It's raining!!! Yes, I know how childish that sounds but it's the only constant thing that always uplifts my mood. And possibly every other post during the monsoons will contain it so please bear with me. :-) And might I add, how wonderful I feel when it rains and how refreshing it is. Boy, do I love the smell of mud and watching the sky.
I don't really consider myself as a extreme nature lover so these are the few times when I do actually express my joy for it.
It's been a day(s) of wank like never before at LiveJournal. Wow, this melting pot just keeps getting hotter.
How does it all start?
Warriors of Innocent is an organization that has pledged to fight against child abuse, pedophiles etc. Sue over at WFI send letters to LJ about the advertisments and
communities that were being run by pedophiles on the great green land of LJ. Some had accounts of people describing how they committed child rape and other offences.
While some expressed their desire in form of writing in these communities. Whether they were true crimes being told or just fictional writings, I can't really tell. Sue pressurized LJ to take some action and close down these communities. LJ crew over-reacted and started picking out journals and communities which had the interests child rape, pedophilia, incest etc and started deleting them without warning.
So where does the problem arise?
They deleted a community which discussed the book Lolita. Did it ever occur that despite the objectionable subject, the book is a literary marvel and that people with interests in the writing were a part of the community and that that is solely what it exsisted for? Similarly in various fandoms incest, pedophilia are widely a subject of pairings. However, this is just FICTION. Just because someone writes weasleycest or a Hermoine/Snape fanfic, it doesn't mean that they are pedophiles or a reason for concern. The characters are fictional. LJ however, deleted even these innocent journals. This caused a rage among all fellow LJers. Another side of the whole ordeal was support groups. Rape and abuse victims had all listed their interests in a similar fashion. Some of the support communities were also deleted.
The problem here isn't that they were trying to drive away the real culprits but that a large percentage of those driven were innocent and that it was all carried out carelessly and in an impatient manner. This was also seen as a deprivement on freedom of speech by many. But mostly it was "I want to read my pr0n".
What they should have done:
1. READ the content of the community or journal before blasting it into the oblivion.
2. They should have given prior warnings to the users who had objectionable content and a period for them to justify it. They would have solved the problem of RPG groups and fanfic communities being dissolved.
3. Go back to 1.
Now after two full days of misery and whining, LJ/Six Apart CEO surfaced and posted a reasonable apology where they admitted that they did screw up.
Way to go LJ! Don't make such a mistake again!
And now they are reinstating the journals that are legitimate.
And so it ends
