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In case anyone has forgotten, I am channonyarrow at GJ as well.
ETA: I'm not likely to leave LJ at the moment. I am mainly mirroring this journal on GJ (no, I have no idea how I'll do that, whether I'll just use one to read and one to post, or what) because of the most recent round of Strikethrough. And yes, I do actually give a shit about that. What my reaction will ultimately be, I can't say, but I don't like that a private company thinks it can dictate what is or is not free speech and what is obscenity by values that range from "someone said they don't like it" to the Miller Test, without consistency, when even the United States Supreme Court cannot define what is and is not obscenity and what is free speech.
It doesn't help that the latest round of "to catch a predator" shows seems to be focusing on LJ. Because god knows, I'm totally a pedo and so are the people I know in fandom.
I am, however, not likely to be looking at anything other than an inconvenience in terms of my own journaling, and a weird one. It is more convenient to keep my journal on LJ. I have many non-fandom friends who are not going to be affected by this, and who are not going to move as a result, and those are connexions I value. I'm not going to be deleted any time soon, since I don't do anything that's going to target these idiots who think that the internet should be sanitised for your protection. However, in light of some of the conversations going on, I felt it was appropriate to reiterate my location on GJ.
As to what it will mean in terms of "supporting" Livejournal - well. The thing I've learned is to wait and see. Do I have a sanguine hope of a happy ending? Not really - they've never responded to all the comments addressed to them when they changed the rules the weekend that Deathly Hallows came out and Sectus was going on. Do I have a fatal hope of an unhappy ending? Not really - they backed down, ultimately, on Strikethrough, and their policies are so flawed that I can't imagine that a lawyer would actually let them stand (and they DO have lawyers). At this point, I'm calling the odds fifty-fifty. Whether I will continue to give them money I don't know. I like having a paid journal, but I don't like supporting people who wish to police what I can and cannot look at as long as no actual child is being harmed.
I am an editor. Words are sacred to me (and yes, I wince every time someone on cranky_editors posts that they work for a POD publisher because I hate POD) so the right of free speech is up there even higher than most other values and liberties I hold dear. I don't like that LJ/6A is choosing to use the worst of two systems, the public and private systems in America, and is not choosing to think about this. They are bodging together their right as a private corporation based in America to dictate the content that is hosted on their servers, because they would be named in a lawsuit about child pornographers, since such images would be illegal under American law, with their wish (I have no better term) to support freedom of speech by not censoring unless it is called to their attention.
The problem with this is in the execution of that. Yes, every single Snarry work is now ToS-able, since we know that, canonically, Harry was not eighteen when Snape died. Child porn in the US.
Except! US law has never judged a work of fiction as child porn! Case in point: The Colour Purple. Well Schooled in Murder, by Elizabeth George. I KNOW I have other books on my shelves that qualify to SOME as being child porn, but the US has never found a work of fiction that I know of to qualify as such. As well, the US has never found an image of fictional people to be child porn as far as I know - I am on shakier ground here, but it makes sense. To be child porn, it has to hurt a child, and there is no child hurt if there is no child involved in its making. What happens to the porn after creation is an entirely different issue; I'm speaking of its creation.
I personally think that they're misreading "child porn", as used by Warriors For Innocence and other groups, to mean "child porn" when WfI means "teh gay". I have no take on the predator crap, other than to wonder whether shows that got a lot of watchers and eyes by finding actual pedophiles on MySpace will get the same watchers and eyes by looking at people on LJ who like looking at pictures of people having sex, regardless of age.
I also think that their execution of this policy is flawed in the extreme. I realise that we live in a happy country (for those of us in the US, which is where LJ's servers are located, so everyone ON LJ lives in the US) that believes that we can dictate what other people do and don't do, but we should NOT encourage that. It is behaviour that is not right, in my opinion. It is even higher than freedom of speech and sacredness of words, in my opinion - I have the right to do anything that does not hurt another person incapable of consent, in my opinion.
