![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
my thoughts on ZOMG deletions
Jun. 1st, 2007 10:21 amI spent yesterday reading up on the very latest Livejournal kerfuffle. For those of you who have no idea what I'm on about - good for you. If you're interested to find out, these resources (which I'll be referencing in the rest of this post) might be of interest:
CNET article on the deletions
Metafilter discussion on the issue (and for a statement from someone who works for LJ and says he "actually knows what happened", search for the first comment by user anildash).
Six Apart's CEO Barak Berkowitz's first statement on the LJ news page.
Mr. Berkowitz's very brief "we're fixing it" statement, also on LJ news.
( A very super brief sum up of the issue might look something like this: )
And now for my very own thoughts on the issue...
I'm disappointed and worried. The disappointment stems from many things both small and large. I'm disappointed that Six Apart handled this so very poorly in so very many ways, from speaking to the press before issuing any kind of statement to their users, to making excuses for their actions (and I'll get to the specific excuses in a bit). I know damned well that Six Apart is a corporate site, and by participating here we subject our content to their rules - and they can change the rules at will. The disappointment comes from the fact that the people running this show
a) changed the rules (I can know that they can change them and still be saddened that they did)
b) didn't change them well
c) didn't enforce them well
d) changed them for somewhat dubious reasons and
e) didn't communicate until well after the fact that they were changed and enforced (badly).
It's a mess. A disappointing mess. As for the worry... well, it ties into many of the same points.
Do I think this sort of problem will ever affect me directly? No, probably not. I don't list anything kinky or ooooo objectionable in my profile, I don't talk much about anything which might squick people out or be considered bad for the chilluns (and when I do talk about that stuff, it's filtered and locked like whoa), I don't write fanfic, so on and so forth. But it affects me indirectly, and it affects my trust enormously when the ground rules change so rapidly - and for what? What was accomplished and what was the impetus? What were they thinking? Why did it happen and can I have any guarantees that it won't happen again - to me, to anyone else, to the community at large? The solution provided by Livejournal's management to the problem they created is not sufficient.
From the CNET article:
I call bullshit. Content providers on the internet are protected in a number of ways, and the policy in the past has always been something along these lines (and this is what they've sent to users and other groups which have complained about journals in the past):
That's a pretty radical shift in policy, no? Is the first statement an accurate portrayal of SixApart and Livejournal's stance, or is the second? I prefer the second. Yes, it leaves more room for ew sickos and nasty nasty people and nasty nasty content... and it also leaves out the thought police. I don't want people looking at my journal and saying "well, you've got an interest in gay marriage? That's illegal in some states. You're encouraging illegal activity! Down you go!" That's a stretch, I know, but from the first statement? It technically could happen. And the stretches are just part of the problem. LJs prior policy allowed room for all kinds of things, and that's part of why I liked it here. They were interested in policing only what legally needed policing. Now? I just don't know. Ok, so a bunch of journals that were "incorrectly" suspended have been reinstated. And the others? Were they skeezy? Oh probably. But were they actually illegal? Do I need to worry about expressing interest in illegal things? Is that really their new definition of encouraging or soliciting illegal activity? The fact that I don't know worries me.
From![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anildash's statement to metafilter:
The hell? Why was that the goal? Why, all of a sudden, was Livejournal interested in policing interests? I've seen all kinds of interests listed, some comical, some nasty, some weird, some just bizarre. They're just words. So words can now make one "not welcome on LJ"? That's disturbing. Words are kind of important to me in my journal, you know?
And that doesn't even begin to address the fact that Livejournal was responding to external pressure, a "list of sites submitted by groups like WFI" (warriors for innocence), and just taking their word for it rather than actually, you know, looking at stuff. Yeah, legitimate communities for abuse survivors got caught in this. That's... that's really bad. I don't even have words for the outrage which swells up when I think about abuse survivors being painted with the same brush as sexual offenders and having their journals deleted. But it's all in the name of protecting the children, so it's excusable!
