Open letter to Livejournal, regarding proanorexia

[thevelvetsun]

Dear Livejournal/Six Apart:

I will begin by stating that my intent with this is to get proanorexia permanently suspended. First I will provide numerous specific examples of how this community encourages self harm, and then I will explain why I think suspension is the only option.

http://community.livejournal.com/proanorexia/47176758.html

This girl hasn't eaten in 56 hours, she is suffering from physical symptoms of starvation. She is not asking for support to overcome her eating disorder, she is asking for tips on how to continue not eating. All of the comments on the post except for one are encouraging her not to eat. Because of this advice, she likely gained the willpower to continue to not eat. I wonder how long she will continue not eating. Perhaps until she starves herself to death.

http://community.livejournal.com/proanorexia/47255184.html

This girl is 6'0" and is only 134 pounds. She claims to have lost 13 pounds in 2 weeks. This is clearly extreme and harmful behavior. Another girl commented to her entry, congratulating her for losing so much weight, and asking for tips on how to lose that much weight. The original poster provided very specific instructions. This is clearly harmful advice, encouraging self harm.

http://community.livejournal.com/proanorexia/47254138.html

This girl fasted for an entire day. She didn't intake any calories, but she did exercise for 2 hours to burn calories. She asks for support to keep her going on her fast. All of the comments to the entry are encouraging her to keep fasting. This is clearly harmful advice, encouraging self harm.

http://community.livejournal.com/proanorexia/47253459.html

This girl is asking for other people to help her stay on track for a 3 day fast. Every comment to the entry is another girl agreeing to the fast, agreeing to starve her body for 3 entire days, just because this post encouraged her to.

http://community.livejournal.com/proanorexia/47250212.html

This entry contains one line: "I wanna eat pls don't let me!" Every single comment to the entry is encouraging the poster not to eat. They are encouraging her to starve herself, which is undeniably self harm. We don't know how long the original poster has gone without eating. Because of this post she may have gained the willpower to continue not to eat.

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Now I will explain why I think suspension is the only option.

http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos.bml

The Terms of Service cleary says: "You agree to NOT use the Service to promote or provide instructional information about illegal activities, promote physical harm or injury against any governmental entity, group or individual."

This community is blatantly providing instructions to promote physical harm to individuals.

http://www.livejournal.com/abuse/policy.bml#selfharm

This policy clearly states: "If entire community is dedicated to providing instructions on how to best commit self-destructive behavior, along with frequent incitement for others to do the same, terminate community."

This entire community is dedicated to encouraging self-destructive behavior, and there is frequent incitement for others to do the same. According to livejournal policy, the solution is to terminate the community.

This community is not a support community for girls to overcome their eating disorder. They are not "healing together as a community", as one livejournal employee recently stated in a comment in lj_biz. They are starving to death together as a community.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16098915/site/newsweek/

Proponents say they offer 'support,' but a Stanford University study finds that patients who visited pro-anorexia Web sites were sicker longer.

By allowing proanorexia and communities like it to stay active on livejournal, you are, by association, encouraging self harm. As a company that claims to care about its users, you can't continue to allow these communities to remain active. You can't in good conscience allow these girls to continue to seek out advice for how to starve themselves. Shutting them down is the only way to stop the cycle of self harm.

Sincerely,
thevelvetsun

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I will give Livejournal 48 hours to respond to this open letter. If, after 48 hours, I have not received a response, and proanorexia hasn't been suspended, I will send this letter to every media outlet I can get ahold of, as well as organizations dedicated to stopping eating disorders, such as NEDA and ANRED.

If any users would like to help me, you can firstly comment here with your 'signature', so Livejournal can see how many people feel the same way. Secondly, you can give me contact information for media outlets and anorexia awareness organizations. Thirdly, you can pimp this post far and wide. The more people we have, the more likely it is that livejournal will respond.

Thank you.

EDIT: Proof that livejournal has been ignoring this problem here, here, here, and here.

EDIT 2: I've submitted an exact copy of this letter to Abuse. My tracking number is 797509.

EDIT 3: I am screening all comments that aren't 'signature' comments, including my own responses. This is so that the comment count is an exact signature count. It just makes things easier. Thanks.

EDIT 4: Please only comment here if you are providing your signature. If you would like to further discuss this with me, please see this post. Thank you.

EDIT 5: Screencaps here, here, here, here, and here. Deleting a couple entries isn't going to solve this. That community blatantly promotes self harm, and is therefore breaking the LJ TOS. If you truly want support, go somewhere like ed_ucate or ed_recovery, where the members will support you and understand you but will not give you tips on how to starve yourself.

EDIT 6: The media has been contacted. It's not too late to add your signature. This issue isn't resolved yet.

EDIT 7: Update.