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back to article LiveJournal says sorry for blanket sex-talk censorship

LiveJournal has apologised after taking down 500 discussion groups it felt were too sexed up. The purge was intended to wipe out discussion of paedophilia, rape, and sexual violence, the firm says. Ironically, journals run by people who work to support victims of sexual abuse also got caught in the cleansing. Barak Berkowitz, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another main reason...

    ... was that it took Six Apart's team some two days plus to post any kind of information whatsoever on Livejournal, citing 'they were on the road and were checking things'. This would be the same two days spent conducting phone interviews with CNet or running around on digg-a-like sites (Metafilter, etc.) posting on comment threads and forums trying to clear their name.

    Note 'information' in this case includes the simplest of messages saying 'Watch this space'.

    While theoretically they were entirely in their right according to their TOS - standard 'can delete for any reason' boilerplate goes here - the corporate handling was pretty abysmal, with their responses on forums often inflammatory or completely inaccurate - at least one sparked a row by saying something akin to 'Our policy has changed, full stop.' which... turned out to be completely erroneous.

    I also might be wrong, but as I understand it WFI tried to sidestep the 'veteran' Abuse Team (who would, one assumes, have taken one look and gone 'you what?') and went straight to Six Apart, for the less technically-experienced team.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Are WFI a group of right-wing fundamentalist nutjobs?

    You guys might be interested to know that there is some evidence that WFI has extreme right-wing leanings.

    There is a rather well researched piece in the "Dark Christianity" LJ group here..

    <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/830650.html">Warriors for Innocence": Possible "Joel's Army" group?"</a>

    Being a Brit, I've got no idea of the difference between "Christian Patriot", "Neo-Confederate" or "White Supremacist".. but I'm pretty certain these are slightly dodgy people for LJ/6Apart to be taking instructions from.

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  3. andrea

    Maybe a tad bit off..

    ::Berkowitz moved quickly to issue a statement saying::

    If by quickly you mean two days later...

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  4. pewter_wings

    LJ caved in to threats

    WfI had been pressuring LJ for some time to remove any journal that did not reach their ideals for decency. WfI threatened LJ with legal action. " I realize it is a huge burden to police such a large internet society, but when someone like WFI reports this type of abuse, it should not require weeks of arguments and emails to law enforcement agencies to get the sites deleted."

    May 9, 2007

    When that did not produce the desired effects, WfI hit yet again, this time with threats to 6 Apart's advertisers.

    'I have contacted these advertisers and informed them of where their ads are placed. I have had nothing but shock and thanks for my efforts.'

    May 18, 2007

    While the basic premise to make people safer is laudable, WfI uses language in its fight that can be described as inflammatory at best. They seem to believe that if someone expresses an interest in molestation, they must be searching out their next victim.

    "Molestation, Child Sex, Child Porn....These are just a few of the “interests” that LiveJournal.com users name in their journals and profiles. Some are much worse and I won’t even print them here."

    May 9, 2007

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    6Apart considering an IPO?

    As to the reason *why* 6Apart thought that kowtowing to a hate group was a good idea, current thinking is that they were frightened that being labelled as a "paedophile hangout" would have jeopardized any prospective IPO.

    http://www.greatestjournal.com/users/stewardess_/683.html for more information, cites, sources, etc.

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  6. Cortland Richmond

    419 and Blanket Paedophilia cleanup

    This is reminiscent of the Nigerian 419 scams; which section 419 made it a crime to report.

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  7. breakfast Silver badge

    Hold on a second...

    You say:

    "There has been NO irreparable damage done here, people are blowing it WAY out of proportion and creating way more drama than there needs to be."

    Surely blowing things out of proportion and creating way more drama than necessary is the whole point of LiveJournal?

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