weather rain of may

It is raining, and has been for the last four days. It stops for five minutes and then starts again, in long curtains. It makes the garden look lush and green. The asphalt glistens. All manner of junk lying around outside looks more disgusting in a wet state. The sky is pearl-colour or milk-colour. It reflects in the glistening asphalt.

We've put the heating back on. My legs are cold under my jeans.

I don't like this LJ alarm

I am alarmed by posts in other people's journals and by the disappearance (i.e. flocking down) of some other regulars-on-my-flists' journals. What I have heard and read is that certain LJ-comms have been suspended by LJ because they contained content that could be construed as illegal among their interests. I got most of my info from liviapenn post here. This has got a lot of people, it seems, worried and people have changed their own user interests.

I am not entirely sure what is illegal about slash. Incest and chan I can see but the sex stuff? And there's been so much debate about the copyright stuff recently, surely that can't be construed as illegal? And does this relate to fanlib at all, because fanlib has raised interest? I have no idea.

Should I be backing up my fic posts? My journal? Or is this just panicmongering and groundless alarmism? I've checked the lj-news comm and there was nothing there about it.

What is the legal definition of 'indecent'?

i've now read LiveJournal's terms of service but am still no closer to enlightenment. Maybe I am blind or maybe medicated into stupidity, but I cannot find a formulation prohibiting anything under whose rubric slash would fall. I am also not clear under which circumstances a journal would need to be suspended and under which circumstances it would be enough to flock it.

The FAQ helped me a bit more. It contains the following:

Comments, entries, journals and posts not permitted on LiveJournal include but are not limited to material:
[...]
* meeting the United States legal definition of "indecent"; [...]

I am not familiar with the United States legal definition of 'indecent' and may have to do some more googling here. But this would be the one that those groups who have targeted LJ based their complaints on, if it's to do with slash.

I found one article on the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA or Act) which is an act that seems to be mainly concerned with protecting minors on the internet.

Under (d), the authors of this article suggest that there is no legal definition of 'indecent'
:
Regardless of whether the CDA is so vague that it violates the Fifth Amendment, the many ambiguities concerning the scope of its coverage render it problematic for First Amendment purposes. For instance, its use of the undefined terms "indecent" and "patently offensive" will provoke uncertainty among speakers about how the twostandards relate to each other and just what they mean.

However, I am not a lawyer and may be misintepreting this.

Does anyone know what the US legal definition of indecent is? And what could be construed as illegal?

It is frustrating to be subject to the legal system of a country I am neither living in nor entitled to vote in.

I don't want to target LJ

More on the suspension of LJ accounts"

ancarett has posted a <call to ring up LJ and tell them what we think about their recent suspension of LJ accounts. I like the idea of getting in touch and finding out what's going on and finding out policy and getting someone to be accountable. But I don't like the idea of targetting the wrong guys.

I love LJ. And I think it is a great pity to turn on the wrong people. LJ's TOS clearly state that they can suspend an account at any time without warning. We agreed to that when we signed up. And LJ does not like suspending accounts. They would never have suspended these particular slashy accounts if their noses had not been rubbed in it by those external groups who complained. Then they are legally obliged to.

synecdochic provided an excellent explanation of the TOS last week. This was in the context of the fanlib debate but it is also insightful about the legal reasoning behind LJ's own TOS. The TOS in fact protect our content, as far as I can tell. And, of course, they protect LiveJournal from having to be responsible for what users post.

I can't get annoyed at LiveJournal for bowing down to legal pressures not of their own making. I can only get annoyed at those idiotic people out there who have nothing better to do than ferret out these things. On the other hand, there were what seem to be genuine child porn sites among those banned LJ comms and I have to agree with their suspension.

I'm wondering, then, how to protect our own content. It was easier in the pre-internet days (I guess -- I wasn't part of fandom then!) because you just xeroxed stuff in your own back room and sent it in sealed neutral envelopes to specific people. Now, any old feeble-minded Tom, Dick and Henrietta can poke their beady eye in and choke on their own bile.

So is flocking enough to protect ourselves? As far as I understand it, the legal issues have not been tested and it's enough to stay under the radar. Is that right?

ETA icarusancalion just pointed me to some interesting pages on the Warriors for Innocence site. Warning: You may feel defiled after clicking on these links. I did.

20 January 2006

6 April 2007

It's not know whether it was this group that caused the current spate of suspensions. I have to say I am impressed with LJ's responses on 6 April.

ETA: femmequixotic posted a rational, calm response to the fact that the fannish HP comm pornish_pixies was suspended. And she is very directly affected (I think she was a mod?).

pervy literature

kitsune13 asked people to come up with a list of fiction, anything from literature classics to genre novels, that include what would fall under the (however vague) definition of 'indecency'. About a zillion people responded, and the whole thing is one long wonderful rec literature list.

The Bible features prominently.

Here is the post and its commentage. It makes for great reading.