Many of you by now have heard about the "Great Boldout"--the followup to the Great Strikeout of 2007 (the Strikeout having been initiated by Warriors for Innocence, whom we're reported on before)--and how fandom communities are being rather specifically targeted.

One particular official post from an LJ employee on the lj_biz community seems to indicate, among other things, that communities promoting anorexia (and by "promoting", we mean "giving explicit instructions on where to get pills and how to binge/purge") are okay under the argument "Bad advice isn't illegal".

For what it's worth, I saw the bit on their new TOS prohibiting "child abuse of any sort"...what I found in a search was that it's apparently not just anorexia they are supporting.

( Evidence suggests that communities supporting some of the most egregious forms of 'Bible-based' baby-beating and starvation are perfectly acceptable on Livejournal )

I have reported this to Livejournal (in both the thread over on lj_biz and in two formal abuse complaints (#797388 concerning trainupachild and #797391 concerning babywise. We'll see if anything is done; I seriously doubt it.

EDIT 12 AUGUST 2007:

As of today, Livejournal Abuse has still done nothing in regards to the two abuse complaints in question.

There is also some very disturbing information to suggest that we may be dealing with a pattern of favouritism towards dominionists in the US Government as well. Specifically (via the following post from Jihad Against "Innocence"), the New York Times has reported that the Department of Justice is in essence outsourcing its internet obscenity and indecency complaints to a dominionist group:

In the last few years, 67,000 citizens’ complaints have been deemed legitimate under the program and passed on to the Justice Department and federal prosecutors.

The number of prosecutions resulting from those referrals is zero.

That may help explain why no one — not Justice Department officials, not Mr. Wolf, not even the religious antipornography crusader who runs the program — seems eager to call the project a shining success.

The department Web site invites citizens to report material that they believe is obscene so it can be investigated and, perhaps, prosecuted. Clicking on the site to make a report takes the user to ObscenityCrimes.org, which is run by Morality in Media, the grant recipient.

Morality in Media is a conservative religious group that has worked since 1962 to “rid the world of pornography"...

Morality in Media is in fact a group founded by dominionist leaders which has an agenda going far, far beyond merely banning the obscene. Among other things, they've tried to force supermarket chains to remove Glamour and Cosmopolitan magazines from the shelves (and have those magazines treated the same as "Playboy" or "Penthouse" elsewhere), has tried to force hotel chains to stop offering adult channels altogether (as of now, most hotel chains do but they WILL gouge you for it), and have tried to yank commercials for Carl's Jr./Hardee's and television shows well within most of America's "community standards" off the air (and was one of two dominionist groups behind the FCC's decision--later ruled unconstitutional--to fine radio and TV stations up to $500,000 per incident in regards to material considered "indecent" (the FCC of course refused to define what was "indecent") after "Boobiegate").

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sailormac)

I work for a travel industry trade publication. We promote hits to our Web sites via Google ads, which, apparently, show up on LJ free accounts (I've had a paid one almost as long as I've had LJ).

On Monday morning, I found the following in my work E-mail:

From: warriorsforinnocence@gmail.com
Subject: Your Company’s Ad Appears on a Child Sex/Rape Site
Date: June 16, 2007 8:45:01 PM EDT

Dear [name of publication] Staff,

I have found a [name of publication] ad on a very inappropriate web page, in close proximity to such subjects as Incest, Family Sex, F***ing children, Child Molesting, Child Pornography, and other disturbing topics. I am sure that as a responsible and well respected company, you know nothing about this, as many advertisers on LiveJournal.com do not.

I have taken a screen shot of this disgusting page with your ad on it and will be glad to email it to you if someone will contact me with an email address to which to send it.

There are hundreds of these pages in the LiveJournal community with ads by many unsuspecting companies such as yours. Many of these sites have been reported to LiveJournal, but they choose to allow this content despite a negative reaction to it.

LiveJournal recently launched a campaign, in response to our requests, to suspend many of these inappropriate sites. Unfortunately, they have since changed their minds and have brought many of these sites back online.

I'm afraid that the only way to ensure the safety of your company's reputation is to remove all ad support from LiveJournal. Google Adsense and Google Adwords are the main providers of advertising for LiveJournal. I urge you to contact your advertising departments/managers and have your ads pulled from all of LiveJournal.com.

I can also provide information on how to conduct a search of "objectionable" sites that may contain your ad. I would be happy to work with you in obtaining any information that you need.

I trust that you do not support this and will withdraw your support from LiveJournal.com in order to maintain the reputation you have earned.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Sues
WFI team member
http://www.warriorsforinnocence.org/
warriorsforinnocence@gmail.com


--
We are the only thing that stands between evil and the innocent. We can no longer stay silent or passive- no longer do nothing. ~ http://www.warriorsforinnocence.org/

Yes, apparently, they're back, and this time, they're going after people who use Google Ads.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY karnythia)

Looks like Warrior For Innocence is back to its old tricks.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY zorya_thinks)

I noticed one of the conmenters on an earlier post had said that WFI's website was not longer active.

Actually, they are still alive and well. The url ends in dot org, not dot com.

They have a post on their main page regarding the LJ dust-up. They suggest that LJ restored some pedophile journals as well as mistakenly deleted journals. Appears that they aren't going away any time soon.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY legless123)

This whole WFI thing has turned out to be an unexpected good thing from my point of view. In my LJ, I've occasionally ripped into the USA as, from the UK, it looked as if the whole of America was slow-stepping towards a totalitarian religious future - with nobody doing anything to stop it.

Then along comes WFI and series of links and I arrive here where I find that not all Yanks are asleep and that some of you are opposing the religious right.

I've spent the last day reading article after article on this community and learned a hell of a lot. - Like not to dismiss all Americans as ignorant Bush puppies. Almost everything I've read is well-written, well researched and attention grabbing.

I think I'm going to like it here.

Cheers

Legless

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY einatlanta)

Go here or here to get quick instuctions for cleaning malware spread by WFI. You'll know if you need a clean when you experience a signifigant lag in internet page load time.

I know the excellent belleweather and lihan161051 have covered this topic a bit in posts earlier today, but I thought a quick'n'dirty PSA might help some of the less tech-savvy among us (me included). We know thanks to lihan161051 that the malware jumped to LJ servers at some point, so even if you didn't visit WFI, it's possible you're infected.

Thanks to the excellent catrinella for the links - and for all her hard work on the fannish side of this battle.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY gothic_oreo)

Who else has been struck by the irony of of dominionist anti-pedophile groups when there is so much child abuse up to and including pedophilia in Dominionist circles?

Case after case has surfaced and in group after group I have heard tell of children being beaten, sexually abused, and emotionaly abused in these groups. When this happens, the survivor's accounts are often the tale of the circling of wagons, protecting the perpetrator, and blaming the victim.

It seems to me WFI should follow their own books advice and make sure their own house is in order in regards to pedophilia and incest before they go throwing stones at people who are not even associated with such abominations.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY belleweather)

I was unaware of this issue, but it appears that the sort of malware that people are encountering at the "Warriors for Innocence" site can be used as a way for websites to generate revenue. ziz has a great post about the issue which talks about how websites can use being the vector for infections as a sort of 'affiliate' deal to raise a ton of money -- especially after starting a huge contraversy and being linked to from slashdot, CNet and BoingBoing.

I have very strong feelings about doing anything that makes money for Dominionist groups and those tied for them, and I know other people in this community probably do as well. If you feel that way, it's even more important to use firefox, a strong firewall and to immediately remove any nasties from your machine with a good anti-spyware program or two.

Just FYI.