Let's get back to words and interest and profiles, which is at the root of a lot of my worry and disappointment. Mr. Berkowitz says the following in his long news post (and I'm just going to dump the whole paragraph because there's so much I want to touch on in it):
This right here? This redefinition of the interest list - which is a keyword list of what people are interested in, and those directions have always been there, in my opinion, to make sure people don't clutter up the keyword space - this is a pathetic attempt to justify a lazy method of removing "questionable content" via a script or other automated process. I don't believe that even Mr. Berkowitz believes this new definition of "interest". It's baloney. And for the record the first two definitions of "interest" from dictionary.com are as follows:
And if the management of LJ does believe this convenient new definition of interest which allows them to quickly and easily search through their keyword space for anything "questionable" and remove it with a clear conscience because "they like it! they really really like it!"? That's damned stupid. Convenient, sure, on some levels. But look where it got them this time.
Also, Mr. Berkowitz raises an interesting issue (and by "interesting" I do not mean, for the record, that it's an issue I like or am in favor of) in his justification of the interest list as a means of filtering out nasties. "As many profiles are the only public part of a private journal..." Stop the presses! Stop right there! Private. Journal. Only part of a private journal. Private. So, there's nothing to see other than... the interest list. Words. In a list. And maybe words in a profile. That's it. Private. Journal. And these need to be policed why? There's a driving need to justify Newspeak so that we can make sure nobody has to be exposed to the words and not even content on a private journal? That's lame. That's beyond pathetic. That's not protecting anyone or anything, because in this theoretical situation (which he brought up to justify this nonsense, even!) nobody is getting hurt.
Let's finish up with this paragraph, shall we? "If your profile were to express interest in pedophilia with no other content that describes this interest as in helping survivors or protecting children from it we must read the profile as “I like or I support or I’m in favor of it.”" So. If I want to offer support to survivors of rape, and want to list rape as an interest, under the new policies I need to put something like "rape (bad mmkay?)" or "rape (in the negative)" in my interest list. If I want to discuss world hunger, it needs to be clearly spelled out so that nobody gets any wrong ideas as "world hunger (in the negative)" because otherwise the default of any sensible person (or at the least, any person in the management of this joint - sensible may not be a word which applies) would be to look at my interest list and think that I like world hunger, support world hunger, and want there to be more of it. It's an interest, baby! I'm all about starving folks. Brain dead, folks. So brain dead a zombie wouldn't eat this with duck sauce. No. I see through this cheap and patently pathetic line: it's brain dead so nobody has to think, so it can be easy to "take care" of these pesky things, by, say, running a script and seeing what happens. Automation is so nice. So easy. So simple. So brain dead. That worries me.
That's not the full extent of my worry, but it does cover a large swath of it. The disappointment comes back into play with some of what I see as weaselly behavior being exhibited by the people who made this cock-up. Take, for instance, the "500 journals" line. Bothanildash and Mr. Berkowitz pulled this old trick out of the hat.
"The total number of communities and journals affected is about 500 out of 13 million registered accounts. I'm not saying that to diminish the seriousness of the issue, but to give you some perspective." (Emphasis in the original, even.)
"Over the last couple of days we have suspended (not deleted) about 500 journals out of many millions on LJ."
Mmmhmm. Transparent, people. And disappointing. Playing the numbers game when you're trying to apologize or explain something is cheap. It's a way of saying "what are you so upset about? Gosh, you guys, really. 500! Out of 13 million!" I won't even get into how many of LJs 13 million journals are active, because that isn't the point, and that's playing along with the numbers game. It isn't about the numbers. What's my permitted threshold for being outraged? Evidently 500 is too low. What about 600? 5000? Out of 13 million, 5000 is still a tiny fraction. It's disappointing to see this kind of thing. Frankly, I'd be upset if even one journal that wasn't engaged in actual factual illegal activity was suspended. For any reason. I would, if I heard about it. And I'm sure there have been cases where I haven't heard about it - the difference here is that there were enough journals that I heard about it. It's not about the numbers. It's about the principles.
