Exposing LJ Abuse

LJ Abuse, lending Stalkers a Helping Hand

2006-12-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

The Blogging Times writes: Ripping LiveJournal A Well-Deserved Hole

The tale begins with Alex Lucard’s name and a popular British author’s preoccupation with the occult and Lucard’s name (spell it backwards and add an “a”) . This obsession led to him harassing blogger Alex Lucard on his LJ blog for many years and not only going after Lucard, but leaving lascivious comments about Lucard’s LJ friends as well.

After Lucard contacted LJ support and explained his situation, the man in question, Sean Manchester, a public figure in Britain, who has appeared on radio, documentaries, and penned several books decided to turn the tables on Lucard by stating he had been publicly exposed (re: named as the stalker) on Lucard’s blog and that this was illegal. LJ sided with Manchester and suspended Lucard’s account.

Lucard told the Blogging Times:

LJ basically said, “We don’t care. You wrote his full name and it doesn’t matter that he has six books published, tons of books written about him and that even six months ago UK courts once again ruled him a public figure. We’re going to ignore legal precedent and suspend you because he complained about his name being written in your blog.”

Lucard writes:

Basically here’s the deal. If you read me, you know that for years, this guy named Sean Manchester has stalked me. He’s a self professed “vampire hunter” that’s been made fun of by everything from the BBC and Channel 4 in the UK to Ramsey Campbell and Neil Gaiman mocking him in writing. He’s appeared on radio shows, done documentaries and has 6 or so books published and probably three times as many written about him. He’s been listed as a public figure since the late 1960’s. That’s nearly 40 years.

Why does he stalk me? Well, spell the last name backwards and that’s a pretty good hint.

OMG! My name almost is an anagram for Dracula! Holy crap! Obviously I am the lord of the undead! Bring me human blood and a pile of earth to line my coffin with! Sigh…

At first it was just crazy ranting emails, but then it eventually spread to my livejournal. He’d attack me, attack LJ friends, and even attack other anon commentors that would turn out to be rival occultists/vampire hunters. He’s been considered a right nut for over three decades by everyone who has ever encountered him.

Eventually though he decided to play nasty. He would complain to LJabuse that his name was showing up in my LJ and that it was an invasion of his privacy. Never mind that all these conversations were started by him or because of his stalking, or that the comments he was complaining about were often HIS OWN. Somehow he decided a public figure shouldn’t be talked about negatively. Even though every court on earth has laughed him right out of it every time he’s whined.

Six Apart's companies have done this sort of thing before, but last time SixApart CEO Barak Berkowitz made his apologies for the error: To put this situation mildly, this request is ridiculous…You should have every right to post whatever you want, even if it happens to be libelous - which I personally don't think it is in this case…the namby-pamby recommendation for "fixing" the issue seems childish and ineffective to the point that it shouldn't be suggested at all.

That was to Tribe.net founder Mark Pincus, after they attempted to censor his blog to have him remove the full name of a public figure. Will Alex Lucard get a similar apology, or is LiveJournal Abuse beyond even Barak Berkowitz's control?

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, six apart, barak berkowitz, freedom of speech, vampires, vampire hunters, stalkers

Links, LJs and Blogs

2006-06-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

This is going to be an entry of links and little commentary, I've been exceptionally busy IRL and apologize for not dealing with all the emails from the past 2 weeks yet. I promise more comprehensive updates soon!

A tale of LJ Abuse, vampire hunters, and screened comments.

Reassuring: Six Apart VP Anil Dash says "we really like having our community do a sanity check for us."

Less reassuring: Anil Dash offends some other LJ users.

These posts relate to another Petition about LiveJournal. You might also be interested in this post by former LJ employee insomnia.

Lastly I'm sorry to see that someone is using the comments here to further a private vendetta with another LJ user. If it continues I will turn on comment moderating. No I am not yellowest-finch, and it has not been at all hidden that Christine D (who took over the updates on the breastfeeding icon fiasco one weekend for me when I was away and it was all happening) is realcdaae on LiveJournal. I have linked to some of her posts.

Nipplegate summary

2006-06-08T01:39:00.000-07:00

Because this is being discussed on so many journals and blogs I thought it would be useful to provide a summary of events to people who are new to the story.

LJ user hardvice set his default icon to a piece of artwork which showed Bea Arthur topless. The icon was reported to LJ Abuse who said he couldn't use it as his default icon. They also told him his replacement version with cups over the nipples couldn't be used, then retracted and said it could. Hardvice and others decided to test the rule by reporting other icons with bare breasts, including some of mothers breastfeeding their babies. When women started to get emails from LJ abuse telling them their default icons were inappropriate, they were told it was because they were "sexually explicit". People emailed LJ abuse in protest, and were told that write-in campaigns were never effective in influencing LJ.

The page of the FAQ covering default userpics had read that sexually explicit or graphically violent userpics were inappropriate. On May 20 it was changed to refer to nudity instead. LJ abuse says this has always been their policy and the FAQ was updated to reflect the policy accurately. We have no way of verifying this of course, and the abuse policy document still reads sexually explicit.

A number of blogs picked up on the story of LJ abuse saying customers' voices were never effective in swaying them, and criticized the customer service this represents. Meanwhile Carrie from ProMom.org set up a "3 minute action" form allowing people to email Six Apart/LiveJournal about the default icon ban (which LJ refined to say "no exposed female nipple or areola"). Over 1500 people sent emails.

Carrie also talked to representatives from Six Apart on the phone, and Doug Bryan of 6A posted in the breastfeeding community apologizing for some of the actions of the abuse team (people complained about the rudeness of their attitude). However people criticized the half-hearted nature of his apology, and continued to bring up issues he had not addressed.

When it appeared that no further dialog was going to be forthcoming and users were still being threatened with suspension, even though it was obvious that members of other communities were reporting icons because of longstanding drama between their communities and the breastfeeding communities, a press release was sent out and a small group of mothers met at Six Apart's headquarters and held a "nurse in." The press release lead to discussions on various blogs (and a tripling in traffic to this one!). Some of the mothers and their supporters declared a "Step Apart from Six Apart day" on which they would all delete their journals for the day in protest.

The situation at the moment is that LJ abuse are still reinforcing the no female nipple or areola rule (including in classic art and Mary breastfeeding Jesus pictures). At the nurse in Doug Bryan told people that he did not want to be "autocratic" with the abuse team volunteers, which suggested that he was more concerned with the opinions of a small group of volunteers than the opinions of thousands of LiveJournal users. However according to emails sent out by Denise Paolucci (who heads the LJ abuse team) they are going to be reviewing their policies over the next few months and promise to pay attention to users' feedback.

Though I have my doubts that everything that needs dealing with will be addressed, it is a step in the right direction and I'll keep on being hopeful.

There are currently 630 signatures on the petition and Christine tells me she plans on sending it off to 6A next week.

For those who want to read the background in more detail, here are links to each of my entries on it, which link to blog and LJ community posts too.

Breasts, now against a TOS near you
Contradictions
Changing the rules
Six Apart notified
LiveJournal and customer relations
Updates / response from Six Apart
Responses to Doug Bryan's post , more responses
Listening? Bullshit.
More comments from users
Still more comments from users
The Virgin Mary breaks the rules
Press Release from ProMom.org
Doug Bryan doesn't want to be autocratic with abuse team volunteers

Also see the Gallery of unacceptable default icons and ProMom's media pack.

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, six apart, customer service, nipplegate, breastfeeding

Six Apart speaks? Doug and Anil

2006-06-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

3 nursing moms and a few friends held a "nurse in" outside the Six Apart offices in San Francisco yesterday. talula_fairie reports:

We were outside on the sidewalk for about an hour and a half. Doug and Ginger came down within twenty or so minutes. They said they'd been looking forward to seeing us and brought sandwiches down when we didn't come up. Eventually after awhile the noise was so bad and my voice was giving out from trying to yell over some construction work that we came up to talk in the conference room at SA (as an aside, I found it very amusing to see the headquarters of Live Journal).

I basically reiterated everything Carrie has already told Doug. I said that I think he should just tell the Live Journal Abuse team that breastfeeding icons are ok, period, end of story, as long as the baby is latched on. That is pretty clear cut. It's hard to know exactly what he is saying when he talks, but basically he said that he doesn't want to be "autocratic" with the abuse team members. He went on about how they are a volunteer staff and how they would have to hire 4-6 full time employees to replace them. He said the only person he can be "autocratic" (I officially don't like that word) with is Denise.

Rather than add my thoughts I will include this from the person who sent it to me (I have permission to post it from a locked post on LiveJournal).

What bullshit. He's saying they can't make a simple change in the way the rules are implemented without approval from his volunteers? Who is running this company and why is he being paid a salary if he can't handle his own volunteers? And why not be autocratic with Denise, if it's her job to manage the team? He certainly needs to lay down the law about how they deal with users, and how they talk to them in communities.

In another less than great decision Six Apart Vice President Anil Dash posted a comment on a blog entry about the Step Apart from Six Apart day, defending LJ but not mentioning his sizable vested interest. Another commenter followed his link and took him to task for leaving that out, and other commenters are criticizing the content of his defense.

Says Rachel:

Please don't do that, Anil. People can worry about major things and minor things at the same time. The argument that "rapes go on in Congo" has been used to shut up American feminists long enough that it should be clear by now that it's only purpose is to hold up a distraction and say "Stop talking about things I don't want you to talk about."

Speaking of comments, I see the drama hounds are taking advantage of anonymous commenting here. I prefer not to delete any comments, because if you start feeding the trolls you have to deal with them vomiting it back up at you. If things become out of hand I will turn comment moderation on. Besides, as there is now an LJ community called nipplegatesnark, you can snark there!

Lastly this blog is having another traffic burst, so a reminder to new readers about the petition calling on Six Apart to reform LJ Abuse.

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, six apart, customer service, anil dash, breastfeeding

Abuse team volunteer admits open prejudice

2006-06-04T20:30:00.000-07:00

Follow up to shamanix here: it's "LJ abuse are the victims" mode, and to top it off a plain-spoken admission of bias against a user who has disagreed with LJ abuse in the past. Yes, post anything critical of LJ abuse and you're just a troll.

Abuse team member shamanix says: "Lastly, given that you're one of the people who feels slighted by the Abuse Team, as evidenced by your postings to [info]abuse_lj_abuse, I'm afraid I can't put much stock in your opinion here."

realcdaae replies: "This is precisely why a number of people think the team should be made up of more professionals and fewer volunteers. One who sees someone disagreeing with them or asking questions as someone who feels "slighted" is not cut out for work that has, or should have, some element of customer service involved with it. I have always been polite when I've written to LJ abuse. I don't think it's asking too much for them to be polite back."

beyondinsanity says: "I find it very,very unprofessional that the abuse team members are making such comments to livejournal users."

shamanix replies: "Actually, what it meant is that from my personal perspective, [info]realcdaae is getting involved in the breastfeeding situation because of her personal ulterior motives."

realcdaae responds: "As you do not know me, your personal perspective about my "ulterior motives" is certainly not worth putting much stock in. I think your personal perspective may possibly be motivated by the fact that information you posted about the abuse team policies is shown to be inaccurate by my case. I have assumed that you believe the information to be accurate and that it is indeed the policy, and have hardly suggested that I blame you for it not being followed.