You click on a link marked NSFW, you get what you deserve. If you don't like teh gay, stay out of fandom. What LJ is doing with this policy and its execution is encouraging anyone who has a grudge against someone to go rat them out (and I do wonder how long it'll take before daily_deviant is ToS'd). With the "guidelines" that LJ follows, the main one being the Miller Test, which presupposes a community standard so that what is obscene in Podunk, GA is not necessarily obscene in New York, NY, there is nothing to stop this sort of abuse from happening.
Note, please, that LJ is not claiming that the works that have earned ToS's are copyright violations. They are offensive to someone.
So. We have a system ripe for abuse. You have a grudge? Great! ToS me! You can do it, you really can. I write about incest in a fictional relationship where one of the participants is underage. If you do that, however, I will come after YOU.
This seems to be where LJ stopped thinking. "The Miller Test" sounded sufficiently awesome to them and they didn't stop and think about whether someone could or would actually rat someone out on the basis of the fact that Person A and Person B did not get along. That's not upholding freedom of speech, in either of the manners that LJ has the right to do so. I personally believe that they are better served by going with the widest, broadest definition of free speech possible, before they shrink, and that things that are actual depictions of children in sexual situations should be prosecuted to the fullest extent, but that's not how LJ chose to roll. They threw words at a problem that weren't good enough words and that didn't do the job they wanted them to, then got scared when the fanartists didn't just disappear and started ToS-ing. They could have done something really good; they chose not to.
I don't want to support that, but it's a bit like my car. If I give up my car for the good of the environment, I give up a LOT - like being able to see my parents regularly. Like being able to do anything, five days a week, other than work and get to and from work. Like being able to go out with friends. If I give up LJ for my principles of free speech, I lose a LOT of my friends. I am now supporting something I don't agree with for the ease of my life, and I don't like that. But I don't have better options right now.
ETA: I'm not likely to leave LJ at the moment. I am mainly mirroring this journal on GJ (no, I have no idea how I'll do that, whether I'll just use one to read and one to post, or what) because of the most recent round of Strikethrough. And yes, I do actually give a shit about that. What my reaction will ultimately be, I can't say, but I don't like that a private company thinks it can dictate what is or is not free speech and what is obscenity by values that range from "someone said they don't like it" to the Miller Test, without consistency, when even the United States Supreme Court cannot define what is and is not obscenity and what is free speech.
It doesn't help that the latest round of "to catch a predator" shows seems to be focusing on LJ. Because god knows, I'm totally a pedo and so are the people I know in fandom.
I am, however, not likely to be looking at anything other than an inconvenience in terms of my own journaling, and a weird one. It is more convenient to keep my journal on LJ. I have many non-fandom friends who are not going to be affected by this, and who are not going to move as a result, and those are connexions I value. I'm not going to be deleted any time soon, since I don't do anything that's going to target these idiots who think that the internet should be sanitised for your protection. However, in light of some of the conversations going on, I felt it was appropriate to reiterate my location on GJ.
As to what it will mean in terms of "supporting" Livejournal - well. The thing I've learned is to wait and see. Do I have a sanguine hope of a happy ending? Not really - they've never responded to all the comments addressed to them when they changed the rules the weekend that Deathly Hallows came out and Sectus was going on. Do I have a fatal hope of an unhappy ending? Not really - they backed down, ultimately, on Strikethrough, and their policies are so flawed that I can't imagine that a lawyer would actually let them stand (and they DO have lawyers). At this point, I'm calling the odds fifty-fifty. Whether I will continue to give them money I don't know. I like having a paid journal, but I don't like supporting people who wish to police what I can and cannot look at as long as no actual child is being harmed.