And trotting out the "for the children" argument over and over again, protecting the littluns from the this that and the other, it doesn't fly with me. It was only 500 journals and it was for the children oh my god think of the children! Isn't it soooo worth it for 500 lousy journals (out of 13 million, remember!) to be suspended if the children are protected? My answer is no, actually, it isn't. I'd rather journal in a risky environment than one theoretically made safe for children by idiotic enforcement of questionable policies which are then justified by pointing out that really, it was no big deal since it touched only a small percentage of journals. Though I suppose it does make me grumpy, and therefor more likely to journal.
~sighs~ And now it's all better. It's been fixed. The fandom and literature and support group journals have been reinstated. The furor dies down. But, um, what about this redefinition of interest? What about the new policy that showing an interest in something illegal is the same as promoting illegal activity? Is that really how it is here now? Am I going to have to rethink what I say where and how? Are parenthetical (in the negative)s called for? Why the hell did this happen? Were there indeed outside influences that got this rolling? Mr. Berkowitz says no no no not really, butanildash mentions "an externally-imposed deadline". Externally imposed? By whom? And a deadline? What was your "or else" condition? Suspend these journals or the puppy gets it? Did the dudes from that Monty Python sketch show up and do a "things burn, Livejournal" routine? Or did that guy just get it wrong? I don't know. I'm willing to wait and see what the answers to these questions are - I'm not one for rash actions in any case - but I'm worried. And I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed enough to worry that I won't be getting answers.
CNET article on the deletions
Metafilter discussion on the issue (and for a statement from someone who works for LJ and says he "actually knows what happened", search for the first comment by user anildash).
Six Apart's CEO Barak Berkowitz's first statement on the LJ news page.
Mr. Berkowitz's very brief "we're fixing it" statement, also on LJ news.
( A very super brief sum up of the issue might look something like this: )
And now for my very own thoughts on the issue...
I'm disappointed and worried. The disappointment stems from many things both small and large. I'm disappointed that Six Apart handled this so very poorly in so very many ways, from speaking to the press before issuing any kind of statement to their users, to making excuses for their actions (and I'll get to the specific excuses in a bit). I know damned well that Six Apart is a corporate site, and by participating here we subject our content to their rules - and they can change the rules at will. The disappointment comes from the fact that the people running this show
a) changed the rules (I can know that they can change them and still be saddened that they did)
b) didn't change them well
c) didn't enforce them well
d) changed them for somewhat dubious reasons and
e) didn't communicate until well after the fact that they were changed and enforced (badly).
It's a mess. A disappointing mess. As for the worry... well, it ties into many of the same points.
Do I think this sort of problem will ever affect me directly? No, probably not. I don't list anything kinky or ooooo objectionable in my profile, I don't talk much about anything which might squick people out or be considered bad for the chilluns (and when I do talk about that stuff, it's filtered and locked like whoa), I don't write fanfic, so on and so forth. But it affects me indirectly, and it affects my trust enormously when the ground rules change so rapidly - and for what? What was accomplished and what was the impetus? What were they thinking? Why did it happen and can I have any guarantees that it won't happen again - to me, to anyone else, to the community at large? The solution provided by Livejournal's management to the problem they created is not sufficient.
From the CNET article:
For its part, LiveJournal's abuse staff has defended pulling the plug on the communities by saying: "Material which can be interpreted as expressing interest in, soliciting or encouraging illegal activity places LiveJournal at considerable legal risk."
I call bullshit. Content providers on the internet are protected in a number of ways, and the policy in the past has always been something along these lines (and this is what they've sent to users and other groups which have complained about journals in the past):
Theoretical, hypothetical, or sociological discussion of illegal activity is not in itself illegal. We can only take action against a user if he or she is posting illegal material, is actively encouraging others to commit illegal actions, or is soliciting or providing information on how to commit illegal activity.