Hostility does breed hostility. I have been polite when I've communicated with the abuse team. I have received a significant amount of rudeness in return. You should not complain that you are jumped on for being unprofessional when you actively admit to being biased against users because they've disagreed with LJ abuse."

misfratz adds: "Did you ever consider that her 'personal' objections to the behaviour of LJ abuse team might be justified? Obviously if you attack an individual for no reason, they're going to side with/show solidarity towards others who are treated badly. I don't see why you would have a problem with this, unless the intention is to be divisive and deliberately ignorant."

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, six apart, customer service

When is a nipple not a nipple?

2006-06-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

mercy_rain writes:

Have you seen Denise Paolucci's default icon?
Profile.

According to LJA-Erin in the news community Denise's icon is just fine because it's covered with material, and not nude.

"The very definition of nude implies that a portion of the body is not covered up. [info]rahaeli's default icon that you link to clearly shows a sports bra.

"How can something be nude and in clothing at the same time? "

Well, according to Denise herself, it's NOT okay, which really is logical, because the whole point of wet t-shirt contests is that you can see a lot through the right kind of fabric.

In an email to me, wherein I asked some specific questions about exactly what is considered "nudity," she told me, "If the nipple or areola are visible -- such as in userpics where the breasts are covered but the fabric is sheer enough -- then it is also not permitted for use as a default userpic."

That is a DIRECT QUOTE from Denise Paolucci. Pity the rules don't apply to important people like her.

For those who can't see the nipple, I've added an arrow.

Breastfeeding default icons showing less nipple than this have been ruled inappropriate. Denise herself said that if the fabric is sheer enough to show any nipple the picture is not permitted for use as a default userpic. Except hers. It's just a few darkened pixels after all!

Abuse team members still can't agree on what the rules are, so it's not a surprise that other LJ support volunteers don't know how things work. One supporter said that instead of contacting LJ Abuse to complain about their ruling that breastfeeding icons showing areola were inappropriate as default userpics, people should have posted disputing the policy at the Suggestions community. Most users didn't realize that community covered policy disputes, but one user took up the suggestion and posted there.

The post was rejected by the moderator on the grounds that "The FAQ reflects current policy. If you have concerns about an Abuse policy,please contact the Abuse Team following the instructions in http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=105"

No wonder it takes 1500 emails to get their attention!

LJA-shamanix thinks some of us are fanning the flames because we have an axe to grind. I think my axe is sharp enough without any more grinding thanks!

LJA-shamanix also doesn't want people to have any help figuring out they can email him by putting his username in front of @livejournal.com (No one of course has answered Christine's question).

The Petition has over 500 signatures.

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, customer service, breastfeeding, denise paolucci

Step Apart from Six Apart, & Nurse In at 6A HQ

2006-06-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

Step apart from Six Apart on 06/06/06M

Let's communicate with SixApart. They can ignore e-mails: they can ignore letters: they can probably ignore nurse-ins, though anyone who lives near enough in San Francisco, Paris, or Tokyo should definitely give it a try on Tuesday 6th June.

What they cannot ignore - what their bottom line will not let them ignore - is a drop in numbers of the people using LiveJournal.

For anyone in San Francisco, "a nurse-in is planned to take place at Six Apart's US Headquarters, located at 548 4th Street, San Francisco, CA. The event is planned for 12 pm on Monday, June 5th. The activists encourage nursing mothers and supporters to join in the protest."

Tags: livejournal, six apart, press release, breastfeeding, protest, nurse-in

LJA oops

2006-06-01T19:24:00.000-07:00

(Previous content removed as it was a mistake on behalf of the LJ Abuse team, for which they apologized and it's resolved.)

From the ProMom media info page:

Bullet Points - Problems with LJ Abuse

No appeals process for suspensions, along with refusal to answer legitimate questions from users.
Inconsistant and contradictory answers given to users about LiveJournal's rules and what is regarded as a breach.
Questions raised about breaches of privacy and abuse team's ability to read users' private posts have not been answered.
Discourteous replies received by users asking questions.
Replies received evade questions put by users, and support requests are then closed with no further response.
Rules not specified in Terms of Service or abuse team policy document are used to suspend accounts, and definition of words (such as harassment) are twisted to suit team's decisions.

I will be adding reference links to that list in the next couple of days to specific examples.

A lot of blogs have picked up this story today so I'll leave you to do a Google blog search if you're interested!

Press Release: LiveJournal and Six Apart

2006-05-31T21:15:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Popular Blogging Site Restricts Use of Breastfeeding Photos:
LiveJournal cites images as 'inappropriate' and sends mothers to the virtual restroom.

Contact:
Carrie Patterson
Executive Director, ProMoM.Org
http://www.promom.org
carrie@promom.org
678-513-6329

Popular Blogging Site Restricts Use of Breastfeeding Photos:
LiveJournal cites images as 'inappropriate' and sends mothers to the virtual restroom.

Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 - Women on the popular blog site LiveJournal are calling foul at the company’s decision to brand images of breastfeeding as ‘inappropriate.’ Many users of the site have joined together to urge LiveJournal’s parent company SixApart to address their concerns and reevaluate the policy.

Small "userpics" of no more than 100 by 100 pixels represent LiveJournal members throughout the site. Users can define one of these icons as "default icon" which plugs it into the user's public profile. These default icons were originally not permitted to be ‘sexually explicit or graphically violent.’ Recently, icons which depicted breastfeeding were cited as being ‘inappropriate’ by the LiveJournal abuse team, a group of volunteers who monitor complaints on the site. After clarification was requested, LiveJournal changed their FAQ to reflect a no nudity rule and is claiming that icons with visible areola or nipple are not permitted. Whether or not areola is visible in a photograph is dependent on a number of factors, including skin tone of the mother and physical changes during pregnancy.

Claimed Live Journal Abuse Staffer 'Erin' in a post on the site, "That's really a matter for the FCC to decide. LiveJournal's policies on this mirror what would be allowed on primetime TV or in a PG-13 movie." However, this is not true. The FCC does not consider the act of breastfeeding on television to fall under the definitions of indecency or obscenity.

Breastfeeding is exempt from nudity laws throughout the United States as well as countries such as Canada. Advocates are urging LiveJournal to adopt the same criteria. "It is regrettable that LiveJournal has chosen to target breastfeeding mothers instead of standing up for the protection provided them by law," says Carrie Patterson, executive director of ProMom.org, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing public awareness and public acceptance of breastfeeding. Advocates state that the feeling that breastfeeding should be hidden only fosters the idea that the natural act of nourishing a child is scandalous.

Breastfeeding bloggers who have refused to change their default icon have been suspended from the site. These users, as well as others questioning the policy, have been treated poorly by the site’s volunteer abuse team, something that is not unusual according to other site users.

More than 1,000 LiveJournal users complained, and SixApart issued an apology to the group. However, the company refuses to consider modifying their policy and continues to suspend users whose default icons are deemed inappropriate. Although LiveJournal stated a clarified rule, mothers are still reporting major inconsistencies in its application.

The breastfeeding debacle is only the most recent in a long line of incidents that have people wondering if the abuse procedures as a whole should be reviewed for fairness and propriety. Complaints have been raised about users' privacy, inconsistent enforcement of the Terms of Service, conflicting information and responses from abuse team members, and discourteous replies to users seeking clarification on the rules.

Activists are now working together to get this policy changed and to clarify the policies and procedures of the LiveJournal abuse team. While some are refusing to continue paying for the service, others have moved to different journaling websites to protest what they feel is a violation of their rights.

For more information, contact Carrie Patterson at 678-513-6329 or carrie@promom.org or visit http://www.promom.org/bf_info/mp.html.

###

I will be acting as press contact for this blog.
Media inquiries to: Christine D. Clemens, cdaaeclemens@gmail.com

Don't forget the petition!

Some past posts on this topic:
LiveJournal and Customer Relations
Breasts - now against a TOS near you
Changing the Rules
Six Apart's Response + part two
More comments and yet more comments, from customers of LJ/6A.
LJ Abuse in Action

Tags: livejournal, six apart, press release, breastfeeding, protest

Six Apart launches new blogging community

2006-05-31T11:07:00.000-07:00

Six Apart is launching a new ad-supported blogging service, to "combine the publishing power of TypePad, the community aspects of LiveJournal and the years of insight garnered from Movable Type." Since Mena Trott wrote about the new service here it has been renamed from Comet to Vox.

"Half blogging platform for newbies (albeit with rich and deep functionality) and half social network" but I wonder, will Six Apart be giving it a professional abuse team? Will users of the new network be treated any better than LiveJournal users, and is Six Apart finding that LJ just doesn't make enough money to be worth taking seriously?

Before signing up for this new service potential users might want to look into how Six Apart has managed LiveJournal, it's a cautionary tale.

Tags: six apart, blogging, vox, comet, livejournal

Email to Six Apart/LJ from realcdaae

2006-05-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

From realcdaae's livejournal:

To: contact@sixapart.com, Barakb@sixapart.com, anil@dashes.com, Kevink@livejournal.com
Date: May 31, 2006 12:33 AM
Subject: Fwd: Abuse team and locked/private entries question

I am forwarding you the following email which I sent to Mark Ferrell, Denise Paolucci, and the LJ abuse team member [info]shamanix on Thurday May 25th.

I understand that it has been a holiday weekend, but I know that Mr Ferrell has been responding to abuse complaints in the past few days, so I am peturbed to have had no response.

If the abuse team has stated rules, clearly steps outside those rules, and implies that a LiveJournal member is lying, I think they have the duty to provide an explanation. I would like to know precisely what violation of US law was being investigated when LJ Abuse representatives looked at my friends locked entries (see below).

I look forward to your reply.

Forwarded Email

That's the CEO and VP of Six Apart, head of LiveJournal, and general Six Apart contact address. I wonder I wonder, will any of them reply?

Tags: lj abuse, livejournal, six apart, anil dash, denise paolucci

Consistency is a good thing

2006-05-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

So it's good to know that Mary breastfeeding Jesus is banned from default userpics too.

The post
The replacement icon

Friends of the poster are testing the bounds of nudity in classic art.

flyingsauce

swisstone

Tags: lj abuse, livejournal, art, breastfeeding, virgin mary

Quick update

2006-05-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

Major thanks to Christine for joining the team and updating over the weekend and I hope you all had a good Memorial Day. The LJ Abuse team have been rocking it up in Las Vegas we hear!

Not all of them I guess as they're sending out warnings to users for icons they are not even using. Spot the difference.

This post from The Snow in Summer is well worth reading with a summary of why the writer left LiveJournal that includes interesting commentary about how Six Apart has "violated the letter and spirit of the social contract between myself and Livejournal. That was the community I joined in 2003, those were the written community rules, ones that could only be changed with the majority consent of the community. But we forgot that corporateamerica knows no honour, only profit. Six Apart is a profit-seeking company, not a benevolent dictatorship. By acting in this dishonourable way, Six Apart kills its own society, kills its own source of riches, kills its own future."

