![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Adult content settings, fiction vs. reality, what should be deleted? (as much as I tried staying away from the blabbing, it kept on creeping back on me... so please, if I did not answer a specific question on those three issues, please a comment)
These issues are closely linked in the world of LiveJournal.
For LiveJournal, the site, the "adult content" setting should be nothing more than a legal. At this point I come to a vocabulary problem because I wanted to say that LiveJournal should not have "obligation de résultats" but only "obligation de moyens". They must provide you with the means of notifying others of the nature of the things in the journal but they cannot be liable if you failed to do so. In paragraph 6 of the ToS you can read that should anyone be upset with the content of your journal and sue you, LiveJournal will do nothing about it and you certainly cannot sue them.
The part that I am most interested in is the 10th paragraph of the ToS, Termination. I do not believe that LiveJournal should change this paragraph, there are times when a site must delete an account and there are owners of accounts that have power and can come back to sue. This, of course, is for extreme cases like some extremists that might use the site to promote hateful propaganda and encite to violence. In the case of the most recent journal deletions, technically speaking the deletions were legal because of the paragraph but as the people who run LJ are not robots, they should have spent some time thinking about it.
The question of course is of where to draw the line between fiction and reality. Should Hitler fanfiction be allowed? Should fanfiction containing violence and hatered towards ethnical, religious, etc. groups be allowed because it's historical fanfiction and it's supposed to be cannon? I do not have the education to answer those questions. I do not think that on this matter any single person has the education to decide that is right and what is wrong. Most certainly the ToS of LiveJournal clearly say that they cannot be held liable as to what appears on the site, they may take actions to "rectify" the content but it is not their obligation (see paragraph 14 of the ToS), for this reason I still do not understand the mass journal deletions. I have heard rumors as to why they happened, rumors that said that certain groups (religious, etc.) wanted the site closed because of such content as incest, underage sexual relations and such. If those rumors are true, than LiveJournal (and its mother company) should have first thought about it long and hard. In this case the owners' peace of mind was prefered to users' peace of mind, I do not agree with it but I understand why the owners threw caution into the wind, lawyers fees can be troublesome. I would also like to tone down my statement a bit by saying that I do not have any legal training and I do not know to what extent these ToS protect the site, if you have any info to share with me on this subject, I would love to learn more! Especially when I see how parts of those ToS are completely out of date: in the third paragraph you still see the words "basic accounts"...
Let's now talk about the whole "adult content" issue. First of all, in the ToS it says that you should not post anything that can harm a minor that can be offensive to others. Okie dokie, I say, define "offensive" and "others", let's see I can say "I believe that abortions should be legal everywhere, let homosexual weddings happen and I haven't been to church in... ten years? Maybe a bit less, like nine years probably." That statement is true and that will have offended the Pope probably, should I flag it as "innappropriate", nope, there is nothing there that can harm anyone! Or at least that's what I believe. With this I conclude that the ToS do not give any information on the matter.
Next stop, the FAQ. I spent about ten minutes trying to figure out where I can read more about this "adult content" flagging system, I was about to give up when I came to the "Conflicts with other users" section and I found the "How can I mark content as inappropriate for minors?" link. Hummmm... is it the right section for something that has been bothering my flist for quite some time? Probably not. And certainly it needs to be rewritten because it does not give any information as what is really allowed to be posted without the warning and what isn't.
My point of view as what should be done on the matter:
No deletion should be made without consulting a minimum of five different people and by "different" I mean people from different backgrounds. All changes to the site should also be put through a set of people, yes, that will slow down the process but we're looking for quality over quantity at this point; the LiveJournal structure is stable and, as far as I know, it is bringing in money. Everyone, that means even the users, needs to understand that LiveJournal has become a commercial site, for it to stay alive some parts of the commercial process cannot be undone (Plus accounts) but I strongly believe that the revenues from those accounts and from the ads on the main page, as well as contributions from Paid accounts, should be enough to cover for at least one or two "Basic accounts" per user, old or new. The content of the site should be moderated but moderation should be mostly done with the help of the users and no deletions should take place without at leats a two weeks' notice, a journal may become unavailable to everyone but the journal owner but in any way or form should it be deleted without prior notice. I cannot pronounce myself as to what limits should be set on the content of the journal, as far as I'm concerned, if a "normal" person can see that it's fiction, then I have no problem with it containing sensitive material. I think that the landlord for my new place understood that not everyone is the brightest crayon in the box and he put the following rule in the ToS: "Spontaneous use of common sense is very much allowed in all situations."
On another note, I'd like to thank everyone who vouched for me, you're all fantastic! Also, I went to the nomination community this morning and I'm very pleased that many are taking this seriously, I only saw about three "silly" nominations but I do hope that the final votes will not be stained by these. It's not that I don't think that the people behind the nominations are not responsible enough for the position, I doubt they'd bother writing up reports about the meetings and actually preparing for those said meetings. I don't expect the person elected to be a secretary but just for once I want to see what goes on inside those meetings besides the usual![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
news and other official stuff.
