Barak Berkowitz (Chairman and CEO) has posted an explanation and apology on LJ. Somewhere in the midst of it he says
We never intended this policy to cause the removal of journals that were have perfectly valid discussions about literature, law or culture. We never intended the policies to take down journals or communities clearly opposed to illegal activities but clearly we did. We love our members of fandom and respect their role in our community. We made a mistake and now we are going to try to fix it.
The line about fandom seems kind of thrown in there randomly, but at least we were mentioned, I suppose.
Hmmm. I tried to post my response to this clusterfuck now that there's actually someone stepping up and explaining what happened, and got this message:
This part of the database is temporarily down for maintenance. Try again in a few minutes.
I assume it's the system choking on the sheer amount of angry responses, rather than a sign that two-way dialogue was never an enabled option to begin with?
I got the same thing - but there were over 4000 comments last I checked.
I read the release but haven't had a chance to look at comments.
One thing I want 6A/LJ to address is why in the past when people have contacted them about users/comms that are for pedophiles based on content and interests LJ told them they couldn't do anything. But now they start deleting comms based on interests alone.
Another LJ update: [link]
Journals being restored
As promised below we have reviewed the journals that have been suspended and are now in the midst of unsuspended about half of them.
The class of suspensions that are being reversed are;
1. All Fandom journals
2. All fiction journals
3. All journals who that had problems in their profile only
A large number of journals that are clear violations of our policies will remain suspended.
Half?!? That's not very good odds.
Well, conversely, "all" is very good odds.
I'm...not sure what that means. Maybe I wasn't clear in my spluttering.
My irritation with this whole thing is almost entirely from the way it was handled. If LJ had taken down comms dedicated to incest fiction, I honestly wouldn't have been surprised. They are a business, and their profitability and liability is much more of a priority than fannish satisfaction. Also, you won't catch me listing incest in my interests, even if it was something I read. (I checked, and the worst thing I had was "gay vampire snuff porn." Does anyone even remember where that joke originated?)
But the way they went about it was insane, from a PR standpoint (as I have already rambled on about), and now, at the end, to come back and say, "Whoops, half of those 500 deletions were totally wrong?" After the CEO was quoted in the CNET article saying he'd be surprised if more than "a dozen" were wrongly deleted?
I feel like I'm back in school, reading a case study of how not to do things.
I checked, and the worst thing I had was "gay vampire snuff porn." Does anyone even remember where that joke originated?
Nope, but it's an excellent way to find other 'fistas... I mean, were I the kind to have that in my interests. *koff*
I did a threadsuck and I found this from Due South: Mountie Fetishists from Fay:
I bit my lip before playing the "Hey, I write fiction about the Jossverse & Smallville characters and publish it online. Up to and including gay vampire snuff porn" card, because that may have been TMI. Especially since it was a temp job.
But I'm not sure if that's the first mention.