I also had an email with a suspension notice I haven't seen before. "Your journal exists solely to disrupt the LiveJournal service."

The user asked "Please define 'disrupts the LiveJournal service.' It was a source of entertainment for myself and many others."

Noah on LJ abuse wrote back "Upon receiving a complaint regarding your account, we reviewed it. The entire content of the account consisted of marquees, extremely large images, flashing text and entries solely intented to harass other users. While the first three of these items are not violations in and of themselves, their use in nearly every entry and the general content and tone of the entries is sufficient evidence for the Abuse Team to make a determination that the account was not being used for any legitimate purpose."

We've seen before that what the Abuse Team calls harassing often isn't, and this user believes that maybe having an entry that called Michelle on the abuse team "incompetent" had something to do with their suspension.

Tags: lj abuse, livejournal, icons, social contract

Why LJ abuse needs to be answerable for its actions

2006-05-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

Most of the posts here in the last week have been focused on the breastfeeding icons controversy, but I think it's good to be reminded of some of the other problems with LJ Abuse which the petition is calling on Six Apart to address.

LJAB referred to one of them towards the end of this post.

User shamanix went further and stated:

"As has been said in this community numerous times, the ability to view locked/private entries is limited to LiveJournal's actual employees, and is only used in cases of copyright complaints or violations of United States law."

This is a lie.

realcdaae replied: "Untrue in my case. There was no copyright complaint, and no alleged violation of US law. In fact on the first occassion, my journal was not reported at all - they thought I was [info]yellow_finch, who had been reported for breach of a NONC, and then went into [info]cdaae to have a look."

LJAB raised it again on this thread, where shamanix replied "What people report and what actually happen are sometimes two very different things, as I'm sure you're well aware."

Perhaps I should be charitable and assume that shamanix has not read any of the details of the case, but either way, accusing an LJ user of lying to support an inaccurate claim by the abuse team is hardly professional behaviour.

I have emailed Denise Paolucci, Mark Ferrell, and shamanix, to ask them directly what breach of copyright or US law was alleged in my case, and posed the same question to Doug Bryan. I have yet to receive any answer.

LJAB mentions communities suspended for "incitement to harass", and one such suspension also casts considerable doubt on whether LJ Abuse follows the policies they profess to be guided by. A community called theljcirclejerk was created, largely as a joke in response to a troll. It had closed membership and all posts were locked to members only. LJ Abuse says they only investigate specific violations reported to them, and that only paid employees can look at locked entries and then only in cases of breach of copyright or US law.

How then did theljcirclejerk get suspended? No one in the community reported any of its posts, and there was certainly no breach of copyright or US law. Yet the locked posts of the community were read through, and members threatened with suspensions and perma-bans. A member had suggested that other members apply to join a support-related community, and the sudden rush of applicants who were all members of another particular community apparently lead to someone deciding to have a look. The post was deemed incitement to harass.

You may well feel that the abuse team has every right to look into such communities, but I think the least we can ask is that they be honest about it.

Don't forget the Call to Action, and spread the petition link around!

Tags: livejournal, six apart, lj abuse, privacy

Update, and some statistics

2006-05-27T23:18:00.000-07:00

Blogs are still talking about Six Apart and LiveJournal Abuse, and there are some interested statistics over at The Snow In The Summer or So-So (no, I don't know what the name means either!).

While I'm on the topic, here are some stats:

Total accounts: 10296172
updating in last 30 days: 1203631 (11.7%)
updating in last 7 days: 721606 (7.0%)
updating in past 24 hours: 253571 (2.5%)

Compare that against figures from March 2005:

Total accounts: 6611141
updating in last 30 days: 1520011 (23.0%)
updating in last 7 days: 970684 (14.7%)
updating in past 24 hours: 367704 (5.6%)

From June 2004:

Total accounts: 3171504
updating in last 30 days: 1153683 (36.4%)
updating in last 7 days: 756888 (23.9%)
updating in past 24 hours: 292198 (9.2%)

And from June 2003:

Total accounts: 1079730
updating in last 30 days: 413602 (38.3%)
updating in last 7 days: 291296 (27.0%)
updating in past 24 hours: 119504 (11.1%)

This is a pen, and a piece of paper. Draw your own conclusions.

They also ask, "When, then, will Livejournal get an abuse staff that is professional in operation, if not professional in status?"

Over on the Petition, people are asking the same thing. From the comments:

Beverley: "I wish to lend support to this petition. LJ Abuse needs to be staffed by individuals who are able to think rationally and put aside their own personal feeling towards members. Rules/guidelines need to be clearly laid out and the owners of LJ should make sure that not only the users stick to the rules, but also that the abuse team stick to the rules, not changing them in order to save face or validate an earlier banning. This issue runs deeper than breastfeeding pictures. I could not care less about pictures of nipples, but I DO care about being governed by a corrupt and inconsistent body of people who refuse to even discuss the reasons for their decisions."

Rob: "I am an longtime paid LJ user with no past run-ins, or friends who have had run-ins, with LJA. However, as an observer of LJ culture it has been patently apparent to me that a reform and EXTENSIVE personnel shakeup for the LJA team has been in order for at least the last two years."

Kimley "After interacting with the LJ abuse team, I'm convinced that they are there to abuse, NOT to address abuse on the system."

Kate: "A service which says that customer complaints will be systematically ignored? And one that deems breastfeeding inappropriate for general viewing? Some screwed up priorities there."

Michelle: "I'm still awaiting a response to my request of a non 'cut and paste' answer, actually addressing WHY this wasn't in violation of the TOS. I guess they don't have an answer. They just can't be bothered to do anything about it - they should be ashamed."

telosphilos: "Please try to take the complaints a little more seriously. It is rather fustrating when a feed like kittenbreak gets abused. In specific, this past week a gif was posted in a comment of felony animal abuse. Kko, the poster, returned the next day to continue his shinnanigans. If it had been taken seriously in the first place, it would have been a non-issue."

These last two are regarding a recent incident when a comment was left on a syndicated feed called kittenbreak. Kittenbreak gives a cute cat picture each day, and someone posted a "crush" film in the comments - that is, a film clip of someone brutally killing a kitten. In a normal community, the poster of the post or the community mod could delete it and ban the user, but as syndicated feeds don't have mods, no one could delete the comment.

Users complained to LJ Abuse and got the standard "freedom of speech, nothing we can do" answer. I'm not clear whether the person posted a link to a clip, or an embedded clip, or still shots from the clip; or whether LJ Abuse has removed it, but AFAIK no kind of action was taken against the poster. We'd welcome more info on this case.

It's interesting to note that LJ's objection to breastfeeding pictures in default user pics is because they can be seen anywhere on the site. Pedophiles can talk about things they've done on locked communities because they can't be stumbled across innocently. However, people reading feeds like Kittenbreak are not expecting to see graphic and sick violence against animals, either!

There was also a case reported in previous comments here where LJ Abuse didn't want to take action against people posting links to sites which installed trojans when you went to them. Again, I'm not sure if LJ abuse eventually look action on this. I'll leave that one to LJAB to look into.

Plans are being drawn up to contact the media if no progress is made with Six Apart this coming week.

Don't forget the call to action, and spread it and the petition around.

Tags: blogging, livejournal, six apart, lj abuse, petition, customer service

Latest Update

2006-05-26T23:43:00.000-07:00

Well, looks like I'm taking over the updates for the weekend! Hello, I'm Christine.

So here goes.

Boob Nazis has opened up commenting so non-members can comment again.

Xavier, who was talking to Doug Bryan of Six Apart, has said: "I have requested to no longer speak directly with Doug alone, and have asked that the Six Apart Media Relations people be included in the conversations going forward."

At least one LJ-er has already been suspended, and more are due to be suspended at midnight.

The petition has 159 signatures on it right now, 4 or so trolls. Please keep on spreading the word around, and encouraging people to email Six Apart as well (see previous posts).

I'll also quote a few other people's comments here.

colintj:

"Is there any particular reason at all that it hasn't been systematized? Why doesn't LJA have its own blog where it reports updates and specific cases, as they apply to the ongoing adjustments of TOS? The whole issue, I think, is that they come off as highly disengenuous and secretive. If they took their operations public, logs and all, I doubt sincerely that the issues that have arisen would continue to be such a thorn.

I suspect that this has much to do with being inundated with cases, being unpaid and, probably, little in the way of databasing."

yellowest-finch:
"But to be clear, there is only one issue here and it is the limited restriction LiveJournal places on the default userpic.

"Actually, I think you've missed the point entirely. I was under the impression that the only real "issue" here was the unprofessional, unpredictable, and irrational behavior of the abuse team. The "issue" goes far beyond the scope of breastfeeding, and it will continue to become a larger issue if it is not addressed soon. LJ is already steadily losing paid customers because of discrepancies with the abuse team (myself included), and I have a very strong feeling it will grow into a noticeable income loss if Denise Paolucci is allowed to continue to lead her team in the haphazard manner that she currently runs it. LJ users, from whom part of your salary must come from, are looking to corporate for support. We're still waiting."

Yellowest-finch also says we should add firing denise paolucci as an interest.

From dreamalynn: How to Pack Up & Leave LiveJournal (A Tutorial), whether you're leaving by choice, or otherwise.

And a few gems from the petition:

"A business based around the concepts of community and dialog should surely spend more time listening to its users, particularly its paid users."

"I have been a paid LJ user for a long, long time, and am shocked and appalled by the recent treatment that LJ abuse has given it's users. It's unacceptable."

"Livejournal is a business, so why does the LJ abuse team act like a bunch of needlessly malicious adolencents?"

"Six Apart, please listen to us. I have been a paying LJ user for 2 years. The abuse team needs to be replaced by professionals, and Six Apart needs to restore our trust in them."

"I have been with LiveJournal for almost 5 years, and I am fully prepared to move my journaling elsewhere over this issue if necessary, as well as encourage all of my friends and family to do the same."

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, six apart, customer service, campaign, blogging

Weekend of Action

2006-05-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

Guys, I have a way busy weekend coming up so I am adding Christine (realcdaae) as a poster here to add updates, as she set up the petition and is willing to talk to Six Apart people or the press if it comes to that.

The boob_nazis community was locked down because they were getting comment harassment. It's a natural one to attract the trolls I guess. Please don't think they're not appreciative of our support.

CALL TO ACTION

Please also sign the Six Apart and LiveJournal Abuse Petition, and get your friends to sign it too.

Confirmed addresses for Six Apart and LiveJournal are:

contact@sixapart.com
Barakb@SixApart.Com (CEO of Six Apart)
anil@dashes.com (VP of Six Apart)
kevink@livejournal.com (Head of LiveJournal)
jane@sixapart.com (listed contact for questions about 6A)
ryan@sixapart.com (Kevin's out of office reply refers to him)

If you want to see wider changes being made to LJ Abuse, please write to them. Tell them that this cannot be brushed off as an issue about default icons and breastfeeding. It is a problem with LiveJournal's culture.

