I Just Pinged LJ Regarding the Issue of Linking

[liz_marcs]

Right now, an awful lot of people are saying LiveJournal will ToS your journal if you provide even a link to material LJAbuse would deem ToS-worthy (using, of course, LJ's invisible guidelines that we — the customers and content providers — have yet to see) as if you were hosting the content on the LiveJournal servers.

I'm not talking about displaying images that are hosted on another site (i.e., Photobucket or DeviantArt) using the <<img>> tag.

I'm talking about just providing a link to content or an image using the <<a href>> tag that LJ Abuse deems ToS-worthy.

See the response this user got when he/she asked that question.

Another LJ user asked the same questions and got the same response from an LJ/6A employee. (H/t to wesleysgirl for the link.)

Note that this new off-site linking stance is in direct violation of LJ's own abuse policies.

I want to be clear: I'm not calling the OP a liar, but this response beggars belief as far as I'm concerned,  especially since Web sites change all the time and it's not that hard to imagine a once-innocent link to, say to an article on SuicideGirls (warning link may be NWS), could suddenly become rife with problems.

So I decided to ask Support for myself.

Within seconds of me posting my request Support tagged it as private, so good luck seeing Request#: 797739 if you want to confirm that I did, in fact, do this.

I'll just have to give you the text of what I asked:

There is currently a rumor going around the user base that LJ/6A would delete or suspend a journal if the user links to a Web site or Web page that contains content that the Abuse Team deems as objectionable.

I'm not talking about displaying an objectionable image hosted on, say Photobucket, and linked using the "img" tag.

I'm talking about linking to a site or an image using the "a href" tag.

So, for example, I post a link to a Web site( a link and nothing more) and say someone reports the entry to LJ Abuse.

If LJ Abuse deems that I have, indeed, linked to material that would otherwise get me ToS'd if LJ servers were hosting it, would my account be suspended/deleted because I merely posted a link to another Website?

Thank you for your prompt response on this matter.

As soon as I get a response, I will post it here.

Either that, or LJ is going to ToS me for posting a link to SuicideGirls.

Screw it. If this journal disappears, that's a pretty much solid answer, don't you think?

Comments

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

It turns out that if you use Vertigo as the template for your comment page, it's not there. It is on the Horizon scheme. I don't know if it's on the other schemes as well.

[tabaqui]

Um.
Uh.
Scheme?

Ah ha!
I use Punquin Elegant. Is that a scheme?

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

I know, I was the same, above! Check here to see which scheme you're using. (It's not the layout of your actual journal, it's the layout that you see when you're looking at LJ's own main pages.)

[tabaqui]

Funny, none of those are checked, and vertigo and horizon look nearly identical and nothing like anything i see on a regular basis so....i have no clue. Heh.
But i guess since i can't see the abuse button, i'm using the...other one.
:)

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Yes. What it means is that when people comment on your LJ, they see your LJ Style (Punquin Elegant) unless they've force a "style mine" on the comment pages (in that case, they see their own commenting page style).

There's a way to force it so that your journal has "no style" (or rather, one of LJ's standard schemes (here: http://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/). It could be that they're still futzing with the code, because the Vertigo scheme doesn't have the abuse link, but the Horizon scheme does. It could be they haven't gotten around to making all the various LJ styles carry that bit of code either.

[tabaqui]

That 'report abuse' is gonna bite them in the ass. I would almost advocate reporting everything - 'this lj has curse words!! this lj is pro war!!' except they'd probably just delete everybody.

Grrrrrrr.

[iko.livejournal.com]

Ugh. This thought of all the monkeys doing stupid reporting really really irritates me.

[tabaqui]

Oh, i know. Cause people *are* gonna be stupid with it. Vindictive and petty and ignorant.
Gah.