Baby Steps

[filkertom]

LJ/6A is attempting to clarify their position on non-photographic art.

It's a beginning. I think a screwed-up beginning, because they are so veddy veddy concerned about Teh Evil Child Pr0n, especially the Nonexistent Children Variation. But a beginning nontheless.

Thoughts?

Comments

[kayleetvs.livejournal.com]

It's not enough. They're still using entirely subjective guidelines, they're still selecting for specific types of material because of their reporting system, they won't give any guidelines dealing with "hypothetical situations," they'll still ban people for linking to perfectly legal material and they still won't do anything about legitimately dangerous communities whose purpose is inherently a TOS violation.

Where do people get the idea that child pornography is something all-pervasive hiding in every nook and cranny, anyway?

And what moron decided that it should be a thoughtcrime? I thought the idea was to protect children from being sexually exploited, and no real children are involved in the making of fanart or fanfiction. It should be, very simply, "no child, no crime." But then, I have issues with the very idea of making access to obscene material (or any material) illegal instead of age-restricted ...

[crwilley.livejournal.com]

The argument has always been that "fake" porn could be used to recruit real children: "See? Here's a picture of what we're going to do, and that little boy looks like he's having fun, doesn't he?"

I don't know whether this argument holds any water or not, or if it does, whether it rises to a reason to ban "fake" porn - but I can see someone already involved in kiddie-porn hysteria buying into it wholeheartedly.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

But child porn statues themselves are subjective guidelines, since a representation is not illegal if it has artistic merit. "Artistic merit" is subjective. Given that the law is not clear-cut, I can't really see how LJ could be clear-cut either, unless they opted to enforce a very extreme position. (Which would make people even more unhappy, I'm guessing.)

So while LJ's response is imperfect, I think that some of that imperfection is in the laws themselves; it's not specific to LJ. (Other parts of the imperfection are specific to LJ, such as some of the unclarity about the two strikes rule etc.)

[rsmit212.livejournal.com]

5-15 years prison sentence tends to make people cautious. Regardless of the rightness/wrongness of the laws involved, people at LJ/6A could end up *IN JAIL* if they don't take steps to comply.

There's no perfect answer.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Which is why we ought to also raise bloody hell with the politicians that allow such stupid laws to be on the books.

Nice irony, that if only LJ/6A would just tell Mrs. Grundy to jump in the lake, the fangroups would be the first to jump into their camp and invoke the netroots to raise any legal defense fund that might be necessary.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

It's a good start, and apparently some decent ideas about drawing both boundaries and guidelines. Yes, they're baby steps -- but that's how you learn to walk. (And they do have good incentive both to draw the guidelines and to enforce them; on the one hand, they both lose clients AND have horrid PR, while on the other, the attorneys slam them for hosting the kiddie stuff.)

I'm convinced that they're making an honest effort. I hope they come down more on the side of free speech than otherwise, but truthfully, I think they're more likely to be conservative, especially while they work toward an IPO.

[janeg.livejournal.com]

I am pleased to see that people who apparently started with very little understanding of the actual laws, and a great deal of fear, have learned both SOME law and some humility. The part about drawings and such still sounds as if they plan to report stuff that the police cannot act upon, but I am no expert on US law! I suspect the law in Canada is rather murky with regard to drawings.

So I am hopeful that we will not lose the LJ community that has been such a great way to keep in touch with filkers met at cons and with the lives of local filk friends too. I am not keen on the effort to rebuild the community elsewhere, and any site may have problems down the road as ownership and management changes.

[kengr]

actually, the law in Canada is all too clear. Not only can you be *convicted* for drawings, you can be convicted for *text* that involves minors and sex.

[nelladarren.livejournal.com]

I don't trust them anymore. Fool me once and so on. The last time I was willing to accept that they wanted to do the best, made a mistake and wanted to do better. Not anymore. They have a severe attitude problem and WHATEVER they might say now I don't think they will feel bound to keep their "rules" and "promises" - why should that change now?

They won't see a single cent from me anymore and I am disappointed that so many people just couldn't have cared less and so only a handful actually tried moving away from LJ.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

They've lost pretty much all credibility with me by now, and their official statements sidestep a lot of questions. I'm crossposting everything to Insanejournal, Journalfen, and Greatestjournal now.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, it's always amusing to watch feeps sink ever-deeper into their own quicksand. On the other hand, I kinda like these forums, and it would be a shame to watch them drag the whole thing down with them.

[kengr]

The most worrisome part is this:

If you're really, really concerned that something you're about to post might violate our policy and will be seen by someone who will take action to report it to us, then perhaps you should think twice before posting it.

Followed by the statements about linking. For one thing, they need to distinguish between posting a link to something and posting an image link to another site.

[skemono.livejournal.com]

This really got to me:
(b) Our process for drawings, cartoons, animation and other non-photographic images is slightly different. An image of this type that obviously violates our policy will be treated the same as a photographic image of child pornography, but in questionable cases involving a non-photographic image we will adopt a "two strikes" process.
So they're making their policies more explicit... by recursively referring to their policies? All this has told us is that they're going to do ban you after you've twice posted a drawing that falls under a policy we don't know about.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

Do the letters CYA have any particular meaning for you?

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

"veddy"?

When did they become British? I mean, I know we're your main source for bad guys over there, but really...

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Not so much British as, well, elitist snobs. We Know What's Best And Even If We Don't We Do.

That said, maybe I need to find some Tenth Doctor/Rose fanfic.... :-P

[louisadkins.livejournal.com]

I don't really trust them, anymore. *shrug*
There is a pattern of corporatism that is familiar to me from when I worked for a Big Company. At this point, I feel that they will just watch, wait, and then try again at a later point. I'm glad they seem to be learning the art or compromise, but they will need to actually demonstrate their willingness to work with their customer base for a while before I begin to consider trusting them again.

[melaniedavidson.livejournal.com]

I wish they'd clarify the links thing, and also what they mean by "borderline". Is it "borderline" if they look like they could be under eighteen (and what if there's a note in the entry that says they're eighteen)? Because if there were a way to infalliably tell someone's age just by looking at them, nobody would ever get carded.

[eleri.livejournal.com]

Yknow... I saw the pic in question, and it was pretty raunchy, and had it been a photograph, would have been underage porn.