I don't mean my subject line to belittle anyone's panic, really. It just popped into my head after a jaw dropping peruse of my f-list this morning.
I do believe this...what did someone on my f-list call it?...the Great Fanpocalypse of 2007 (Sorry, I forget which of you coined that phrase - the f-list has been crazy this morning.) is not to be taken lightly. Particularly as a writer, I disagree vehemently with censorship in pretty much all its forms. Writing something that might depict disturbing or even illegal activities is not illegal, and should not be censored as though it were.
If that were the case, movies like
Saw III would never get made. You have no idea how much said movies turn my stomach, and I for one can't believe that anyone pays good money to see them, but again, they are
fictional. Does anyone believe that by making these movies, the people responsible are endorsing the actions of mass murder and torture?
I think everyone who knows me already knows that the subjects in question are NOT interests of mine. I am, in fact, bothered by them a great deal. But I'm more bothered by the LJ team's response of arbitrarily, permanently deleting these journals without allowing those who run them/pay for them to mount any sort of explanation, or defense.
For the three of you reading this who have NO IDEA of what I speak,
go here to read a much more detailed explanation of the situation that I can give - the short of it is, a concerned group has searched LJ interests for certain topics, and reported them to the LJ PTB, who's lawyers have then advised them that allowing journals with said interests listed to exist means they are condoning the crimes themselves. My understanding is a bunch of Harry Potter fandom communities/journals have been deleted, as well as a Spanish discussion community of the classic literary novel,
Lolita. *boggles*
I am outraged, in the same way I am when I hear about a middle school banning
Harry Potter, or I see that book burning scene in
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
I get the sweep of paranoia, people backing up their journals in case something happens (um...is there an easy way to do that?), going 100% friends only, etc, etc. I really do. I get the "what's next?" worry - hey, I was on ff.net when they went "no mature fic" for some pretty similar reasons to why LJ's doing this. I could see it possibly going that way, someday. I hope not, but now the threat of it looms over all of fandom, as LJ is pretty much the central hub of fandom. So I get the panic.
But I will absolutely not be going friends only because of this. Or changing my interests (not that I have any listed that might get me banned, at the moment). I do worry about some of my
Supernatural peeps, cause I know Wincest is a big part of that fandom. I'm making a personal choice, based on the fact that I will not bow to censorship, period. If it comes to that, I'm outta here. I'll find a less censorly minded journal site to journal on. (Hopefully one with many of the same features LJ has. Gosh, that's kinda scary. I've gotten very comfortable here.)
I hope it doesn't come to that, but if it it does...maybe we should all be looking for the right LJ-alternative to bail to. Which would really hit LJ hard, given how much of their clients are fandom.
ETA: I really don't think it'll get to the extreme of bailing on LJ. Apparently, LJ itself was unaware of the risks the 'interests' feature opened them up to until this group pointed them out. And also, some of the comms shut down were actual comms for the interests in question, meaning
not just fictional, fandom comms/journals were shut down, they were more like the collateral damage of the situation. So, chances are reasonable this will blow over, and if you're worried, go through your interests and change any that deal with certain activities and children. IF this sort of thing ever extends to other, legal mature content between consenting adults, then I'll revisit the above paragraphs.