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Oh, for Heaven's Sake...
Dear 6A/LJ,
When I said I wanted clarification of your policies, this was not what I meant.
I meant clarification, not "the ToS hasn't really changed" followed by a bunch of vague statements that still doesn't actually say anything and still doesn't clarify what is and is not acceptable on LJ.
In case you're wondering, the issue is all about how you are interpreting the ToS. Since we can't read minds, we need you to tell us point blank. Which you're not.
And no, we're not whining. This is what happens when your user base has stopped trusting you. We're looking for loopholes where you could conceivably screw us over. This is about protecting ourselves, which obviously clashes with your need to protect your interests.
Really, the comments to the post say it better than I can at this point.
Look, answers in blunt English would be good here. Even if they're answers I don't like, something more than these vague statements and transparency that's about as transparent as mud is not an answer.
*throws up hands*
So much for that clarification...
When I said I wanted clarification of your policies, this was not what I meant.
I meant clarification, not "the ToS hasn't really changed" followed by a bunch of vague statements that still doesn't actually say anything and still doesn't clarify what is and is not acceptable on LJ.
In case you're wondering, the issue is all about how you are interpreting the ToS. Since we can't read minds, we need you to tell us point blank. Which you're not.
And no, we're not whining. This is what happens when your user base has stopped trusting you. We're looking for loopholes where you could conceivably screw us over. This is about protecting ourselves, which obviously clashes with your need to protect your interests.
Really, the comments to the post say it better than I can at this point.
Look, answers in blunt English would be good here. Even if they're answers I don't like, something more than these vague statements and transparency that's about as transparent as mud is not an answer.
*throws up hands*
So much for that clarification...
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Not only are these people stupid, they assume that we are all stupid.
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Then there was the good example of the same-sex marriage issue. Legal in several countries and in one state, not legal in 23 states. Saying, "Oh. Yeah. Advocating for that illegal thing is okay, but child porn (which they do not clearly define since it appears to be a "I know it if I see it" standard — which the U.S. Supreme Court has proven is no standard at all) is not okay."
On what is that decision based?
And also, happens when corporate policy changes and now advocating for same-sex marriage is a bannable offense. Unlikely, but could happen. You (the journal owner) decides to comply and no long write posts advocating fr same-sex marriage. Can LJ go back 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, or even 10 years to hold something you wrote before advocating for same-sex marriage became a bannable offense against you?
While I understand the heard-and-fast rules are impossible in this situation because people and the Internet are constantly evolving, people need (at the very least) some kind of clearly worded guidelines to make sense of this and they're not.
Instead it's throwing more vaguely worded crap in our direction followed by, "Can we get your money now, plz?"
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It's based on our disinterest in their bribe of charitable donations if we'd just please, pretty please, desperately please by their damn permanent accounts so they can have our money NOW and then TOS us whenever they like.
Barak's post smacked of both desperation as he watched dollars flying out the door (I'd bet fandom is a large buyer of permanent accounts) and whine (why do these brats keep bothering me????). The poor LJ guy who posted before him sounded like he genuinely wanted to reassure people but he and everyone else at LJ keep getting sandbagged by Barak.
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Because that's where their texts are being served from? Now if LiveJournal were a collection of independent interconnected servers in many countries, (like Usenet or email) this might not he an issue.
-- hendrik
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No one is saying that LJ has no right to hold us all to those laws. But they have to be specific about WHAT constitutes illegality, WHAT constitutes unacceptable content. That's the issue they keep dodging, and I think it's because they are afraid that if they fully disclose their real plan, they won't sell as many permanent accounts.
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And then you may also be bound by the laws in your own country as well - for example, Yahoo has to follow French laws regarding Nazi artifacts for French users viewing Yahoo's site (mainly in regarding to Yahoo auctions, but all of Yahoo is affected). Germany blocked all of Compuserve at one point because they failed to follow German law even tho the data was legal in the US where Compuserve was located.
While the internet may be global, the servers providing the content are not and must follow the laws at their company's geophysical location.
Conversely, Spamhaus.org (a reputable spam blocking service) is located in the UK which has very stringent laws against frivolous lawsuits and thus is immune to lawsuits filed by spammers attempting to get the blocks on their spam removed. So sometimes having to follow local laws can be useful.
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What I'm saying is that it's impossible for most international users to know the legal intricacies of foreign countries, much less the laws that govern specific cities/counties/etc. of the specific locale in question. Under most circumstances, it's not really an issue, but in the case of this situation, wherein LJ/SA is being absolutely circumspect about their definitions of things like "acceptable content" and leaning on the word "illegal" like it's a crutch, then I think all of us - locals and international users alike - are quite right to try to force some specifics out of them.
We need to know what standards are truly going to be applied. Merely saying they won't tolerate "illegal" stuff isn't good enough, because there's been no definition of how they will determine what content is going to be considered "illegal." Just looking through the comments to this post will demonstrate that there are multiple interpretations possible. We need a reasonable idea of how LJ/SA will be interpreting that. They surely do know how they intend to deal with this stuff; they simply don't want to let themselves be nailed down.
I don't for an instant think it's incumbent upon me to learn the detailed ins and outs of every location of every server I might ever use on the internet. I don't even think that's possible, especially since I don't always have the slightest clue where the server is. It just makes sense that the service provider would provide clear and usable guidelines to users so they would know whether or not to bother using the service.
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But yes, I totally agree with you, they have to be clear - Barak just keeps making things muddier. :(