LJ's new censorship bullshit.

[spookyevilone]

This journal is now set to Explicit Adult Content.

In the last year, LJ has:

* Nuked game communities for violent or adult content;
* Nuked personal journals of people talking about their own experiences with child abuse;
* Banned people for writing fiction with adult content;
* Banned community games with violent or mature themes.

All without so much as emailing the people first to give them a chance to change things.

They apologized over their first system wide fuckup, but apparently didn't learn anything, since they're still banning people for artwork and fiction journals that are clearly marked Fictional Content.

This is my public journal. However, LJ is a private company offering a publishing service on the web, and they can set whatever terms for publishing that they want.

However, because I like to retain the right to talk about whatever the hell I damn choose, whether it be the violent sexual abuse I suffered as a child, the rapes I suffered as a teenager, or the horribly violent accidents I've been in throughout my life, I'm complying with their filtering system just so nobody can report my journal for inappropriate content publicly available to minors.

For the record - I think this is bullshit. I think the entire history of websites making filtering and censorship attempts is bullshit. If parents took a more active role in raising their children, and took steps on THEIR END with parental controls and filters and restricted internet use, none of this would be necessary. "FOR THE CHILDREN" is the most bullshit reason to do anything at all on the internet, for the pure and simple reason that no child should have unmonitored, unrestricted access to any media - be it books, tv, movies, music, or the internet, and it's my opinion that any parent not paying attention deserves what happens when that child makes horrible choices with dire consequences.

That won't stop it - children are wily, problem solving beasts who've pretty much been designed to find ways around the rules. It would simply put the responsibility where it belongs - with the child's parents. Your kid's looking at porn on the intertube? Get some parental controls in place, ground the child, and for the love of all that's fucking holy, TALK TO YOUR CHILD ABOUT IT - don't go on a crusade against the site. It's not their fault the parents weren't paying attention.

/soapbox. For now.

Comments

[belmikey.livejournal.com]

On a more practical note, an interesting side-effect of your choosing the Adult setting.

Before I was actually logged in this morning, just viewing my friends page, your post showed up cut-tagged with a warning about possible adult content, and required age verification.

When I logged in, it showed up un-cut-tagged, which means that if you hadn't said something about it, I never would have known you'd set the 'adult' rating on your journal

[spookyevilone.livejournal.com]

My objection is that the cut tag isn't one I wrote, can be set by anyone who flags my journal, will automatically collapse my journal for anyone who doesn't go into their settings and opt out of the auto 'Filter adult content out of my journal k thx' bullshit, and I can't even see that it's been flagged if that happens.

It is teh lamez.

[misanthrope-mom.livejournal.com]

That's the thing that bugs me/that I don't understand. They couldn't set an automatic email to be sent when they impose that crap? What do they get from keeping it secret from the journal owner?