liz_marcs | Yup, LJ really did tell us to drop dead...

bubble_blunder have both found this gem in this

dw_news thread:

Source: http://news.livejournal.com/102095.html?thread=54713039#t54713039

Dear LiveJournal user

stormcloude ,

The comment you are referring to is correct; the content does not meet the legal definition of child pornography. As other, more recent entries in the community explain, however, non-photographic content involving minors in sexual situations which does not contain serious artistic or literary merit is likely in violation of Federal obscenity laws, and is content LiveJournal has chosen not to host.

Additionally, the Terms of Service (http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos.bml) does not include any statement indicating that users will be warned prior to alternate actions. Specifically, section XVI Member Conduct, at the bottom, explicitly states "If LiveJournal determines, in its sole and absolute discretion, that any user is in violation of the TOS, LiveJournal retains the right to terminate such user's account at any time without prior notice." While LiveJournal does not do so in the instances of many violations of the Terms of Service, the policy adopted for this particular violation is to terminate without warning. You can find information on other policies at http://ww.livejournal.com/abuse/policy.bml.

The standard for artistic merit is not whether a work simply has technical merit; it is whether there is serious artistic value that offsets the sexual nature of the content. A group consisting of members of LiveJournal's Abuse Prevention Team, LiveJournal employees, and Six Apart staff reviewed the content that was reported to us. This group decides whether material potentially in violation of this policy warrants consideration for serious artistic value. In this case, they clearly did not see serious artistic value in content that simply displayed graphic sexual acts involving minors.

Regards,
Eric
LiveJournal Abuse Prevention Team

The bolded bits above are mine.

This is why I was pissed about the complete lack of clarity that LJ kept wafting at its users just before the perm account sale. This is why I said people should keep their wallets shut until we got that clarification on what those nonsense words actually meant.

Look, I have no problem with LJ deciding they don't want to host some content but are perfectly okay with others.

My issue is that LJ has been blowing smoke up its user bases ass for two months about what is and is not acceptable content. They have not been clear (at all) about what will get you permanently banned from LJ with no warning whatsoever and what will get you a mere order to remove a single post. It appears that there will be no clear rules on this forthcoming. Oh, no. We have to learn how to read minds to figure it out.

Looks like all those vague statements (the ones I was screaming about last month) have come back to bit us all in the ass and all those nice little assurances that we got in comments on the last policy "clarification" from 6A/LJ was basically bullshit. In short, 6A can and will ban your ass without prior notification, is the 6A employees decide that you're not the sort of person they want to host anymore.

Add to the whole deal that there's now an easy peasy way for people to turn you in to the LJ cops with one click, and I think what we have here is the real potential that more than a few of us could sign in one day and finding your journal gone.

Think about this people who write slash: How much hate mail do you get? Now imagine getting tuned over to LJAbuse every time you post slash. In theory, you're posting about consenting adults. And maybe 99% of the people on LJAbuse won't give a shit about your slash story.

What happens when you get that one guy/gal on LJAbuse who doesn't give a shit about ages, but the fact that you've got a same-sex pairing and that's all the excuse they need? Or what if you got someone who thinks that all pr0n should be FLocked (I don't just mean under a an LJ-cut...but locked...)?

Yeah. This can definitely spread beyond FER THE CHYLDRERIN!

Continued from: And So It Begins...Again (The New 6A/LJ Journal Deletions) and Watch LJ Repeat Its Mistakes...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The problem isn't that it wasn't there. The problem is that every time they have said it, they've then backtracked either in a new post or in the comments threads and said that they don't really mean fandom, or that fandom only counts in extreme examples involving pre-pubescent children, etc.

What

bubble_blunder said. The released the new ToS right around the same time as the perm account sale. When people read over the ToS and went, "Hey! Wait! What does this mean?" Someone for LJ/6A went, "Well, it's not that draconian. We meant this." or "What we really mean is this."

But (and this is the big but), when people pushed them for details beyond the vague, "Well, we really mean this even though the ToS says this" there was no straight answer.

Frankly, I did find both pieces of art on the offensive and/or squicky side. And I agree that neither one of the artists were smart about how they went about posting those images or even hosting the images (I think LJ Scrapbook was used in at least one instance).

Now 6A/LJ has the absolute right to decide not to host something. But they kind of need to be upfront and honest about what they will and will not host, which they haven't been.

I can also understand if someone's a repeat offender and a journal is suspended after, say, three warnings within a given time period (to be really draconian, let's say 6 months). However, to suspend without warning, and then not refund the money prorated for that person's remaining time, that's just fishy. Yes, they've got the absolute right to shut down a journal, but if they're not willing to fulfill a contract, than they pretty much owe the customer a refund for the unused portion of that contract...which they don't.

Plus, the way LJ/6A is going about laying down the rules and enforcing them is not exactly endearing them to their customer base. It's a case of: this could happen to me/my friends/etc.

Yeah, it seems clear that LJ/SA doesn't WANT to "clarify" in a way that actually makes things clear, because as long as they don't do that, they can make decisions willy-nilly based on the moment's hot buttons and not be breaking their own rules.

Now 6A/LJ has the absolute right to decide not to host something. But they kind of need to be upfront and honest about what they will and will not host, which they haven't been.

Oh, I absolutely agree, and even though the feelings of insecurity this whole situation brings up make it tempting, I'm not letting myself slip into the mindset that it's "just" HP or "just" looks-underage fan art or whatever -- it's those things now, it could be slash fic next. And the way that LJ says one thing one minute and something almost completely different ten minutes later is just frustrating beyond belief.

Feelings of insecurity are the ultimate goal of all vague censorship rules, because then it leads to much broader self-censorship. If people don't know where the line is, then everyone will back away from the perceived line, and the censors win even more ground.

Well, personally I thought most of the "backtracking" or comments from "LJ people" in other people's posts/threads seemed to be careful to add that this WASN'T an official position and that they were trying to clarifiy what THEY thought the situation was. It does seem that the current focus is on HP fandom and I wonder if SA is getting pressure from JKR and Co.?

Not true.

ARTWORK falls under the US Obscenity laws here:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00001466---A000-.html

Note that these are different from the Child pornography laws.

Barak was asked about fan fiction and illustrations in relation to child pornography laws.

Child pornography deals with *photographs* of *real children* in sexual situations, and thus does not apply to fan *fiction* or to *illustrations*.

However.

Child obscenity deals with drawings and other visual representations. And it doesn't matter whether it's a real child or not or a character. All that matters is if it appears that someone under age 18 is depicted in graphic sexual content.

Go read the US code I cited above, and then go reread this lj_biz entry:

http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/241428.html (5th paragraph)

Some people have noted a Supreme Court case from a couple of years ago striking computer-generated images from the definition of child pornography and asked whether, as a result, drawings of children in sexual situations can be considered illegal. The answer is, yes, in some cases. Congress reacted to the Supreme Court's decision in that case by changing the obscenity laws to put back what the Supreme Court struck down from the child pornography laws. Those obscenity laws are still on the books today and still being enforced. As a result, our policy prohibits obscene images of minors in graphic sexual contexts.

Note that the rest of the entry deals with fan FICTION, which is different from fan ART. People in fandom (as well as myself and others) apparently read that entry and didn't distinguish the laws for artwork as being different from those for fanfiction. Graphic content in artwork is a lot more likely to be noticed, a lot more likely to be reported, and therefore a lot more likely to get you banned.

The policy for Child Obscenity seems to be the same as that for Child Pornography: http://www.livejournal.com/abuse/policy.bml#childporn

Yup, LJ really did tell us to drop dead...

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the feelings of insecurity this whole situation brings up

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