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A bit of confusion
I'm not sure if I wound up coming to this conclusion due to the part about membership in adult-oriented communities, or if I've read something on the matter somewhere else. I honestly cannot remember.
http://www.insanejournal.com/support/fa
Is it, or is it not, more or less mandatory on IJ to flock explicit material? If it's not, I want to be able to correct my errors on the matter, because I've advised a few people that it is. I'm sure I remembered reading something on that, but it's not in that faq where I thought it was, so now I'm wondering if I'm just going crazy.
I'd ask in Support or somewhere like that, and I will if no one's certain at the moment, but with the new server move and the OpenID errors, it's really something that can wait until things settle down. In the meantime I figured I'd ask in here, since the boundary lines are a part of why we all came here from LJ.
http://www.insanejournal.com/support/fa
Is it, or is it not, more or less mandatory on IJ to flock explicit material? If it's not, I want to be able to correct my errors on the matter, because I've advised a few people that it is. I'm sure I remembered reading something on that, but it's not in that faq where I thought it was, so now I'm wondering if I'm just going crazy.
I'd ask in Support or somewhere like that, and I will if no one's certain at the moment, but with the new server move and the OpenID errors, it's really something that can wait until things settle down. In the meantime I figured I'd ask in here, since the boundary lines are a part of why we all came here from LJ.
"If you frequently post material to your journal that can be considered of an "adult" nature, InsaneJournal asks that you place a warning in your User Information ("bio") to that nature, warning that underage users should not view your journal. This is not mandatory, but can serve to protect both you and InsaneJournal."
---Not necessary to f'lock indecent material in your own journal. Warning of adult content on userinfo page advised but not mandatory.
"If you are the maintainer of a community in which users regularly post explicit images, you must monitor the membership of your community carefully to make sure that all of your members are of legal age to view such material."
--- This one's kind of ambiguous. I'm assuming this means that owners of adult communities must make sure members place age statements on their profile. Now if adult posts are not f'locked, this age monitoring is pointless since anyone can read even without being a member.
So my interpretation is that on adult communities then yes it's necessary to f'lock adult material, but on a personal journal it isn't. If the actual truth is different from that, then the FAQ needs re-writing.
more or less mandatory on IJ to flock
most blue laws in many places are ignored until someone raises a stink then those at risk tend to over react, when a half whit does so, then shit flies everywhere (lj demonstrates this perfectly) the bottom line is you are responsible for what you present, and the chain of responsibility includes anyone who enables said presentation, so any freedom you have to flaunt conventional standards (because almost everything can become a question of legality in the proper hands) depends on how blatant you are about it, you aren't going to get a definitive answer until someones neck is on the line, but if you wouldn't wear it on a tee into your local daycare , then a f-lock seems appropriate,.. less government is the best government, but for that to work the community at large needs to be intelligent and proactive in their own actions,..
Re: more or less mandatory on IJ to flock
According to the reply and quote, above, it would surely look as if it falls on the "less mandatory" side of things - I rarely, if ever, see a "mandate" conditioned on "asks."
Maybe, at some point, IJ, itself, will replace the word "ask" with "demand," I don't know. If they do, they'll also have to at least qualify what constitutes "frequently," and perhaps even, "adult nature."
As to the rest, I disagree. The Internet is not a local daycare, nor should it ever become one, and flocking is self-censorship. Don't get me wrong, I fully agree that LJ, IJ, GJ, any business, can do as it likes with its TOS and its servers. However, adults are responsible for their own clickery, and can stop reading - at any time - ideas with which they disagree. Furthermore, they are responsible as well for the clickery of their children, who do not own the Internet anymore than anyone else. There are more than enough tools (including the authoritarian and simple, "no," available to allow parents to block any content they don't think their children ought see - and fewer tools, if any, available to the 18+ crowd to allow them to view flocked ideas.
Last, there is a fallacy in your statement that voluntary self-censorship amounts to less (and best) government: if everyone is being "responsible" and self-censoring, and controversial ideas are thereby kept from the broader populace, that only amounts to stronger government, albeit it with less personnel, which is at odds with the idea that less (weaker) is best.
At least, I think so, anyway.
OpenID errors? (please & thanks)
I was glad to see someone mention something about OpenID errors - by this, do you mean where one tries to view their profile and gets an error code?
The error code I get looks like this:Which, lol, as one can see, contains the word "warrior" - a cause, of course, for some concern.
Anyone else's profile, I seem to be able to view just finely. Thanks to anyone who can/will confirm similar issues - or even if someone will please to try and view my profile and see if they get an error this way?
Re: OpenID errors? (please & thanks)
Re: OpenID errors? (please & thanks)
Thanks so much.
One of the things that makes it ambiguous is that it refers both to "indecent" material and to the Miller test when talking about what's permissible where. The reason this is problematic is that the Miller standard is the test for whether material is *obscene*, which is something very different from whether material is indecent. Obscenity has no First Amendment protection, but indecency does, and material can be indecent without running afoul of the Miller standard.
This being the case, I've been assuming that what the FAQ meant was that obscenity was restricted -- otherwise, there's no reason to mention Miller at all. But it does make sense that IJ might want certain indecent material to be locked and/or kept in adult communities -- that is, the FAQ might not refer only to obscene material. The document is ambiguous enough, I now think, that it's worth asking for a review once the current technical difficulties have been dealt with.
There are no laws against explicit *text*--a 12-year-old can buy Anne Rice's Beauty series. (Or The Joy of Sex, because its images are considered to have educational value.)
There are, as yet, no cases of obscene text as defined by law. Fanny Hill, an explicit, sometimes-banned book about a 15 year old becoming a prostitute, is available for free online. There has been only one case of obscene non-photographic artwork: a graphic novel that involved brutality, sex, violence, and gore.
Sexually explicit images may need to be restricted somehow--a flock is the most obvious way, but an age statement/online signature method might also work. Exactly what kind of sexually explicit images need to be kept from minors varies by state; there's been no case establishing what rules a website is expected to follow. (Certainly the ones you live under; whether you're supposed to follow the ones I live under as well is debatable.)
Nobody wants to be the test case. That includes Squeaky, who doesn't want InsaneJournal shut down for two years during a trial. So be nice to Squeaky, and do what you can to keep minors from viewing material it's illegal to show to them.
However... sexually explicit material doesn't mean naked people. Do some research; many state laws are very detailed about what minors can't view. It may be that it's only images of penetration or other specific acts that are forbidden.
Just please be patient with us until it's done. :)
I think that requiring cuts with a statement that you must be 18 or over to enter on each post should be sufficient. And I'm not even conceding that the law requires that much action. Plus, anyone can lie in their profile page and I'm concerned with being held to a higher standard.
I have a fear that once we become the internet police it won't stop and that our personal journals will be next.
It's probably a good idea to flock sexually explicit communities (not ones that occasionally get there, but ones all about the porn) since that gives you a stronger age-protection, but personal journals generally aren't all about the porn so you can get away with less.
I, too, would like things clarified as far as the language of the indecent/obscene thing, but I think that was really just a case of mushed-up synonyms. It's really easy to use the words interchangably in anything but a legal sense.
Didn't we have enough of that on LJ????
As always, if there are any questions do not hesitate to bring it to the attention of Support.
feel free to let others in the asylum know, I'm too shy.