29-05-2007, the fallout

The strikethrough did not affect me directly, but there is no escaping the fallout.

 

I love LiveJournal; I love features, interface, communities, connections. I love what it stands (stood?) for. I got my first account through an invite code; yes, it’s been that long. It would be a pain for me to leave. But it would pain me more to stand by and watch LJ being reduced to a PG-13-friendly, white, straight and god-fearing Disneynet.

 

I am but a humble user, I do not matter much in a grand scheme of things. But the very little I can do, I shall. Firstly, I am not going to stay silent and thus condone such abuse of power; secondly, I was planning to get a paid account by the end of this month – not anymore.

 

The behaviour displayed by the Six Apart team is revolting and unacceptable. You see, it is not just about suspending a bunch of journals without even bothering to examine them first (that would have made them just morons, I can forgive morons); no, the heart of the matter is why it had been done. Forget about saving poor kiddies, Six Apart don’t care shit about them (or they wouldn’t have ignored Perverted Justice for so long); it was the threat of losing the ad money that made Six Apart shit their pants and rush in with an axe. This is the supreme arsehattery in my book.

 

As if it was not bad enough, their handling of the post-suspension crisis was a complete failure as well. I bet their reasoning went along these lines: well, here we have these 500 suspect accounts, so lets just purge them quietly and without saying a word; nobody should notice: after all, we have over 13 million users, who would miss an account or two, and they are pervs anyway?

 

The apology posted on the news page, apart from being two days late in coming, failed to address any of the real issues. It also sent out a very clear message to the whole LJ community, showing that Six Apart don’t give a flying fuck about what we think or feel. They are intent on building a community that would conform to their advertisers’ ideas of what is “appropriate”, and keep the ad bucks rolling.

 

Before we know it, there will be a campaign for moral clarity and more witch hunts. I wonder what they would target next. Here are the interests to choose from: homosexuality, atheism, abortions, communism, Bin Laden, genetic engineering. Make your bets.

 

Meanwhile, barakb25has the nerve to appoint himself “the maker of LiveJournal”. The maker my ass. He is an owner of LJ because he bought it from Brad. If anything, he has all the chances to go down in history as the unmaker of LJ.

 

unfilthy and  czircon posted great level-headed entries analysing this whole sad business. They are way more insightful than my emotional outburst, well worth checking out. (Click here and here).

 

Incidentally, one of the communities that got suspended was dedicated to the literary discussion of Lolita. Honestly, this idiocy belongs in a farcical dream, not in real life. Can I wake up, please?