I don't know if dougbryan@livejournal.com reaches Doug Bryan but you could try it.

When they bought LiveJournal, the head honchos at Six Apart said in an interview:

Barak Berkowitz: "I think the core thing to say here is we're buying LiveJournal for LiveJournal. We're not buying it to turn it into something else. We know what LiveJournal is. The fact that we come from the community should make people convinced that we're not so naive that we don't know exactly what the community is... The net is, users will question us, and users will be suspicious until they see what we do in real life in real action over a series of months, and we'll have to prove ourselves to them."

Mena Trott: "We believe in communication. We're doing this because we think LiveJournal has something that's really strong with the community. We feel that that's one of things we are lacking."

Remind them of that. We are that community, yet they're telling us that they don't want to listen to us, and that our concerns are not important. Tell them how LJ abuse's actions affect the LiveJournal community, not just people who get suspended.

Put it in your own words, or copy and paste lines from here. Tell them how long you've been an LJ user, how many communities you're involved in. Tell them that you don't intent to keep up a paid account if they aren't going to listen to their customers.

Post this in your LiveJournal, in your blog.

Let's see how many voices it takes for Six Apart to really listen.

Tags: livejournal, six apart, blogging, customer service, lj abuse, protest, petition

Listening? Bullshit. PETITION AND CALL TO ACTION

2006-05-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

Six Apart wants us to know they're listening to us.

Please see the CALL TO ACTION at the bottom of this post, and sign the petition!

Doug Bryan, 2006-05-25:

Thank you all for your comments. Many of them are useful and constructive. Some other seem slightly off topic and go beyond the scope of the specific issue. I will continue to read them all. I hope you realize that the vast majority of your breast feeding icons do in fact pass the objective test and are perfectly fine. Postive and useful change is a process not a win-lose situation and always takes time. But to be clear, there is only one issue here and it is the limited restriction LiveJournal places on the default userpic.

there is only one issue here and it is the limited restriction LiveJournal places on the default userpic.

AKA We've got our hands over our ears and we don't want to hear you.

Doug, there is more than just one issue here. It is not limited to the restriction LiveJournal places on the default userpic. Even amongst the "boob nazis" issues have been raised about the contradictions of the information given by the LJ Abuse team, their rudeness, and LiveJournal's attitude towards customer service. These are core, long term problems with the abuse team.

This is not about breastfeeding icons. This is about how the abuse team is organized, managed, and operates. It is about whether Six Apart and LiveJournal are really interested in listening to their users instead of bad mouthing the ones who have problems with their service. The volunteer clique of LiveJournal Abuse might have been adequate when LJ was one guy's pet project, but it is not adequate for a service owned by a company that's raising millions in VC funds and attracting advertisers.

The boob nazis aren't buying it either.

wickedgillie :
If the original standard was "sexually graphic" and the new standard is "nudity" with the rules regarding the female breast to be "no nipples or areolae visible" then why was [info]cali4niachef's default icon deemed unsuitable and a suspendable offense by either standard stated? I didn't see an apology to her anywhere. Did I perhaps miss it?

tarakay :
1) If we're to "hold off" on any further advocacy action while this issue is resolved, why isn't LJ also holding off on suspending users until the issue is resolved? I'm sure it's within Six Apart's power to issue an "injunction" of sorts to stop suspensions at least temporarily until some resolution is reached. Of course, it probably won't be necessary for you to suspend anyone later if your final resolution is to leave the policies as they stand now. I am confident that there will be a mass exodus of paying members from LJ if that is the final resolution.
2) What is your timeframe for resolution? It is only fair to your paying members to let us know that. Many of us will be asked to renew our LJ accounts in the near future. I believe those who are considering renewing (or not) deserve to know when you expect to have this issue resolved. That's simple common consideration, IMO.

Many other users expressed similar concerns, reported in this entry. From the comments to that entry:

Christine Daae said: "So, Six Apart officially does not intend to listen to its customers about any of the other issues regarding LiveJournal's abuse team? Do we need thousands of emails on each specific instance of policy, or poor behaviour from the abuse team, before Six Apart will look at them?"

HidingMyself said: "If it were me and if were organizing things, I'd strongly consider bombarding them with protest emails over the holiday weekend. Maybe it's just me, but I think they should be reminded of the users stance and because they've really brought nothing to the table, the unilateral ceasefire should countdown to an expiration, unless they agree not to suspend people until the question is settled."

I agree. I wish I was more of an organizer, but I'm better at documenting and trying to bring attention to than organizing. I hope the organizer of the Boob Nazis strongly presents these other issues, but the rest of us must do what we can.

CALL TO ACTION

I don't know if dougbryan@livejournal.com reaches Doug Bryan but you could try it. Confirmed addresses for Six Apart and LiveJournal are:

contact@sixapart.com
Barakb@SixApart.Com (CEO of Six Apart)
anil@dashes.com (VP of Six Apart)
kevink@livejournal.com (Head of LiveJournal)
jane@sixapart.com (listed contact for questions about 6A)

If you want to see wider changes being made to LJ Abuse, please write to them. Tell them that this cannot be brushed off as an issue about default icons and breastfeeding. It is a problem with LiveJournal's culture.

When they bought LiveJournal, the head honchos at Six Apart said in an interview:

Barak Berkowitz: "I think the core thing to say here is we're buying LiveJournal for LiveJournal. We're not buying it to turn it into something else. We know what LiveJournal is. The fact that we come from the community should make people convinced that we're not so naive that we don't know exactly what the community is... The net is, users will question us, and users will be suspicious until they see what we do in real life in real action over a series of months, and we'll have to prove ourselves to them."

Mena Trott: "We believe in communication. We're doing this because we think LiveJournal has something that's really strong with the community. We feel that that's one of things we are lacking."

Remind them of that. We are that community, yet they're telling us that they don't want to listen to us, and that our concerns are not important. Tell them how LJ abuse's actions affect the LiveJournal community, not just people who get suspended.

Put it in your own words, or copy and paste lines from here. Tell them how long you've been an LJ user, how many communities you're involved in. Tell them that you don't intent to keep up a paid account if they aren't going to listen to their customers.

Please also sign the Six Apart and LiveJournal Abuse Petition, and get your friends to sign it too.

Post this in your LiveJournal, in your blog.

Let's see how many voices it takes for Six Apart to really listen.

Tags: livejournal, six apart, blogging, customer service, lj abuse, protest, petition

Responses to Six Apart's Response

2006-05-25T10:32:00.000-07:00

To provide you with an idea how much publicity the issue is getting, here are the numbers of unique users who've visited this blog each day from my logs since Sunday.

Wednesday May 24, 2006 962
Tuesday May 23, 2006 643
Monday May 22, 2006 423
Sunday May 21, 2006 104

The petition organizers report that over 1500 emails were sent through their page.

I'm going to quote from some comments to Doug's post I think Six Apart should listen to.

becke1084 : If LJA screws up, there needs to be a higher appeal option; this "we're right, you're wrong, the end, you're suspended" approach from LJA is totally inappropriate, especially for paying customers such as myself... In close, I am a five-year member of the LJ community, and I have been a paid member for nearly 4 years. I am not yet a mother, and I have never breastfed a child, but I am very much an advocate. I applaud all of the women who have given their time and their voice to this issue, and I can only hope that LJ and Six Apart will do what is RIGHT and put this issue to bed before the end of the week."

dreamalynn : "I don't see sensitivity here, I see pandering. And since your time is supposed to be spent dealing with the customers of your company and meeting their needs, I'm not going to thank you for doing your job for which I'm sure you're well paid. And by no means will I thank you for a response that does nothing new to address our concerns at all. There is nothing here but the same stack of non-answers, the same put offs, the same offensive analogies, the same mischaracterizations of our argument, the same suggestions that there are "grey areas" in need of clarity and the same promises of discussion and progress that we've been seeing all week."

thegoddesschaos: "this is not an apology- nothing has changed. you are attempting to placate us and drag this out so that we give up and go away. i am not buying into it. THOUSANDS others are not buying into it either."

tamago23: "First, let me say that was a lovely apology... for you. It did an excellent job of making it appear that the problem was our perceptions, not the actual behavior of the LJ Abuse Team and Denise P. There is a difference between "appeared to show" and "showed". The former makes it the fault of the person complaining - we weren't really at fault, you just perceived it that way! The latter admits wrongdoing on the part of the entity being complained against. Is there really any way you can review the letters sent by LJ Abuse and then honestly say that it was just our perception that they were insulting and hostile? ... Don't get me wrong, I am grateful that we're being acknowledged by Six Apart. I'm just currently not getting the sense that we're being *listened* to."

Elsewhere there is speculation that Six Apart may be toughening up on their TOS because they're now selling advertising.

dstroy: "There was an article in Wall Street Journal recently talking about how advertisers are super adamant about having nudie-bits associated with their ads, so places like Six-Apart, Myspace, Flikr, and other traditional Second Generation web communities are suddenly finding themselves hiring huge teams of content censors to eliminate stuff that might scare away their money source."

From the abuse team side, Shamanix steps in with a classic response to the contradiction I referred to.

Shamanix: "What people report and what actually happen are sometimes two very different things, as I'm sure you're well aware. As you've quoted from my comment to [info]abuse_lj_abuse, I feel I should point out that all abuse cases are confidential and that team members cannot comment on specific cases."

In other words, the user was lying but we can't tell you the truth because it's confidential... even though the user was the one who brought it up and says she'd like to know "what violation of the US law they were investigating."

Some LiveJournal users have said they think the whole system of using volunteers is flawed.

Commenting here, cdaae13 says "But really, the fish rots from the head. Getting a new head of abuse won't solve *every* problem, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction. An even better step would be to no longer use volunteers... Paid employees would be much more accountable for their actions. LJ/6A is earning more money with advertisements. Use that money to fix the existing problems with the service."

Panda Cookie: "I used to be a Support volunteer for LJ. I didn't care for the way they handled thier customers, so I left. I've NEVER thought highly of the Abuse team, even when I was a Support volunteer. This whole thing with breastfeeding just makes me dislike them more."

HidingMyself: "My problem with abuse is that they use volunteers, so there can't be any consistency... SA really should take some of the money that has been flowing into their coffers to professionalize abuse. It'd help clear up a lot of the problems and confusion."

Do you have a Digg account? Digg this story.

Tags: livejournal, six apart, blogging, customer service, lj abuse

Response from Six Apart

2006-05-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

Doug Bryan, VP of Business Operations, Six Apart, posts on boob_nazis.

Enforcing these restrictions is not a fun or enjoyable part of the LJ Abuse staff’s job, but it is important to maintain consistency throughout our service so that everyone (kids, adults, and parents) can know what to expect when they use LJ. We do our best to have as few restrictions as possible. With any restriction we attempt to make sure that we have a clear, objective test.

To use an analogy, this is like a police officer having to enforce speed limits in neighborhoods where kids play. When enforcing these policies, sometimes you end up catching someone who is in fact a very law abiding citizen, but who just happened to be driving over the speed limit.

