Monthly Debate #4

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

Inspired by this

so the popular blogging site LiveJournal has been deleting--without warning--communities that post erotic fanfiction, fanart, and anything else their abuse team feels is "obscene," siting vague obscenity violations of their TOS. the Harry Potter stuff seems to be getting the brunt of the attack because the fan stuff depicts "minors" engaging in sexual acts. it has made several users understandably angry.

now, i don't have a LiveJournal, nor do visit there all that often. however, i don't think what they're doing is right. if they don't want the erotica on their site, they need to spell it out in their TOS. the vague obscenity rules that lets the abuse staff delete pretty much whatever they want is just not going to cut it. they also need to warn potential violaters before outright deleting their stuff. but all of this could be solved with some kind of rating system like Quizilla has. anything with excessive language, nudity, or sex should be designated as such with a warning screen. that way, LJ has their tail covered and the fans can write whatever they want as long as they rate it appropriately.

your thoughts?

Edited August 8, 2007 by Pirate King

[TheUnknown 39]

*Notes the topic and notes the poster* I don't believe this is a coincidence. Methinks JM likes her Harry Potter Porn. :p

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

bah.

that is not the subject up for debate. :p

[Ana 15]

Well, having an LJ, and being actively involved on a LJ-based fandom, I've kinda been in the thick of it. It's absurd.

One moment, everything was fine, the next, they're closing down communities and private journals. Harry Potter comms were the beginning, but next thing you know, they deactivated a community for discussion of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. Because obviously, anyone who has ever read that book, and especially anyone wishing to discuss that book, supports child molestation. It was panic. Everyone deleted their entire list of interests, because they might have some interest in common with a group that got shut down. Everyone went into their history and friends-locked all their previous entries, nervous that some mysterious lurker is going to read a Degrassi fic they wrote two years ago that contained two teenagers having sex nonexplicitly, report them to LJ, and get their journal deleted.

People have lost the boundary between reality and fiction. We're not trying to support child molestation, or child rape, or child abuse. We're trying to discuss literary masterpieces. We're trying to write and read stories about characters we are fans of, which may include depicting them in sexual activities, because that is a normal part of life.

This is possibly the best response I've seen to this whole thing.

And should LJ choose that they don't want to fuss with deciding what's acceptable and what's not, they are going to lose a LOT of their clients. If they decide they don't want fandom, most of us are going to boycott. I'm not paying them to not let me post about what I want to post about. You can't please everyone, but believe me, if SixApart doesn't make pleasing their customers a higher priority than bending to the whims of non-government-sanctioned extremist group Warriors for Innocence, who started this whole thing (and who really do burn copies of Lolita), they are going to find themselves in a hole too deep to recover from. I hope they enjoy bankruptcy.

[Drake 53]

They are taking it to the extreme and I agree that there should be "rating" limitations placed on naughty fanwork. However...anything involving minors, be it written or art, is WRONG. If you're reading about a couple of twelve year olds having sex, is it any different than looking at pornographic pictures of them? Sure, erotic stories and artwork isn't considered illegal. You're still developing the images in your brain.

That crap should be removed, LJ should update their TOS to keep the lines clear, and everyone else should be left alone to enjoy their adult consented eroticisms.

[Tsl 7]

Agree-age. *nods*

[Ana 15]

So, no more discussing Lolita? Or Romeo and Juliet?

I don't know. Twelve year olds having explicit sex, I agree, is distasteful and should not be there. But stories where twelve year olds kiss? Why are some of those being banned? Contrary to what they claim, not all the fic that's disappearing is erotic. Some of it is completely G-rated, but for some reason is going away. It's making people very nervous.

Edited August 9, 2007 by Ana

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

established literary masterpieces should be left alone. using Romeo and Juliet as an example (although not one of ol' Billy's better works, imo), getting married at 12 was perfectly normal. stuff written in those eras can't really be judged by today's "decency" standards. however, if someone writes an original non-period story with two 12 year olds going at it, that's not right. it does happen in real life, but i don't want to be reading about it on the internet. i'm a little torn on this subject. on one hand, i don't think it's right to tell an author what they can and can't write. on the other hand, certain subjects shouldn't be written about. but again, this could all be solved with clearer a TOS and a rating system. once that gets set up, users with naughty stuff should be given a certain amount of time to make sure it's rated and after that date, anything in non-compliance can be deleted. but only the un-rated naughtiness, not entire journals and communities.

[Ana 15]

Exactly. I think that removing their offensive fic is a perfectly fine step. Deleting the whole journal or community because of a single entry, though, is overkill. I think they've got the message by now and will no longer post such things. But some people use LJ as their personal journal as well as their creative writing journal. If they've been on LJ for six years, and suddenly the entire chronicle of their life is deleted because someone didn't like the fact that a story they once wrote has twelve year olds giving each other hickeys, they are going to be really, really, really pissed off.