![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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...
no subject
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
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
But yes, I totally agree with you, they have to be clear - Barak just keeps making things muddier. :(