mysteeeeeeeerious and less likely to be identified by some nosy relative or co-worker.

[taer-silveroak.livejournal.com]

This is one of those moments where free speech feels as thought it has a split personality... LJ supports it to the end, however it is going to attract the attention of the diligently righteous protectors out there. Where do you draw the line? At implied abuse? LJ doesn't care to what limit so long as it is free, so they'll be a target.

[taer-silveroak.livejournal.com]

Granted, from reading in the comments it sounds like LJ is working with the group... eh? Did they change their minds?

[tirwen.livejournal.com]

I find this rather amusing since last year LJ refused to so much as remove a post in a CCS community (public, not private) that was sick and disturbing (and not even behind a cut)... They said since it didn't involve pictures, it wasn't child pornography. I replied that clearly this was someone looking, and they said it wasn't against the law. I went as far as to forward the e-mails from lj and the post to the FBI. I found them that disturbing. At the same time, I'm fully aware fandom has a lot of kinks... but they generally put them behind cuts (and with warnings) so people who don't want to see them don't have to. I don't see a problem with that. I'm just amused by LJ sudden change of heart... plus going overboard on the matter...

[darksumomo.livejournal.com]

Warriors of Innocence was threatening to contact LJ's advertisers, thus cutting off their revenue stream. Other people didn't make that threat.

[benchilada.livejournal.com]

As I've been telling many people:

"Well, here's a link to a recent blog post by one of the "co-founders" of Warriors for Innocence, to give you some idea of their mentalities: http://suesviews2.blogspot.com/2006/10/this-isnt-mexicoyet.html"

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Good God. I grew up in a third-world country and these people have no fucking clue about how far the US is from one. Or to what extent their happy little lives depend on these people and on third-world countries.