That's a pretty radical shift in policy, no? Is the first statement an accurate portrayal of SixApart and Livejournal's stance, or is the second? I prefer the second. Yes, it leaves more room for ew sickos and nasty nasty people and nasty nasty content... and it also leaves out the thought police. I don't want people looking at my journal and saying "well, you've got an interest in gay marriage? That's illegal in some states. You're encouraging illegal activity! Down you go!" That's a stretch, I know, but from the first statement? It technically could happen. And the stretches are just part of the problem. LJs prior policy allowed room for all kinds of things, and that's part of why I liked it here. They were interested in policing only what legally needed policing. Now? I just don't know. Ok, so a bunch of journals that were "incorrectly" suspended have been reinstated. And the others? Were they skeezy? Oh probably. But were they actually illegal? Do I need to worry about expressing interest in illegal things? Is that really their new definition of encouraging or soliciting illegal activity? The fact that I don't know worries me.
From
anildash's statement to metafilter:The goal here was to get journals with profiles that listed "child rape" or "pedophilia" as their interests to know they're not welcome on LJ. Naturally, the list of sites submitted by groups like WFI likely included some friendly fire, including legitimate communities for abuse survivors, or, yes fandom.
The hell? Why was that the goal? Why, all of a sudden, was Livejournal interested in policing interests? I've seen all kinds of interests listed, some comical, some nasty, some weird, some just bizarre. They're just words. So words can now make one "not welcome on LJ"? That's disturbing. Words are kind of important to me in my journal, you know?
And that doesn't even begin to address the fact that Livejournal was responding to external pressure, a "list of sites submitted by groups like WFI" (warriors for innocence), and just taking their word for it rather than actually, you know, looking at stuff. Yeah, legitimate communities for abuse survivors got caught in this. That's... that's really bad. I don't even have words for the outrage which swells up when I think about abuse survivors being painted with the same brush as sexual offenders and having their journals deleted. But it's all in the name of protecting the children, so it's excusable!
Let's get back to words and interest and profiles, which is at the root of a lot of my worry and disappointment. Mr. Berkowitz says the following in his long news post (and I'm just going to dump the whole paragraph because there's so much I want to touch on in it):
There were a number of profiles that expressed “interest” in activities that most of us would agree put children at risk, notably pedophilia and child rape. Both in the instructions for profiles and in other places on the site we make it clear that interests listed should be evaluated within the context of “I like x”, “I’m in favor of x” or “I support x”. As many profiles are the only public part of a private journal and profiles serve partly as an advertisement for people of like interests, it is important that the content of a profile can be evaluated as if it stands alone. If your profile were to express interest in pedophilia with no other content that describes this interest as in helping survivors or protecting children from it we must read the profile as “I like or I support or I’m in favor of it.” For this reason we suspended profiles that meet this criteria.
This right here? This redefinition of the interest list - which is a keyword list of what people are interested in, and those directions have always been there, in my opinion, to make sure people don't clutter up the keyword space - this is a pathetic attempt to justify a lazy method of removing "questionable content" via a script or other automated process. I don't believe that even Mr. Berkowitz believes this new definition of "interest". It's baloney. And for the record the first two definitions of "interest" from dictionary.com are as follows:
1. the feeling of a person whose attention, concern, or curiosity is particularly engaged by something: She has a great interest in the poetry of Donne.
2. something that concerns, involves, draws the attention of, or arouses the curiosity of a person: His interests are philosophy and chess.
And if the management of LJ does believe this convenient new definition of interest which allows them to quickly and easily search through their keyword space for anything "questionable" and remove it with a clear conscience because "they like it! they really really like it!"? That's damned stupid. Convenient, sure, on some levels. But look where it got them this time.
Also, Mr. Berkowitz raises an interesting issue (and by "interesting" I do not mean, for the record, that it's an issue I like or am in favor of) in his justification of the interest list as a means of filtering out nasties. "As many profiles are the only public part of a private journal..." Stop the presses! Stop right there! Private. Journal. Only part of a private journal. Private. So, there's nothing to see other than... the interest list. Words. In a list. And maybe words in a profile. That's it. Private. Journal. And these need to be policed why? There's a driving need to justify Newspeak so that we can make sure nobody has to be exposed to the words and not even content on a private journal? That's lame. That's beyond pathetic. That's not protecting anyone or anything, because in this theoretical situation (which he brought up to justify this nonsense, even!) nobody is getting hurt.