That being said, we’d like to sincerely apologize for the following:

* The lack of sensitivity our procedures appeared to show toward the right for women to breastfeed their children.
* The confusion and perception that LiveJournal and/or Six Apart is against mothers who choose to breastfeed their children.
* The impression that we simply were not willing to listen, when in fact we are.
* The lack of clarity on the policies, which was possibly made worse when we updated our FAQ on Saturday. We updated the FAQ to clarify our policy, not to change it in response to this specific situation.

The responses are varying. Many users are expressing thanks to Six Apart for taking the time to post. Some are bringing up points they feel the response so far has left out.

Bopeepsheep writes:

There are some continuing niggles.
- LJ Abuse responses over the last few days have been variously inconsistent, rude, hostile, contradictory, offensive, discriminatory, illogical, and mendacious. Daring to complain about their attitude has resulted in even more unpleasantness, and threats.
- The FAQ updating was done very badly - not changed in British English until well into Sunday afternoon, nor French/Italian/German. It was then implied or blatantly stated in several LJA responses that it had "always been thus" (anyone there read George Orwell lately?). While it is true that TOS effectively say you can enforce any policy you like, the point of FAQs is to clarify those policies so that people can apply them appropriately. You cannot honestly expect people to abide by a policy you haven't published. "Graphically sexual" does not and never would mean "nudity", there are legal and societal distinctions we all understand. Changing the wording in the middle of an argument smacks of desperation in most situations, and it's how it came across here too.
- the implication in the original responses that breastfeeding was being viewed as 'graphically sexual'. I don't think we need to tell you how wrong that is.
- "secondary sexual characteristics" were cited as unacceptable in an LJA response by LJA team member Carson. That includes breasts, yes, but also beards... are we going to see a clean-shaven ruling?
- the grey area that is the new ruling. Areolae vary greatly in pigmentation and size and this is a discriminatory policy, however reasonable a compromise it sounds. Male areolae are acceptable. Images of men with large amounts of breast tissue are acceptable. Images of cartoon breasts are apparently acceptable. Images of women in bikini tops smaller than the average hamster are acceptable. Images of women with 2 pixels' worth of areola visible are not? Women with small or pale areolae will get away with it (I'm not showing you mine right now but I bet you'd never spot them in an icon), women with darker pigmentation/larger areolae will not?

Runawaybunni writes:

The first is your analogy. Your TOS was clear - no sexual/violent images. Nursing photos are neither. It wasn't that this person just happened to be 'driving over the speed limit' - they didn't do anything wrong.

It wasn't that your procedures appeared to show a lack of understanding. They DID show a lack of understanding and most of them were downright rude. You may sit here and say that you are willing to listen - and I don't doubt that you are - but when we got an email back saying things like "letter campaigns don't acheive anything" (I'm paraphrasing) it was inherently clear that you weren't willing to listen.

A no nudity rule is reasonable - excluding male breasts but not nursing ones is not. The message that sends is that a breast that is nursing is inherently more offensive than a totally bare male breast. If a male breast is not inappropriate, then surely a breast that is nourishing a child cannot possibly be.

Like other posters on that thread I hope Doug Bryan will look at the wider problems with the abuse team at their meeting, not just this one issue. The discourtesy, evasiveness, and contradictions have to stop.

My response:

Dear Doug;

I hope that as you look in to this issue you'll also consider some of the other long standing problems with the LJ Abuse team. Users here have pointed out that LJ Abuse responses have been inconsistent, rude, hostile, contradictory, offensive, and illogical, and that is something echoed by many other users who have dealt with them. The icon policy is not the only one which has been enforced inconsistantly (some of the icons users here have been threatened for suspension with do not show any nipple or areola).

In most cases when users contest actions or decisions by LJ Abuse they are dismissed out of hand. On a recent thread in [info]abuse_lj_abuse an LJ Abuse team member stated that "the ability to view locked/private entries is limited to LiveJournal's actual employees, and is only used in cases of copyright complaints or violations of United States law." A user reported that in her case that was completely untrue. I have more details of that case and others on my blog. Having made the statement did the LJ Abuse member return to explain the inconsistancy? No.

The behavior of LJ Abuse alienates users, paid and unpaid alike. This is not something that can be solved in one or two meetings, the system needs to be reevaluated to include more professionals on the team, and most importantly people with a more professional attitude, which values customers and does not dismiss them.

Sincerely,

L.

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, six apart, breastfeeding, customer service, blogging

Quick updates and links

2006-05-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

Lots of updates from the boob_nazis community:

The Beginning to a resolution with SixApart

I just got off the phone with Doug Bryan, VP of Business Operations and Support at SixApart.

We had a very productive conversation and have agreed that he and I will work together to try to reach a compromise in this issue. It is understood by upper management at SixApart that they have several thousand very upset users (both paid members and free accounts) this became much more than a breastfeeding issue, it became an issue of customer service. SixApart is very concerned about the potential loss of users and does want to keep all of us as customer and members.

There is a lot of user feedback to this post, many suggesting that the abuse team needs a change of attitude in how it deals with users.

LiveJournal Abuse aren't waiting to hear from Six Apart though:

Now I've been issued a suspension notice

I will not be changing my default icon. I'm fully willing to be suspended. Breastfeeding is not inappropriate in any way. End of story.

Over on thingamababy, a father looks at the situation.

My action: I asked Matt Macfarlane, co-founder of the parent community Minti.com, whether users may post breastfeeding photos on their parent blogs. Here is his response:

"Yes, Minti has no issue with the posting or use of tasteful breastfeeding related images on our site. Breastfeeding is a popular subject on our site and we already have a number of member written articles on the topic. :)

Minti is a parent-to-parent advice site (with blog features free to all members) which fully supports new content contributions by parents, in fact we had to disable a number of parenting related words from our 'naughty words filter' just to ensure that articles written by parents were not automatically reported by the system.

Of course, gratuitous shots of naked breasts with a token child in the far distant background would not be very welcome. ;)"

Lots of comments to Agent Orange's entry here, including a quote from LJ's Principles document: "We will strive to keep you informed of changes to the best of our abilities without being intrusive, and to run our business based on feedback from the LiveJournal community, with the LiveJournal community's best interests in mind."

There are also some other cases I'll be looking at in more detail in days to come.

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, six apart, breastfeeding, customer service, blogging

LiveJournal and customer relations

2006-05-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

A number of blogs have discussed this topic from a customer service point of view. Blogger Marshall Kirkpatrick says:

Breasts aside, though - the most surprising thing to me in this story is the following line from an email alleged to have come from the folks at LiveJournal: "Finally, please be aware that write-in campaigns are never effective in swaying the opinion of the Abuse Team or LiveJournal administrators, or in focusing attention on a particular issue. A flood of requests concerning the same issue only serve to slow down the responses given to valid inquiries such as your request for policy clarification."

LiveJournalWell well well! I suppose it is said that the blogosphere is about transparency, not responsiveness to customers! How can a flood of emails not even focus attention on a particular issue? That's harsh. And really, if one breast gets the attention of LiveJournal admin better than thousands of customer emails - who's really got the problem here?

So why don't people who are unhappy with LiveJournal's service just leave LiveJournal?

In an entry on her LiveJournal, realcdaae says:

On the flip side, I also get annoyed at people who get annoyed at people for protesting about something they care about. It doesn't really matter why they care about it, they don't have to justify themselves to you. I've seen this recently in some of the "nipplegate" discussions - LiveJournal is a private company so they can do whatever they want, deal with it. Well, yes, they're a private company. They can't actually do whatever they want as they're still bound by the law, but within those limits they can have whatever TOS they choose. And as users, we can speak out (or shout and scream) if we think that TOS and those rules are wrong, or poorly applied. Using the service of a company does not take away your right or ability to complain when you think something is wrong. Indeed, a company should be listening to its customers harder than it should listen to people who don't utilize it.

It's legal for Wal-Mart to use sweatshops, it's legal for Starbucks to sell "sweatshop" coffee, it's legal for all manner of companies to pollute the environment and screw over their workers. Of course, compared to these things, LiveJournal's TOS or abuse team problems are pretty insignificant. But part of LJ's business model, part of the reason we all use it, is that it builds up that sense of community. Without the community, quite a few of us wouldn't stay. If a company depends on its users and their communities for its popularity and success, it would be wise to listen to them. They may not owe any legal duty to do so, but it's a poor business decision not to.

Why stay with LJ? "People, even those who are highly unsatisfied with the way LJ handles complaints (or ignores them), stay on LiveJournal because that's where their friends are. Because they have joined communities where they've built up a rapport with people. And because they can control who reads what (to a degree, based on trusting their friends list and LJ itself), and post to communities which are locked against outsiders browsing."

LiveJournal's business model depends on the sense of community its users build up, but they don't feel bound to pay any heed to what those users say, or who abuse team actions affect that community.

How do questionable suspensions of users affect other users, for instance? When a user is suspended, all of their posts are removed, and all of their comments (replaced by "reply by suspended user"). If you have a post where a suspended user contributed significantly to the discussion, with information or ideas, that is lost. You do not have a choice about whether to retain their comments, they're just gone and the flow of your thread ruined. You've lost their whole contribution. If they were a prominnt poster in your community, everything they've contributed is gone. If they're your friend, all your threads and comments in posts on their journals are gone too.

LiveJournal Abuse doesn't seem to consider this when they make decisions - past actions and overall contributions on LiveJournal don't count, unless they're counted against you. Minor infractions, small enough not to warrant action, can be brought up against you. How much you've helped others, or spent time building the communities and community atmosphere LiveJournal depends on, doesn't matter. There's a prosection but no defense.

Are people who care taking it all too seriously? As realcdaae said, no one should have to justify why they care. But it's LJ's very business model which encourages this sort of attachment and makes people care. It relies on making networks of friends. It's full of communities for support, for sharing, for information, for entertainment. When people invest time and energy into those things, of course they care. For some more isolated users, and users with problems, the communities built up through LiveJournal can be invaluable.

So why does LiveJournal, or Six Apart, not care what we think?

Tags: social networks, livejournal, six apart, blogging, community, lj abuse

Six Apart notified of LiveJournal Abuse problems

2006-05-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

Two posts you should read from LJ user playright:

I spoke with the media relations representative at SixApart... -- a very comprehensive explanation of events and list of the problems and objections to LiveJournal Abuse's response to the breastfeeding icon issue, sent as a letter to Six Apart's media relations rep.

Also Updates on Nipplegate letters to SixApart

Xavier ([info]xavi7734) on LiveJournal posted:

Posted from a convo with a friend:
By permission:

Jane - the Media Relations person at SixApart was contacted today via phone by a very close friend of mine and fellow LJ'er

This is, in essence the response

She was unaware that LJAbuse knew it was a directed instigated plan to upset their team/time.
She was not aware that the problem went beyond breastfeeding.
She did take my call from her cell phone and was very polite. For those of you who care, she breastfed both of her children.

---Jane is currently in a training class in California and has promised to look further into the issue upon her return to the office. I plan on giving her a call and discussing with her my role in this situation (from ProMoM's standpoint) and ask her to please do the right thing, issue a public apology and let us know that breastfeeding icons are okay for use in default pictures regardless of nipple or areola showing (as decided by LJ Abuse and Denise P).

