LJ's latest
First, the policy entry for comment.
Second, the draft proposal for review.
Select portions:
Bandwidth TheftThis one I don't get at all. They even admit that it's "the webmaster's responsibility to prevent unauthorized remote loading of images" so why are they getting involved?
Last updated: 6 March 2008
Summary
A user is remote-loading content from a third party website without the website owner’s permission.
Action
The offender will be required to cease remotely loading the material. This follows the Standard Compliance Timeline.
Note
Does not apply to simply linking to content. Offender is permitted to continue use of the material if they choose to remotely load it from webspace under their own control.
Explanation
Though we acknowledge that it is the webmaster's responsibility to prevent the unauthorized remote loading of images from their site to LiveJournal, this is not always possible. Likewise, a user may wish for their images to be free from unauthorized reproduction by other LiveJournal users, but still use their website to store content such as background images for their own LiveJournal account. Because the unauthorized remote loading of images can incur a high bandwidth bill, we will require users who are remotely loading images without authorization to cease doing so.
See Also
Copyright Violation
Then there's this one, which we all know exactly what this stems from:
Non-Photographic images of minorsFuckheads. It wasn't controversial until you pulled accounts without warning for it.
Last updated: March 6th, 2008
Summary
Non-photographic images (cartoons, drawings, etc.) of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct are present on LiveJournal.
Action
Users who have posted non-photographic images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct will be required to remove the material, following the Standard Compliance Timeline.
Note
We are not making any determination on the legality of non-photographic images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. This is simply a type of content LiveJournal has decided not to host.
Explanation
LiveJournal attempts to grant users the ability to express themselves in as many ways as possible. In the case of this content, however, LiveJournal has chosen not to host it due to its highly controversial nature.
They do, however, finally have a provision about Self Harm (specifically, "Material posted which encourages or instructs others on how to engage in destructive behavior such as, self-injury, self-mutilation, anorexia, drug or alcohol overdose, or suicide.") so that's something. I know one of the primary complaints during the brouhaha last spring was that LJ did nothing about the anorexia and self-harm communities that promoted the behavior, only pulled down artwork about fictional characters nominally under the fictional age of consent.
But then, further on, there's a provision about Unwanted Friending. This is a problem people have reported? Are they insane? How can you stop someone from friending you without banning them? Complete idiots.
Cross-posted from my journal.
drkcherry
Also, the adult content section is confusing to me. They consider adult content as: graphic and explicit in nature (for example, an image which contains nudity, sexuality, or violence). But later state: If the content is not graphic in nature, but is intended for a mature or adult audience, no action is required. Users are encouraged, but not required, to flag such content as containing "Adult concepts".
So are they stating only imagery can be adult content, not words? And if there are words, only if they describe sex and use swear words? I don't understand.
simons_flower
As for the flags, flagging ones journal is currently optional. Yet, if there are too many complaints, they will administratively flag the journal without recourse.
Gah.
drkcherry
But they did do it up all pretty like.
msilverstar
stewardess
What do you want to bet that non-photographic images of minors (that includes 17 year olds) will be banned if they are so much as kissing while fully clothed?
keieeeye
simons_flower
Fanart, on the other hand, seems to fall in some gray area that LJ has interpreted to mean is equal to child abuse.
Morons.
mercurychaos
LiveJournal has chosen not to host it due to its highly controversial nature.
mean that you can link to it elsewhere but not upload it to an LJ album, or is that no allowed either?
And yeah, I don't really see why they felt the need to include the "unwanted friending" thing. If someone's made an account just to harrass and spam people, then that would fall under "harrasment" and "spam".
simons_flower
Somehow, though, I don't think that's what they mean.
I am glad to see they remove the atrocious provision they were discussing last August about users being responsible for external links.
snapelike
fourth_rose
snapelike
I think, before people get too enthusiastic about the new closer-to-clarity-LJ, they need to remember how little promises and actual events fit together last time.
But of course there is still hope they've improved... then again, nah.
snapelike
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_pol
simons_flower
barbayat
Somehow I doubt that this is what they mean. I wonder how their stance is on minor looking drawings, with characters that are actually much, much older.
Not that I really care what LJ does, I'm out of this nut house
techno_goddess
All of these rules are crap anyway, but at least with the pr0n someone *might* be able to point to some terrible images that might possible offend even the staunchest advocate of free speech. But serial-adding? I've never been able to figure out why people get so upset about this. And now they are suspending adders. Amazing.
Funny how when LJ tries to "clarify" their invisible rules, they just make themselves look even more ridiculous.
littlegirllover
I dunno. I actually didn't think it was too awful bad at all. LJ has a vision of the kind of service it wants to create/maintain, and has put together a set of policy guidelines reflecting that in a fairly clear way.
You definintely gotta give them points for "short and sweet."
It's also obvious they don't wanna lose that chunk of users who compose "fandom," and are into fanfic, etc - even the kind that portrays adult-child sex. I really think they've done their best in these policies to have their cake and eat it, too.
Ya gotta give a tip of the hat to any business that manages to do that - and the tens of thousands of "these kinds" of users who remain at LJ are evidence of the same.
Complete lulz at the friending bit, too!
anniemoon
dogemperor
How about they fucking start enforcing their own longstanding rules against communities promoting harm to others in regards to certain child-abuse communities? (I'd say "Put an explicit rule on it", but not only is this not necessary, I don't trust LJ to not selectively yank fandom communities whilst real life child abuse communities on Livejournal are allowed to exist (no, the "Bible-based baby beating" communities "trainupachild" and "babywise" have *still* not been yanked, despite a) their material being illegal in LJ's home state of CA, b) documented examples of instruction on child abuse given to LJ Abuse, and c) extensive documentation provided to their abuse department that the material is not only illegal but has been documented to be linked to the real life deaths of children).
yayforjae
pen
As I commented in LJspeaks on lj...
