Migrants to IJ, 2007

One of the things I see coming up over the latest pedophile witch-hunt by Livejournal is reference to a United States law that really does make completely fictional visual and text representations of "minors" illegal.


The law is United States Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 71, Subsection 1466A, "Obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children".

I don't know the details of where this law came from, but it apparently sprung forth because the SCOTUS shot down an earlier version that was part of COPA, the Child Online Protection Act. Basically the SCOTUS said that the law was too vague and too broad sweeping, and constituted a violation of free speech rights. Thus it was shot down from the law books.

Unfortunately the brilliant asshats currently running the country turned right around and created a new law that did the very same thing, only now you have to apply the Miller Test to the material, which legally speaking no longer makes it "vague". Except for the fact that the Miller Test in and of itself is vague and subject to interpretation.

The fact of the matter is that Livejournal is being "forced" to uphold a bad law. And that's what this is, a bad law. Artwork of any kind should not be subject to censorship, and I think any reasonable person would agree with this. And when I say "reasonable person", I'm not including the racist, sexist, homophobic religious zealots that make up groups like the "Warriors for Innocence" asshats that created this whole problem in the first place.

Here's the specific issue though. This latest b&nnination on the part of Livejournal demonstrates yet again that they're not on the users side, they're on the side of the racist, sexist, homophobic religious zealots.

If you go look at that picture that got the user banned, you see Snape and Harry from the Harry Potter engaging in consensual homosexual activity. ZOMG HARRY IS UNDERAGE B& says the asshat lawyers that appear to be dictating right and wrong to Livejournal. But that's the thing. How do they know that Harry in the image is underage? Because that's what they were told by the racist, sexist, homophobic religious zealots, and only because of that. If you put black circles over the faces of those two figures and didn't explain the context, there'd be zero question in anyone's mind that it's a depiction of consensual sexual activity between two men, whose ages could not reasonably be said to be under 18.

The law doesn't specify how you determine that the figures displayed are actually minors. All it says is "depicts a minor/depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor". Assuming that nobody explicitly said that Harry is a minor in this image, I believe all Livejournal would have to say is, "No sorry, that depiction of Harry Potter does not appear to be a minor, and we are told that it was drawn with the intent that he was 18 in the image. STFU and GTFA you obnoxious homophobic prudes."

Now, if someone explicitly said Harry is a minor in the image, and that's the reason they got banned, then Livejournal should be saying that immediately, if not sooner. It also should have come up when someone talked to the Abuse team about it. But they're not saying this, either in response to the slew of comments they're getting over this, nor in the response someone got from the Abuse team.

That's why Livejournal is the bad guy in this. It is completely possible for them to creatively interpret this law (because it is a bad law) in order to protect the ability of their users to freely express themselves. But they're not. Instead, they're siding with the racist, sexist, homophobic religious zealots against their own users, in order to either protect their cash flow, or more likely... because they simply don't like the material.

Once again, I quote Barak Berkowitz, Chairman and CEO of Six Apart/Livejournal:

"Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not. We have an awful broad range of discussions and topics and other things going on in LiveJournal, and we encourage other broad-ranging conversations on all sorts of topics. This was a specific case where we felt there was not a reason (for these journals to stay online)."

This statement has never been rescinded or addressed directly. And the more Livejournal continues on it's current course, the more we have to assume it's because this statement is exactly what they intend to do, regardless of the bullshit lip service they play out to their userbase.

The bottom line is this; Livejournal has become an enemy of free expression. You can scream and rant at them all you want, and you can even hit them in the balls by no longer supporting them financially, but that won't change how they've reacted. Just as in everything else they've done up until this point, if they'd conducted themselves differently, reacted differently, and approached the user base differently, it could be said otherwise. But based on their conduct and treatment of their users thus far, they demonstrate that they are now allies of the racist, sexist, homophobic religious zealots that are the true enemies of free speech and free expression.

This isn't to suggest that you shouldn't scream and rant at them, or refuse to give them any more money. 6A is run by humans, and it's certainly possible they could be guilt-tripped (or given the financial pinch) into doing the right thing again. The question is... can we trust them to stay that way if and when they ever come back to our side?