--If these things do NOT happen, I have media releases ready to go, and a response letter that will not only be sent to SixApart but will be sent to all of their Advisory Boards and Investors as well. Jane understands fully that this type of response will be a media disaster for the image of Live Journal and SixApart.

--I will hold off on sending these items until 12:00 Noon Eastern time tomorrow. I would like to ask that all of you hold off as well until we hear what the TRUE representatives from SixApart are willing to do about this issue.

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, six apart, breastfeeding, nursing, icons

Changing the Rules

2006-05-22T10:19:00.000-07:00

It's important to point out, regarding the breastfeeding icon controversy, that LiveJournal changed its rules on May 20th. I'm seeing a lot of comments around saying "They knew what the TOS said when they agreed to it so they should stop whining."

Before May 20th, the explanation of the rules about default userpics said "In particular, icons that are graphically sexual or violent in nature tend to be inappropriate for default userpics."

On May 20th it was changed to read "In particular, icons which contain nudity or graphic violence tend to be inappropriate for default userpics."

Some have said this is to make the rule more clear, but it is obviously a change made to back up a decision not justified under the rules as they were previously stated.

The rule is now being stated as the default icon must not have any areola or nipple visible (women only so far as we know!). The breastfeeding icon originally reported didn't show any areola or nipple.

The TOS says they can change the rules at any time, without notifying users, so they are acting within the TOS. That doesn't mean it isn't another example of LJ Abuse acting arbitrarily and prefering to change the rules around to back up a foolish decision rather than admit they could have made a mistake. They originally deemed breastfeeding icons sexual. Now they are changing things to say it's about nudity because saying the icons are sexual shows up how stupid the decision was.

When the LiveJournal Abuse team acts in a way that looks plain dishonest, customers get pissed off. Add to that the arrogant responses people got at first, and an official response that talks about a "misunderstanding" when it was really about LJ Abuse changing the rules to justify their actions, and no wonder there are petitions being signed.

Part 1 / Part 2

More blogs are picking up this story

Many of them are picking up on the appalling example of customer service represented when LiveJournal tells its users they don't care what they think, and do not want to hear people's feedback.

Boob nazi breastfeeds battle LiveJournal abuse team
LiveJournal's Boob War
LiveJournal doesn't care how you feel about breastfeeding, or anything else
LJ: Breastfeeding is offensive, but not as offensive as our customer service
SixApart getting into a bit of strife over breast feeding
Obscene on LJ
LJ takes anti-breastfeeding stance
Are you offended by a picture of breastfeeding?
Boobs!
Prudes

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, six apart, breastfeeding, nursing, icons

Contradictions, lies, and covering your ass

2006-05-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

As we just saw, LJ Abuse doesn't like breasts. The area of the LiveJournal FAQ covering default userpics was updated on May 20th to change its wording in support of LJ Abuse's new interpretation. It used to say "sexually explicit and graphically violent" and has now been changed to "nudity or graphic violence."

In another example of LJ Abuse speaking out of their asses, hardvice got some more contradictory information.

LJ Abuse team member Marie wrote:

"To answer your question about other peoples' userpics, the Abuse Team is only able to take action on occurances of Abuse that are reported to us. If you feel that other users have selected default userpics that are inappropriate under LiveJournal's policies, please feel free to visit http://www.livejournal.com/abuse/report.bml and follow the steps listed in http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=105. Most importantly, we will need links to specific userpics that you believe to be in violation of LiveJournal's Terms of Service."

hardvice then began to report other default userpics that showed breasts. The LJ Abuse team didn't appreciate the work, so Eric on the Abuse Team told hardvice:

"Also note that LiveJournal is a common carrier. The Abuse Team is not allowed to police the site for violations of the Terms of Service, and we cannot allow users to also do this. While you are more than welcome to report violations of the Terms of Service as you encounter them through your normal use of the website, we will be unable to act should you continue to actively search for violations to report."

matintin comments:

Marie sez:

the Abuse Team is only able to take action on occurances of Abuse that are reported to us. [and then gave [info]hardvice instructions on how to report]

Eric sez:

we will be unable to act should you continue to actively search for violations to report.

The Moral of the Story:

It's hard work being arbitrary, and we can't be expected to maintain our fervently capricious decision-making process.

What about Eric's claim about LJ and common carrier status? In actual fact providers can only lose common carrier status if they are shown to exercise editorial control of user's content, and a user choosing to spend their time browsing for breaches of the TOS would not qualify in any imaginable way. Hardvice observes "LJ can lose common carrier status only if they are deemed to have editorial control of user's content. A random, unaffiliated user policing content on the site presents no risk of LJ itself being deemed to have editorial control. They just don't want the extra work."

LJ Abuse team boss Denise Paolucci has issued a response that doesn't please the "boob nazis" (as the breastfeeding LJ community calls itself). One user is particularly annoyed by the line "We ask only that you are willing to extend the same support and appreciation to, for instance, parents who choose to believe that it is inappropriate for their children to view unsolicited nudity in public." Here is one excellent response to LiveJournal.

Many countries including the US have laws protecting the right of mothers to breastfeed in public, to protect them from people who are offended by the sight of unsolicited breastfeeding in public. I'm glad Paolucci isn't in the government!

Send an email / petition.

My thread on abuse_lj_abuse has caught LJ Abuse out in some lies. They are bothered by the exposure that people on the abuse team can read private and locked entries of LJ users, and are taking pains to explain that it is only the LiveJournal employees who have this ability, like Denise Paolucci who is a paragon of good judgement...

User shamanix went further and stated:

"As has been said in this community numerous times, the ability to view locked/private entries is limited to LiveJournal's actual employees, and is only used in cases of copyright complaints or violations of United States law."

This is a lie.

realcdaae replied: "Untrue in my case. There was no copyright complaint, and no alleged violation of US law. In fact on the first occassion, my journal was not reported at all - they thought I was [info]yellow_finch, who had been reported for breach of a NONC, and then went into [info]cdaae to have a look."

Let me reiterate that. The complaint against yellow-finch was that a public entry she made was an "indirect reference" to someone LJ had told her not to mention in any way. LJ Abuse thought she was the same person as user cdaae (which demonstrates that they do not doublecheck their decisions as the two users are on different continents and a cursory examination of their journals shows them to be different people). LJ Abuse read locked entries of cdaae's journal and came up with a post they said was an indirect reference to the same user, and suspended her for it. There was no copyright complaint and there was no violation of US law reported or alleged. Further details of this case.

If it was a volunteer team member it is a disgrace, if it was a paid employee that might make it even MORE of a disgrace!

It is not the only time locked entries have been read and used against people by LJ Abuse. There are a number of communities which were suspended for "incitement to harass" that had only locked entries. If LJ Abuse wants to read locked entries they can and they do.

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, six apart, breastfeeding,
Denise Paolucci

Breasts -- now against a TOS near you

2006-05-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

LiveJournal Abuse doesn't like breasts. Not in art, and not feeding babies. They used to forbid inappropriate default user icons, defined as sexual or violent, with the reasoning that offensive icons should not be displayed on areas of LJ where someone could come across them by accident. But now they have extended that to any view of a naked breast with any nipple showing, whether it's on a piece of art or breast-feeding mothers. The breast-feeders are not happy, and drama has errupted.

LJ Abuse is thought to have gotten over 700 emails in protest. Are they listening to their users? No, they are closing ranks behind the stupid decision, just like usual.

How did this craziness come about? It started when LJ Abuse told hardvice his post-modern art icon was breaking the rules. You can read the details on hardvice's LJ.

Is this an obscene image?

Also see:

Changing the Rules

LiveJournal and customer relations

Responses to Six Apart's response

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, six apart, breastfeeding, customer service, censorship

TOS and Abuse Policy document suggestions

2006-05-09T18:31:00.000-07:00

On the LJ abuse community I posted calling for suggestions to make the LiveJournal TOS and Abuse Policy more closely linked with the reality of LJ Abuse.

We can complain about individual cases of unfair suspensions but what practical suggests does anyone have to change the TOS or Abuse Policy document to make the workings of LJ Abuse clearer?

It was suggested in a comment below that the TOS should be cut down because no part other than this is necessary:

"You agree that LiveJournal.com, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, journal, or account, and remove and discard any content within the Service, for any reason"

I'm sure some of us have some more specific suggestions than that!

read the rest of the post and comments

markf, LJ's Customer Service man Mark Ferrell, has left a comment so we'll see if he takes anything said more seriously than Denise Paolucci does.

Share your suggestions!

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, customer service, denise paolucci

Hello / Help Out

2006-05-07T20:31:00.000-07:00

A quick hello from your new blog contributer, Agent Orange.

Help spread the word about this blog and the behavior of LiveJournal Abuse.

Link Us:

Also please add us to any social bookmarking services you use, like del.icio.us, digg, and StumbleUpon.

Post our link on your LJ or blog, or post about us on discussion boards and comment threads -- let people know we're here!

Exposing LJ Abuse
http://ljabuse.blogspot.com

You can also add the feed to your LJ friends page.

Thanks for your help!

Impersonation and parody or harassment?

2006-05-07T19:54:00.000-07:00

LJ Abuse has some standard terms they employ against journals they want to suspend, terms they wield in ways that have no relationship to the way they're used by the rest of the world.

One of these words is harassment, a current favorite.

In another example, Lifeprintman writes:

Recently I was banned and accused of harassment of a person that I had NEVER EVEN CONTACTED DIRECTLY. In fact, they do not even know that my journal existed. When I filed a report about this, this was nonsense I got in return from Corey of LJA:

"The use of your journal to solely harass an individual does not necessarily mean you are in contact with that individual. It means that your journal is harassing in nature to an individual and has no other purpose than to incite harassment by its nature to an individual."

Yeah, I don't understand it either.

Lifeprintman was a parody journal using animated pictures of Dr William Vicars (an American Sign Language teacher) demonstrating sign language. LiveJournal decided that this journal was created soley to harass and impersonate Dr Vicars, and suspended it.

How did lifeprintman harass Dr Vicars, asks Michichu2? In what way did he persistantly torment Dr Vicars? Did he contact him, email him, bother him? No, he just had a parody journal portraying him in a humorous and fictious manner. Similar journals exist pretending to be Brad Pitt and other celebrities, and Terri Schiavo (including when she was alive). As Michichu2 puts it "What about all those fangirls that RP as a gay Orlando Bloom in his illicit threesome with Johnny Depp AND Viggo Morgensen where they perform many illegal acts involving bananas? Is that harrassment? Were all of them created SOLELY TO HARRASS AND IMPERSONATE AN INDIVIDUAL?"

Lifeprintman tried to get LJ Abuse to explain the suspended account's violations to him. They told him that his journal was "harassing in nature" and "inciting harassment" against an individual (though their policy states that it applies to other users of LiveJournal).

"Negative comments by themselves are opinion, and we allow a wide range of opinion on our service" says Corey from LJ Abuse -- so negative comments are okay so long as LJ Abuse doesn't want to suspend you.