Let's finish up with this paragraph, shall we? "If your profile were to express interest in pedophilia with no other content that describes this interest as in helping survivors or protecting children from it we must read the profile as “I like or I support or I’m in favor of it.”" So. If I want to offer support to survivors of rape, and want to list rape as an interest, under the new policies I need to put something like "rape (bad mmkay?)" or "rape (in the negative)" in my interest list. If I want to discuss world hunger, it needs to be clearly spelled out so that nobody gets any wrong ideas as "world hunger (in the negative)" because otherwise the default of any sensible person (or at the least, any person in the management of this joint - sensible may not be a word which applies) would be to look at my interest list and think that I like world hunger, support world hunger, and want there to be more of it. It's an interest, baby! I'm all about starving folks. Brain dead, folks. So brain dead a zombie wouldn't eat this with duck sauce. No. I see through this cheap and patently pathetic line: it's brain dead so nobody has to think, so it can be easy to "take care" of these pesky things, by, say, running a script and seeing what happens. Automation is so nice. So easy. So simple. So brain dead. That worries me.
That's not the full extent of my worry, but it does cover a large swath of it. The disappointment comes back into play with some of what I see as weaselly behavior being exhibited by the people who made this cock-up. Take, for instance, the "500 journals" line. Both
anildash and Mr. Berkowitz pulled this old trick out of the hat. "The total number of communities and journals affected is about 500 out of 13 million registered accounts. I'm not saying that to diminish the seriousness of the issue, but to give you some perspective." (Emphasis in the original, even.)
"Over the last couple of days we have suspended (not deleted) about 500 journals out of many millions on LJ."
Mmmhmm. Transparent, people. And disappointing. Playing the numbers game when you're trying to apologize or explain something is cheap. It's a way of saying "what are you so upset about? Gosh, you guys, really. 500! Out of 13 million!" I won't even get into how many of LJs 13 million journals are active, because that isn't the point, and that's playing along with the numbers game. It isn't about the numbers. What's my permitted threshold for being outraged? Evidently 500 is too low. What about 600? 5000? Out of 13 million, 5000 is still a tiny fraction. It's disappointing to see this kind of thing. Frankly, I'd be upset if even one journal that wasn't engaged in actual factual illegal activity was suspended. For any reason. I would, if I heard about it. And I'm sure there have been cases where I haven't heard about it - the difference here is that there were enough journals that I heard about it. It's not about the numbers. It's about the principles.
And trotting out the "for the children" argument over and over again, protecting the littluns from the this that and the other, it doesn't fly with me. It was only 500 journals and it was for the children oh my god think of the children! Isn't it soooo worth it for 500 lousy journals (out of 13 million, remember!) to be suspended if the children are protected? My answer is no, actually, it isn't. I'd rather journal in a risky environment than one theoretically made safe for children by idiotic enforcement of questionable policies which are then justified by pointing out that really, it was no big deal since it touched only a small percentage of journals. Though I suppose it does make me grumpy, and therefor more likely to journal.
~sighs~ And now it's all better. It's been fixed. The fandom and literature and support group journals have been reinstated. The furor dies down. But, um, what about this redefinition of interest? What about the new policy that showing an interest in something illegal is the same as promoting illegal activity? Is that really how it is here now? Am I going to have to rethink what I say where and how? Are parenthetical (in the negative)s called for? Why the hell did this happen? Were there indeed outside influences that got this rolling? Mr. Berkowitz says no no no not really, but
anildash mentions "an externally-imposed deadline". Externally imposed? By whom? And a deadline? What was your "or else" condition? Suspend these journals or the puppy gets it? Did the dudes from that Monty Python sketch show up and do a "things burn, Livejournal" routine? Or did that guy just get it wrong? I don't know. I'm willing to wait and see what the answers to these questions are - I'm not one for rash actions in any case - but I'm worried. And I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed enough to worry that I won't be getting answers.
