The LJ Censorship Situation
I've read a lot of posts about the recent LJ censorship situation. I thought I'd throw my two cents into the fray and then return to my little cave in the hills. (No, it's not the same one that the AdultViggo ladies live in, but it's in the same neighborhood. *wink*)
I do not condone censorship in any form. We might not all be adults here, but I think we all are mature enough to understand that not everyone has the same opinion about everything. Live and let live and all that. No one here is forcing anyone to read something or look at pictures or artwork. We all do this voluntarily. Just because one person doesn't like something does not give them the right to take away the rights of the rest of us to make our own judgement. Which just simply means I don't agree with whomever is doing the complaining about whatever material they have deemed "offensive" that started this whole broo-hah-hah in the first place!
Many people are suggesting that we all abandon lj entirely and move to another journal site to avoid the censorship. However, has anyone actually read the fine print of the TOS on the other journal sites? (No, I haven't yet, either...I'm just asking.) Even if we did all move to one or more of the other sites, is it not entirely probable that the same censorship issues would arise no matter where we all actually end up? Whatever material has been banned or deleted or censored here on lj could quite likely be banned or deleted or censored on the other sites, too. I've been around long enough to see this kind of thing happen several times. The same thing happened years ago on eGroups long before it became Yahoo Groups, its happened on Yahoo Groups since, and I have no doubt that it will happen on all these other journal sites some time in the future.
I'm not a lawyer and I know very little about the laws that may or may not govern the internet, so I'm not going to get into any kind of legal discussion about all this. I'm just pointing out that this same thing has been happening for as long as people have been communicating in any form and is not likely to stop any time soon. Personally, I'll go wherever I can find fic in my fandom which means I'll simply add the other journal sites to my reading lists, but I'll still be here, too. I stuck it out on eGroups and Yahoo Groups, and I'll stick it out here.
Of course, this is just my opinion...I could be wrong.
Ginger
I do not condone censorship in any form. We might not all be adults here, but I think we all are mature enough to understand that not everyone has the same opinion about everything. Live and let live and all that. No one here is forcing anyone to read something or look at pictures or artwork. We all do this voluntarily. Just because one person doesn't like something does not give them the right to take away the rights of the rest of us to make our own judgement. Which just simply means I don't agree with whomever is doing the complaining about whatever material they have deemed "offensive" that started this whole broo-hah-hah in the first place!
Many people are suggesting that we all abandon lj entirely and move to another journal site to avoid the censorship. However, has anyone actually read the fine print of the TOS on the other journal sites? (No, I haven't yet, either...I'm just asking.) Even if we did all move to one or more of the other sites, is it not entirely probable that the same censorship issues would arise no matter where we all actually end up? Whatever material has been banned or deleted or censored here on lj could quite likely be banned or deleted or censored on the other sites, too. I've been around long enough to see this kind of thing happen several times. The same thing happened years ago on eGroups long before it became Yahoo Groups, its happened on Yahoo Groups since, and I have no doubt that it will happen on all these other journal sites some time in the future.
I'm not a lawyer and I know very little about the laws that may or may not govern the internet, so I'm not going to get into any kind of legal discussion about all this. I'm just pointing out that this same thing has been happening for as long as people have been communicating in any form and is not likely to stop any time soon. Personally, I'll go wherever I can find fic in my fandom which means I'll simply add the other journal sites to my reading lists, but I'll still be here, too. I stuck it out on eGroups and Yahoo Groups, and I'll stick it out here.
Of course, this is just my opinion...I could be wrong.
Ginger