The correspondence with LiveJournal Abuse can be seen here: deathprintman

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, harassment, six apart, blogging

Six Apart hit by DOS attack

2006-05-05T23:50:00.000-07:00

Six Apart had more trouble this week when their services, including LiveJournal, went down from a Denial of Service attack. Conspiracy theories spread fast across LJ as soon as it was up, with people wondering who hates 6A, whether it was related to them bringing in advertising or the #bantown hacking at the start of the year, but the truth turns out to be that Blue Security, a Six Apart customer, shifted their problems over to 6A.

The Blogging Times writes "A dispute between a mysterious Russian spammer and an Israeli antispam firm spilled over to the rest of the Internet on Wednesday, when denial of service attacks aimed at the Israeli firm’s Web site knocked out servers that host millions of blogs. Blogging company Six Apart suffered a sophisticated denial of service attack Tuesday afternoon, Pacific Time, which caused service outages at all of Six Apart’s web sites, including LiveJournal and TypePad."

str1ke.us says "now the ads seem to be the least of their worries with paying customer blogs going dark left and right from the attacks... Do any of you out there use any of the six apart services? are you happy with them?"

Tags: livejournal, six apart, blogging, hacking

LJ ads and Six Apart

2006-04-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

A lot of the problems with the LiveJournal Abuse team are connected with them being unpaid volunteers, with no professionalism and sloppy oversight. When Brad was starting out a volunteer abuse team, and LJ's general heavy reliance on volunteers, made sense. Now LiveJournal is part of the growing Six Apart empire, is there so much excuse?

There were many skeptical voices when Six Apart took over LiveJournal in 2005. A lot of their fears have proved accurate. How many times did LJ say they stood firm in telling their users they "promise to never offer advertising space in our service or on our pages"? LiveJournal now comes with advertising.

With advertising comes a change in the TOS. Another Crappy Policy, says Vinny: "So if you browse Livejournal with a popup blocker on, you could end up getting shitcanned. Isn't that special? I certainly think so. Yet another reason to steer clear of Six Apart like the bird flu."

On LiveJournal, Insomnia discusses ads and Six Apart. "SixApart, btw, apparently blew through $10M in VC funding in 16 months. They've got a third round of VC funding for $12M, but I don't see that as any ringing sign of confidence. That buys them about a year, and as the dotcom crash showed us, a lot can happen in a year."

Like I said before, I don't think Six Apart cares about LJ. LJ isn't a money maker. 6A are splashing their cash on new blogging services, and there's little incentive for them to stop LJ gradually degrading. Keeping up the pressure never hurts though, and in the next day or two I'll be adding a new contributor to this blog, who'll write about some ways we can start creating that pressure. Please share any ideas you have!

Tags: livejournal, six apart, blogging, lj abuse

Not Objective Or Fair

2006-04-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

The imposition of work has kept me from updating but I have had some interesting emails building up, and I hope to start to address them soon. The most interesting of all I will reproduce here right now because it needs little comment.

I have a RL friend who was a volunteer on the abuse team for Live Journal. There are things that friend said that echo and back up a lot of your complaints. One time they told me about watching some communities someone they didn't like was in so they could provoke a complaint that would give an excuse to suspend them. I know from things I heard about that the abuse team are not objective or fair.

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse

Why stay with LJ?

2006-03-17T18:07:00.000-08:00

An anonymous comment in the post below asks "Why stick with LJ at all, why not move to one of the other blogging networks?"

I read today on the socialsoftware blog that Blog software provider Six Apart gets even more money, in part to move forward with plans to offer private blogs. Cofounder Mena Trott believes that blogging is unlikely to ever go mainstream until it was easy for people to limit access to their content online.

Marshall Kirkpatrick, writing for the blog, said "Maybe I don't have enough LiveJournal experience, but I question how widespread the practice of regular posting is going to be on personal sites that aren't publicly visible."

I posted a comment, saying:

LiveJournal allows users to set up a number of filters on their posts, so they can make public posts, and non-public posts which only a certain set of friends on the site can see. For many users it's their most valuable feature, because you can combine blogging about current events or your chosen topic with public posts, and allow your friends to read more personal thoughts on the same page. For people writing about personal experiences like mental illness or abuse, it's a great tool. LiveJournal thrives on the sense of community it builds up, rather than any serious blogging content.

Unfortunately the sense of community, and privacy on some posts, is spoiled by them having an abuse team made up of volunteers who can read users' private posts, and who are known for suspending journals for breaking rules not mentioned anywhere in the Terms of Service.

People, even those who are highly unsatisfied with the way LJ handles complaints (or ignores them), stay on LiveJournal because that's where their friends are. Because they have joined communities where they've built up a rapport with people. And because they can control who reads what (to a degree, based on trusting their friends list and LJ itself), and post to communities which are locked against outsiders browsing.

Unlike blogs which are primarily about reporting and commenting on links and news stories, or trying to sell something, LiveJournals are usually personal. Some people post everything publically, some people keep everything locked only to their friends, some do a mix or have many different filters. People want to feel safe to talk about the issues they don't want to share with the world - problems at home, abuse, trauma, depression, how much they hate their boss, how they're afraid their father is an alcoholic. With its network of communities for every possible interest, including support communities, LiveJournal actively builds up this community and people's connection to it.

If you're tech savvy enough you can set up your own personal blog and set passwords for your friends, but when people are used to reading their friends entries together on one page (with LJ's friends page), you can't be sure that everyone will remember, or bother, to see how you're doing. On LJ you know someone's going to read your post within a few hours of you posting it, depending how many people are on your friends list.

So people stay with their LiveJournals even when they're mad as hell about how they or some of their friends have been treated. Nevertheless, some are starting to make more noise -- as you see here.

Tags: livejournal, blogging, journals, six apart

Harassment

2006-03-16T15:37:00.000-08:00

An email asked us to go into some more detail about communities and harassment, because "it seems to be the charge they level at people when they can't find any specific rules they've broken."

From a previous post:

Under Harassment we read that they will suspend journals used "solely for the purpose of entries [or comments] about a particular user and/or community that fall under the definition of harassment or invasion of privacy." No where do they provide a definition of harassment, so we might reasonably assume that they are refering to the legal definition, but no. Harassment is whatever LJ Abuse decides it is if they want to suspend an account.

Recently there has been a rash of suspensions of communities deemed to exist soley to "incite harassment" and members posting in these locked communities have received threats against their personal journals.

Remember, LJ cares about freedom of speech even if you're a pedophile, but there are some things they just won't tolerate and that includes laughing at people. Be as racist as you like, call someone a satanist and a child molester, and LiveJournal will defend your right to free speech, but mock people for their blinkie icons, hundreds of colorbars, or terrible "cosplay" costumes, and LJ Abuse will come after you frothing at the mouth.

Cosplayfucks is one example. Cosplay, for the uninitiated, is making costumes and dressing up in them at conventions, usually related to anime. Do a Google image search to see some examples. Search on "bad cosplay" to see the kinds of pictures cosplayfucks made fun of.

It was a large and lively community, and it ran for almost a year before LJ Abuse decided it was "created solely for the harassment of LJ users." Community founder Michichu says this was ridiculous at least in part because "a good 90% of the pictures of people featured on [info]cosplayfucks were from sites such as cosplay.com, cosplaylab.com, or just google image search - all outside sites, over which livejournal has no jurisdiction."

People would find photos of terrible cosplay and post them, with or without humorous commentary. LJ might think that's mean, but it's certainly not harassment. People did not gang up and attack other users' journals, and in most cases the pictures came from non-LiveJournal sources.

Another community suspended over "harassment" was wtf_user_info, which made fun of user profile pages loaded with hundreds of animated flashing blinkies, colorbars, and baffling incoherent personal descriptions. LJ Abuse decided not to see a difference between mocking and harassing.

What is harassment? If I hang out in a bar with my friends and we talk about my stupid neighbor and what an ass he is, and mock his haircut and clothes, are we harassing him? Of course not! If I put a note through his door every day for a week saying "8pm, Al's Bar, we'll be talking about what a fuckhead you are" then it would be getting into harassment. I think the difference is clear to anyone not on the LiveJournal Abuse Team.

Tags: harassment, lj abuse, livejournal, freedom of speech

Food for Thought

2006-03-15T17:37:00.000-08:00

How much does Six Apart care about LiveJournal anyway?

Blog slayer: Microsoft and the future of SixApart -- "But sure, LiveJournal, and its predominately teen market, is only one of SixApart’s three blog markets, and is arguably the least profitable. Its demise alone would not see the end of SixApart, with MovableType providing some income to the company and TypePad being the major driver of revenue."

They got some bad spam publicity at the end of 2005 too. However, Six Apart CEO Barak Berkowitz says he's putting pressure on legislators to ban blog comment spamming. Six Apart has just raised $12M in venture capital, and is preparing to launch another new blogging tool.

Tags: six apart, blogging, blogs, livejournal

LJ Abuse, Child Porn, and Pedophilia

2006-03-15T15:50:00.000-08:00

LJ owners Six Apart have just acquired Splashblog. I wonder if Six Apart will start to look at fixing the problems with their existing services, or if they’ll just extend those problems to the new services they acquire?

To return to my topic: LJ Abuse, Child Porn, and Pedophilia.

So far we've seen LJ Abuse shut people down for some pretty questionable reasons, and refuse to answer those people's questions in any relevant way. Here's another case where the LiveJournal Abuse Team went in over the top -- can they tell the difference between art and child pornography?

"We have investigated the images in question and determined the the person in them, Eva Ionesco, was under the age of 18 when they were taken. As such the images fall under the description of the child pornography under the United States law, and therefore we were forced to terminate your account per policies in the afore-mentioned document."

Another fine example of LJ Abuse team volunteers pretending to have a clue about the law, which states that the photo must depit or clearly suggest sexually explicit conduct.

The images in question were art photography scanned from a book published in the USA by a US publisher. You can buy it on Amazon.com. Exercising a little intelligence, or taking the enormous step of asking a lawyer (Six Apart does have lawyers?), would have disabused LJ abuse of the notion that it was "child pornography."

Given all that you may be thinking, at least LiveJournal is free from nasty child porn, pedophiles, and horrible things we don't want to see.

User thetrenchcoat is one of many users reporting pedophiles on LJ to find that LJ Abuse doesn't mind pedophiles. "Users are entitled to post about topics that may be abhorrent to much of the general population, so long as they do not cross the line into solicitation or instruction of illegal acts."

What's this, LJ Abuse standing up for freedom of speech? Surely not!!

Well no, not. Not unless you're a pedophile or you're calling someone else a pedophile. If you display political graphics which are offensive to some, if you write about someone who is harassing you, if you post a photo of a minor from an art book, if you laugh at people dressed up in bad anime costumes, then your freedom of speech is not so important and they'll suspend you.

Walk carefully on LiveJournal, you never know where the lines are drawn.

Tags: child porn, pedophilia, lj abuse, livejournal, freedom of speech

Does LJ Abuse ever give anyone a straight answer?