I am an editor. Words are sacred to me (and yes, I wince every time someone on cranky_editors posts that they work for a POD publisher because I hate POD) so the right of free speech is up there even higher than most other values and liberties I hold dear. I don't like that LJ/6A is choosing to use the worst of two systems, the public and private systems in America, and is not choosing to think about this. They are bodging together their right as a private corporation based in America to dictate the content that is hosted on their servers, because they would be named in a lawsuit about child pornographers, since such images would be illegal under American law, with their wish (I have no better term) to support freedom of speech by not censoring unless it is called to their attention.
The problem with this is in the execution of that. Yes, every single Snarry work is now ToS-able, since we know that, canonically, Harry was not eighteen when Snape died. Child porn in the US.
Except! US law has never judged a work of fiction as child porn! Case in point: The Colour Purple. Well Schooled in Murder, by Elizabeth George. I KNOW I have other books on my shelves that qualify to SOME as being child porn, but the US has never found a work of fiction that I know of to qualify as such. As well, the US has never found an image of fictional people to be child porn as far as I know - I am on shakier ground here, but it makes sense. To be child porn, it has to hurt a child, and there is no child hurt if there is no child involved in its making. What happens to the porn after creation is an entirely different issue; I'm speaking of its creation.
I personally think that they're misreading "child porn", as used by Warriors For Innocence and other groups, to mean "child porn" when WfI means "teh gay". I have no take on the predator crap, other than to wonder whether shows that got a lot of watchers and eyes by finding actual pedophiles on MySpace will get the same watchers and eyes by looking at people on LJ who like looking at pictures of people having sex, regardless of age.
I also think that their execution of this policy is flawed in the extreme. I realise that we live in a happy country (for those of us in the US, which is where LJ's servers are located, so everyone ON LJ lives in the US) that believes that we can dictate what other people do and don't do, but we should NOT encourage that. It is behaviour that is not right, in my opinion. It is even higher than freedom of speech and sacredness of words, in my opinion - I have the right to do anything that does not hurt another person incapable of consent, in my opinion.
You click on a link marked NSFW, you get what you deserve. If you don't like teh gay, stay out of fandom. What LJ is doing with this policy and its execution is encouraging anyone who has a grudge against someone to go rat them out (and I do wonder how long it'll take before daily_deviant is ToS'd). With the "guidelines" that LJ follows, the main one being the Miller Test, which presupposes a community standard so that what is obscene in Podunk, GA is not necessarily obscene in New York, NY, there is nothing to stop this sort of abuse from happening.
Note, please, that LJ is not claiming that the works that have earned ToS's are copyright violations. They are offensive to someone.
So. We have a system ripe for abuse. You have a grudge? Great! ToS me! You can do it, you really can. I write about incest in a fictional relationship where one of the participants is underage. If you do that, however, I will come after YOU.
This seems to be where LJ stopped thinking. "The Miller Test" sounded sufficiently awesome to them and they didn't stop and think about whether someone could or would actually rat someone out on the basis of the fact that Person A and Person B did not get along. That's not upholding freedom of speech, in either of the manners that LJ has the right to do so. I personally believe that they are better served by going with the widest, broadest definition of free speech possible, before they shrink, and that things that are actual depictions of children in sexual situations should be prosecuted to the fullest extent, but that's not how LJ chose to roll. They threw words at a problem that weren't good enough words and that didn't do the job they wanted them to, then got scared when the fanartists didn't just disappear and started ToS-ing. They could have done something really good; they chose not to.
I don't want to support that, but it's a bit like my car. If I give up my car for the good of the environment, I give up a LOT - like being able to see my parents regularly. Like being able to do anything, five days a week, other than work and get to and from work. Like being able to go out with friends. If I give up LJ for my principles of free speech, I lose a LOT of my friends. I am now supporting something I don't agree with for the ease of my life, and I don't like that. But I don't have better options right now.
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(small HP7 spoiler, but I'll survive, my own fault...)
If you figure out or hear of a way to get one's LJ archived and transfered to another journal, let me know?
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As for archiving: try here. YOu'll have to scroll down bit, but it's there - heading "Some ways to protect your data from getting lost."