I thought I would chime in here a bit. There may be legal reasons they are making these changes.
I attended a legal class recently on blogs and the liability for the site owner. A lot of sites have been relying on a case law interpretation of the CDA Safe Harbor as providing them blanket immunity from content that users publish on their site. However, there have been recent decisions to limit the scope of that law, at least as the presenters saw it. They feel recent decision leave sites open for liability in certain cases where the content is more questionable/flagrant. The feel the court is moving towards relying on a more middle of the road interpretation of this law. That means that there are arguments lawyers can use to reasonably file their cases against a site like LJ.
It seems like LJ is reacting to a narrow understanding of these decisions and is not willing to defend itself to allow a broader type of content on its servers. That does not reassure me as a user.
Personally, I'm not sure how they expect people to post their content again there. There will always be competing interests.
shadowstar
anniemoon
tephra
I know I'd rather they used "friend" for the mutual friends and "watching" or "reading" and "watched by" or "read by" for the one way connections.
shadowstar
tephra
But if you want to hop over to ideas and suggest it, go for it. It should be a lot less controversial than what I was hoping for. :)
anniemoon
To me, it's kind of like the PM system at TWOP; with a forum as huge as that, sometimes you can get really nasty PMs. There's always the option of asking one of the mods to intervene, but it's just easier to block that user from PMing you again, and makes less work for the people who are doing the truly important things involved in keeping the site running smoothly. Does that make sense? It's not a perfect analogy but, um...I'm going to have some more coffee. Heh.
tephra
Really, they need a "ban" ticky box on the manage friends page. Make it go through a confirmation page so you can't do it accidentally and that should cover it.
anniemoon
blktauna
But really, you should have the option of saying, er no I don't want this person to have me on their list. GJ used to have it and I liked it.
Its easier than doing custom lists because at least here, I'm trying to keep things public. LJ was completely locked down and it was impossible to see or talk to anyone new like it is here.
ondore
Sooooooo I'm still perfectly happy exclusively with IJ.
snorkackcatcher
Because people who do this can be a pain in the arse? Basically, it's the 'Slashdot effect' writ smaller; if you link to some remote image in a context in which lots of people are likely to access it, the person hosting the image gets charged for all the bandwidth used. Now maybe that's OK if the image is a public one that people are supposed to link to (or at least the page it's on), but if it's some random personal image, not so much. If you want to show it, surely netiquette is at least to host it on your own space.
mimesis
if you're interested in examples of unwanted friending, i can provide a few that i've witnessed:
"unwanted friending" seems to aggravate the heck out of LJers who have real life restraining orders against the unwanted friend.
it also tends to bother ex-fiancees whose previously intended other follows their posts even after they break up [horrifically].
just seeing the unwanted friend's LJ name on the userinfo page can make even the most resilient person nauseous at the memory of persistent RL abusive behavior.
LJ has not demonstrated a good history of acknowledging RL interactions in their "tos abuse" evaluations.
simons_flower
I have many people who have friended me and whom I have not friended back. I don't want to get rid of them, though they weren't exactly wanted. They can't see anything on my journal in any case.
mimesis
it makes me very sad that it's always the victims who have to reduce their visibility in these cases. not that someone couldn't type in a url and read any public posts---but why make it easy for the unwanted friend to syndicate the victim?
it also makes for a very visible gender bias: every example i cited was one where a woman had to abandon the chance to make public posts or gain readership. never the guy who was getting a kick out of making her feel anxious and afraid.
:/
just my opinion, but i don't think that the "unwanted friend" rule has anything to do with random, anonymous adding. rather, i think that in this case LJ is finally trying to do something to address a subtle and insidious problem that manifests on their website.
nostariel
I'm not sure what you're talking about here? I mean, I understand you're referring to the friends page feature, but every journal also has a built in RSS feed which functions in much the same way. With friending you're at least notified of the other person's behavior, and can ban them accordingly. AFAIK, you can't ban people from subscribing to your journal's RSS feed with a feed reader.
There is absolutely no security or privacy to be had with such a change, only the illusion of security and privacy. Such illusions are counterproductive at best and dangerous at worst. When an entry is posted in public, it is public. As in, it is available for anyone to stumble upon and read. This is exactly why f-locking and filtering exist, to provide privacy options for the user.
mimesis
...and i'm not exactly sure which change you're referring to here.
i think it's important to note that the OP was about unwanted friending, and that is what my comments are addressing.
the examples i mention are worthwhile, if only because not a single person in the comments could envision a situation where that would occur.
nostariel
Whoops! I had a bunch of tabs open and thought you were someone else that I've been arguing with about friends-of lists editing, and why I don't think such a feature is good idea. I didn't mean to snap at you like that, I'm sorry!
ex_tsunami11
Try it.
mimesis
but to be honest, i'm not the one who needs to "try it." i'm not restricted to caring only about what happens to me. those examples are things that happened to people i know.
:/
ex_tsunami11
ex_tsunami11
ex_tsunami11
Like people have been saying since the internet was created: If you don't want your ex/mom/pastor/best friend to find it, don't put it on the internet, and don't make it public.
louvedegaule
I used to be a serial adding troll, back when I was in junior college and had a surplus of time on my hands. :-[ I had numerous people threaten to turn me in to teh Abuse team for adding them and then post profanity-filled screeds against my evil deed in their journals. It was hilarious, but it got old and lame after awhile.
Doesn't make it any less stupid, but yes,it happens.