2006-03-13T17:58:00.000-08:00

It looks like the answer is no.

Yellow-finch was suspended for two entries. LJ Abuse told her "In these entries, you referenced LiveJournal user vanimaestel. While this reference was not by name, inference was recognized to be about them"

She replied "Please quote those entries so I can understand what you think was a reference to vanimaestel."

LJ Abuse told her "Thank you for your reply. In both of these entries you make reference to your "batshit insanse stalker" which starts a thread about "Melee" who is LiveJournal user vanimaestel."

She replied "Where were there any comments about "Meele," and who made them? As I told you before, the "batshit insane stalker" I was referring to is a woman named Kim. If others thought I was referring to Meele, I am unaware of it and am not at fault for it."

Denise Paolucci, Manager of the LiveJournal Abuse Team, responded "It is the determination of LiveJournal.com that you violated the Notice of No Contact"

Yellow-finch replied "You still have not answered my question regarding my suspension. I'll repeat it for you: "Where were there any comments about 'Meele,' and who made them?" So far, you have told me that you assumed the post I made was about Melanie based on comments left by others. You have yet to tell me which comments caused you to make this assumption. I am asking you to provide a list of the public comments to the two posts in question along with my replies, and then I'd like you to tell me which ones lead you to believe that my posts were about Melanie. Furthermore, when my last account (cdaae13) was suspended, Michelle told me 'We must emphasise, however, that your account was not suspended -- nor will other accounts be suspended -- because another person left a comment about the user vanimaestel.'"

Her request was closed without reply.

If LiveJournal Abuse infers something from what other people reply to a post, why is it so hard for them to provide the user with copies of these replies?

As Yellow-finch puts it, "I have reason to doubt that "Each suspension is carefully reviewed by at least two team members before processing." In the past week alone, your team has mistakenly suspended three accounts: alleykitten for believing it was my account alleykitten_, cdaae for believing it was my account (I used to be cdaae13), and finchy2 for thinking it belonged to cdaae, the logic of which completely escapes me. If Corey had even bothered to check the e-mail addresses associated with all three of those accounts, none of the mistaken suspensions would have taken place. That is unprofessional, careless behavior that I highly doubt was reviewed by anyone. And if it was reviewed by another person, and *two* people from your team failed to check the e-mail addresses, then I am even more disappointed.

"It seems to me that you would rather sternly repeat yourself over and over than respond to the points I'm making in my contacts with your team, because then you might actually have to admit that you've made another grievous error in suspending my accounts, and you've made too many mistakes this past week to want to admit to another one."

These suspensions were made on the basis of reports by a user with more than 20 accounts suspended for breaking a notice of no contact. LJ Abuse trusts this user, infamous for her harassment of other users and of a Broadway musicals actor, when she infers that something is about her, evidenced by their inability to provide the comments that supposedly supported this inference.

I have to ask again, do you trust LJ Abuse?

Tags: lj abuse, livejournal, denise paolucci, six apart, blogging

In Russia, LJ is serious business

2006-03-12T13:59:00.000-08:00

This is a case from last year.

Russian bloggers censored by their San Franciscan hosts? There's a great story over at the Russian ex-pat English paper, The eXile, about a online controversy that started with LiveJournal's Abuse Team closing down a nationalist Russian's blog. The crime? A photoshop adaption of a Soviet propaganda poster from WWII, rewritten to spout some fairly banal anti-Western sentiment.

LJ user yanis wrote "Over the past three years a unique community has formed. LJ being a US based company provided a unique platform to scores of alternative russian publicists, philosophers, writers and politicians. LJ has been a place where russian security services couldn't interfere... Most political observers, journalists, young politicians, businessmen have accounts (the list of russian celebrities in LJ is a virtual who's who in modern russian politology, hi-tech business, journalism, TV and entertainment)... That's why blanket mechanical applications of TOS to some users for radical or not so statements in their postings is threatening not only a couple of LJ accounts (not a big deal) but Free Speech in Russia. You push them out of here and many of them will have nowhere turn to congregate, debate and create."

Articles Blog Wars and Censor This cover the case in more detail. "The last thing they expected was heavy-handed meddling from some dimwits at the LJ San Francisco headquarters."

"The censorship case got me thinking. Soviet censorship was like wall or a fence -- visible and imposing, monumentally built but rusting and full of cracks and holes, with most people knowing how to get around it. Putin's censorship is like the leftover rubble -- with pieces of concrete and steel rods lying around, formally non-existent but occasionally making a nuisance. American censorship is different -- it is like a virus which infects the brain from the childhood, all-encompassing but barely visible. It is harder to escape it, but necessary to fight against it."

Tags: censorship, lj abuse, livejournal, six apart, free speech, russia, blog

Do you trust LJ Abuse?

2006-03-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

The captures were taken in December 2004, when a friend of mine on Livejournal's Abuse Team let me log into the account . . . Someone on the LJ Abuse team let their friend log into someone's account?

There's a feature on LJ that lets users with the right permissions, like admins or abuse team members, view all the entries in a journal or community, the friends locked and even the private. They say it isn't abused of course, so why do some people find other people accessing their private entries?

Shouldn't this be addressed in Livejournal's privacy policy?

Tags: livejournal, lj abuse, privacy, blogging

Instances of LJ Abuse in action

2006-03-07T11:18:00.000-08:00

A case of the absurdity of LJ abuse's "invasion of privacy" definition and LJ Abuse needing some lawyers on the team.

LiveJournal is a safe haven for racist trolls, and you can taunt people about their being raped and infected with HIV without the abuse team enforcing the terms of service against you... But if you post any personal information about someone that they themselves continue to publish on their own web site, your account will be yanked without notice.

It's not the decision that my comment should be deleted that I am objecting to. It's the disproportionate response, the dishonesty of the TOS not reflecting actual policy, and the selective enforcement of the TOS to favor freeloading racist trolls over people who actually contribute positively to LiveJournal, both in terms of content and in terms of actually paying for the service! I also disagree with the bogus justifications that are being made for the decision; if the real reason for deleting the comment is (say) that they're scared of possible liability if someone takes the guy up on his repeated offers and beats the crap out of him, then they should just say that and put a suitable clause in the TOS and not keep coming up with after-the-fact rationalizations.

Another case of LJ Abuse’s kangaroo-court tactics. This story chronicles numerous lies and contradictions from the LJ abuse team.

I've largely ignored him, but last week he made a posting to a site external to LJ and closely associated with my professional work, claiming that I was a "SATANIST" and a child molester. He also helpfully made an anonymous posting to my journal to make sure I was aware of what he'd done. I commented on this posting in my own LJ, and was suspended for it. LJ Abuse refuses to even take the anonymous postings' IP addresses (collected by their own system!) into consideration when "investigating" this.

In the meantime, he's still setting up sockpuppets, purely for the purposes of harassment and abuse, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. LJ Abuse is well aware of his activities, and has been for years.

I don't see why my "permanent" account, with three and a half years worth of postings and comments was deleted, nor do I understand why I cannot even mention slanderous allegations made against me on a site external to Livejournal.

By suspending my journal, LJ Abuse has done away with my ability to access the anonymous comments from the instigator of all this, ensuring that it's effectively impossible for me to pursue either an abuse complaint to his ISP or legal action for defamation.

Another example of the raving insanity of LJ Abuse's invasion of privacy rulings - you're not allowed to credit someone for legal fair use of their copyright material!

I quoted him for reasons of commentary as allowed under fair-use laws. The only way to credit him for his quote was to copy the username as shown on photo.net. Mr. Dowling chose to make his username his full name. I simply quoted his post for purposes of commentary.

He posted his name in a public forum, and I am allowed, under fair-use to quote him. Because there is no way to link to an individual comment on photo.net, the only way to properly credit the quote is to also quote the username of the person making the statement.

Send your story to abuse.lj.abuse@gmail.com

Tags: lj abuse, harassment, invasion of privacy, livejournal, trolls, freedom of speech, blogging

"Like you, though, I just don't trust LJ abuse" - Founder of LiveJournal

2006-03-07T10:03:00.000-08:00

Remember when Brad said "Like you, though, I just don't trust LJ abuse, because I hear so many horror stories"?

How much has changed with how LJ Abuse works?

Very little. LJ Abuse is inconsistent in its application of the TOS to the point of shameless favoritism. They take actions that go against their Abuse Policy. They invent new offenses that aren't listed.

"Invasion of Privacy" and "Harassment" are two of their favorite excuses to fall back on. Both terms have legal meanings which the abuse team neither knows nor cares about. You can fall foul of the LiveJournal Abuse Team's definition of invasion of privacy by posting public information, such as someone's name, or even their website which would allow people to pull public information from the WHOIS database. They may have posted this information publically on a site outside of LiveJournal, but it doesn't matter to LJ Abuse.

Under Harassment we read that they will suspend journals used "solely for the purpose of entries [or comments] about a particular user and/or community that fall under the definition of harassment or invasion of privacy." No where do they provide a definition of harassment, so we might reasonably assume that they are refering to the legal definition, but no. Harassment is whatever LJ Abuse decides it is if they want to suspend an account.

Recently there has been a rash of suspensions of communities deemed to exist soley to "incite harassment" and members posting in these locked communities have received threats against their personal journals. No where in the Abuse Policy is this "incitement to harass" mention, let alone defined. The Abuse Policy Document says that LJ Abuse does not actively seek out violations and will act only when a complaint is filed. If you file a complaint against someone for an entry which they lock before LJ Abuse gets to your complaint, they will tell you they can't look at it because it is locked. Post something in a locked community that the abuse team decides is incitement to harass though, and they will take action, even if the post goes something like "hey look at these losers in stupidproana community," and someone leaves "harassing" comments in the community.

Have you had a run in with LJ Abuse? Have you had a journal or community unfairly suspended with no appeal? Are you afraid to discuss it on LiveJournal for fear of retaliation by LJ Abuse?

Email us your story at abuse.lj.abuse@gmail.com
We will remove identifying information about your account unless you tell us not to.

Tags: lj abuse, harassment, invasion of privacy, privacy, free speech, livejournal

#bantown, LiveJournal, and LJ Abuse

2006-03-06T21:10:00.000-08:00

In January 2006, hacker members of #bantown claimed to have used javascript vulnerabilities in LiveJournal to hijack more than 900,000 of the 1,900,000 active LiveJournal accounts. In contrast, LiveJournal admitted to problems with "a couple hundred accounts."

In spite of the media coverage, from WashingtonPost.com to Slashdot to InfoWorld, LiveJournal avoided telling users anywhere on the site that they had been successfully hacked.

Why did Bantown do this?

"In order for the account takeovers to end, Bantown demands that Denise Paolucci post on the front page LiveJournal news that LJ has been pwned by Bantown."

LJ employee Denise Paolucci's chief responsibility at LiveJournal is to head their abuse department, rife with unprofessional behavior.

You may not think that hacking is a good way to respond to LJ abuse's abuses, but maybe if they ever gave straight answers to straight questions they wouldn't make these guys so angry.

Tags: lj abuse, bantown, livejournal, six apart, hacking, denise paolucci