And this is why politicians have someone else write their stuff. You would not believe me the amount of time (I started at 8:30am this morning and I've been contributing for the whole day to the post) it took me to try and put my ideas down.
These issues are closely linked in the world of LiveJournal.
For LiveJournal, the site, the "adult content" setting should be nothing more than a legal. At this point I come to a vocabulary problem because I wanted to say that LiveJournal should not have "obligation de résultats" but only "obligation de moyens". They must provide you with the means of notifying others of the nature of the things in the journal but they cannot be liable if you failed to do so. In paragraph 6 of the ToS you can read that should anyone be upset with the content of your journal and sue you, LiveJournal will do nothing about it and you certainly cannot sue them.
The part that I am most interested in is the 10th paragraph of the ToS, Termination. I do not believe that LiveJournal should change this paragraph, there are times when a site must delete an account and there are owners of accounts that have power and can come back to sue. This, of course, is for extreme cases like some extremists that might use the site to promote hateful propaganda and encite to violence. In the case of the most recent journal deletions, technically speaking the deletions were legal because of the paragraph but as the people who run LJ are not robots, they should have spent some time thinking about it.
The question of course is of where to draw the line between fiction and reality. Should Hitler fanfiction be allowed? Should fanfiction containing violence and hatered towards ethnical, religious, etc. groups be allowed because it's historical fanfiction and it's supposed to be cannon? I do not have the education to answer those questions. I do not think that on this matter any single person has the education to decide that is right and what is wrong. Most certainly the ToS of LiveJournal clearly say that they cannot be held liable as to what appears on the site, they may take actions to "rectify" the content but it is not their obligation (see paragraph 14 of the ToS), for this reason I still do not understand the mass journal deletions. I have heard rumors as to why they happened, rumors that said that certain groups (religious, etc.) wanted the site closed because of such content as incest, underage sexual relations and such. If those rumors are true, than LiveJournal (and its mother company) should have first thought about it long and hard. In this case the owners' peace of mind was prefered to users' peace of mind, I do not agree with it but I understand why the owners threw caution into the wind, lawyers fees can be troublesome. I would also like to tone down my statement a bit by saying that I do not have any legal training and I do not know to what extent these ToS protect the site, if you have any info to share with me on this subject, I would love to learn more! Especially when I see how parts of those ToS are completely out of date: in the third paragraph you still see the words "basic accounts"...
Let's now talk about the whole "adult content" issue. First of all, in the ToS it says that you should not post anything that can harm a minor that can be offensive to others. Okie dokie, I say, define "offensive" and "others", let's see I can say "I believe that abortions should be legal everywhere, let homosexual weddings happen and I haven't been to church in... ten years? Maybe a bit less, like nine years probably." That statement is true and that will have offended the Pope probably, should I flag it as "innappropriate", nope, there is nothing there that can harm anyone! Or at least that's what I believe. With this I conclude that the ToS do not give any information on the matter.
Next stop, the FAQ. I spent about ten minutes trying to figure out where I can read more about this "adult content" flagging system, I was about to give up when I came to the "Conflicts with other users" section and I found the "How can I mark content as inappropriate for minors?" link. Hummmm... is it the right section for something that has been bothering my flist for quite some time? Probably not. And certainly it needs to be rewritten because it does not give any information as what is really allowed to be posted without the warning and what isn't.
My point of view as what should be done on the matter:
No deletion should be made without consulting a minimum of five different people and by "different" I mean people from different backgrounds. All changes to the site should also be put through a set of people, yes, that will slow down the process but we're looking for quality over quantity at this point; the LiveJournal structure is stable and, as far as I know, it is bringing in money. Everyone, that means even the users, needs to understand that LiveJournal has become a commercial site, for it to stay alive some parts of the commercial process cannot be undone (Plus accounts) but I strongly believe that the revenues from those accounts and from the ads on the main page, as well as contributions from Paid accounts, should be enough to cover for at least one or two "Basic accounts" per user, old or new. The content of the site should be moderated but moderation should be mostly done with the help of the users and no deletions should take place without at leats a two weeks' notice, a journal may become unavailable to everyone but the journal owner but in any way or form should it be deleted without prior notice. I cannot pronounce myself as to what limits should be set on the content of the journal, as far as I'm concerned, if a "normal" person can see that it's fiction, then I have no problem with it containing sensitive material. I think that the landlord for my new place understood that not everyone is the brightest crayon in the box and he put the following rule in the ToS: "Spontaneous use of common sense is very much allowed in all situations."
On another note, I'd like to thank everyone who vouched for me, you're all fantastic! Also, I went to the nomination community this morning and I'm very pleased that many are taking this seriously, I only saw about three "silly" nominations but I do hope that the final votes will not be stained by these. It's not that I don't think that the people behind the nominations are not responsible enough for the position, I doubt they'd bother writing up reports about the meetings and actually preparing for those said meetings. I don't expect the person elected to be a secretary but just for once I want to see what goes on inside those meetings besides the usual
news and other official stuff. And this is why politicians have someone else write their stuff. You would not believe me the amount of time (I started at 8:30am this morning and I've been contributing for the whole day to the post) it took me to try and put my ideas down.
