liz_marcs | I Just Pinged LJ Regarding the Issue of Linking

Current Mood: frustrated

I Just Pinged LJ Regarding the Issue of Linking

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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm not a pumpkin!

Yes, I'm well aware of the whole to-do, and I've been following it. Yes, I disagree with the better part of what they're doing and the way they're handling it or failing to. Yes, I think some big mistakes have been made on all sides, but LJ/6A's have been much bigger and more noticeable. No, I don't think it's a good idea to go as far as they are with the anti-kiddie-porn measures. All I ever meant to do was to point out that the "contradiction" referred to in the original post, of policing links to objectionable content violating their abuse policies on non-LJ hosted content, was not actually a contradiction at all. No, I don't think policing those links is necessary, nor will it endear them to their customer base. But arguing that it's a contradiction is invalid. Argue that the content can be found just as easily without the link, or that the link may not be "advocating" the content (as in a "look at how sick this stuff is, I hate it!" context), and you've got my full support.

Am I well-explained, honeycakeybabydollpieface?

Not really, because A LINK IS NOT CONTENT.

A LINK IS NOT CONTENT.

If I say it a few more times, will it sink in? Probably not. But I will anyhow. A. Link. Is. Not. Content.

They are different things. So yes, there is a contradiction here. By policing links to off-site content, lj is policing off-site content, despite saying they won't. Because a link IS NOT CONTENT.

I can link you to anything you like. I can show you whatever you want. I am not creating content by providing a link! Content has a specific definition, and a link doesn't meet it. Content means something has been written, drawn, sung, spoken, created. A link is not content! A link points to content. Or heck, a link sometimes doesn't point to content! If I link you to google (www.google.com), does this comment now contain the entire internet? Content has information, or art, or opinion, or a description of somebody's day, or gossip, or content. A link has none of those things in and of itself, it only points to where they can be found. They are not the same. The link does not become what it points to! It points to content, it is not content in and of itself!

Instructions may tell you how to make a bomb, but instructions are not a bomb. They are different things. They are defined differently, in the dictionary AND by the law.

How many different ways can I say this? If you are banning somebody based on what they have linked to, you are not banning them based on their content. You are not banning based on what they have created, done, or said. Because the link creates, does, and says nothing.

AND this makes a total travesty of the way lj insists that they're only doing this for legal reasons, because they cannot, legally, have illegal content on their servers. LJ IS LYING, and they have proved this outright by banning links to objectionable content! So it IS a contradiction, a great big heaping one! If I link to something objectionable, that thing is NOT on lj's servers in any way, shape, or form, and lj has ZERO legal responsibility for it. Legal responsibility for sever content does not extend to links. Because, guess what? Links are not content!

Fair enough. So post some links to pornography in your LJ and let's see how far it gets you. Just because something isn't explicitly illegal doesn't mean it's a good idea, and just because the United States Government (TM) hasn't laid out in the Constitution that something is a crime against humanity doesn't mean you should go around doing it. It may be perfectly legal for me to teach someone how to make a bomb, but I'm not going to do it because it's not something I want people to know.

The problem with the U.S. (well, one of many) is that people love to sue. Groups like WFI have way too much money backing them and can afford to file all the lawsuits they want. Companies that are targeted with lawsuits, no matter how frivolous, have two choices: Pay a huge amount of money to settle out of court, or pay a huge amount of money for a legal defense, spend time in court, and risk still having to pay an even huger amount of money if they lose the suit. There's no defense against it. The only option is to strip away everything that might ever conceivably look like fodder for a lawsuit and leave as narrow a profile as possible. It's still not perfect, but it makes it harder for anyone to find a suit that'll make it to a judge.

Yes, it's entirely legal to link to whatever the hell you feel like linking to. It's also entirely legal to complain about someone linking to something, make trouble for the hosting service, and make a big stink about their service because OMG your precious CHILDRENZES clicked on a link and saw something they shouldn't have. LJ isn't going that far... yet. (I'm waiting for it.) But they probably don't want to deal with the possible legal implications of having links from their site to illegal material, even if they could win the long, drawn-out, expensive, highly publicized court battle.

So if a link is not content, why are you posting it, anyway? Just get rid of the link... you're not losing any content. I can't imagine why anyone ever links to anything... what's the point? It does, as you say, nothing.

.....

Do you even have a point?

You seem to have lost mine. And I think yours too.

Since links are not content, lj banning people for links proves that they lied. Lj was quite capable of not lying, and legally protecting themselves, but they chose to lie instead.

This is my point. Lj = liars, and since people don't like liars, people are leaving lj, which means I need to leave lj, because my friends are leaving lj. This is my point. I feel I have proved it to my satisfaction here, so I'll just stop, but I'm quite curious about this.

Your point is.... what, exactly? That I should shut up and be a good little drone? Why? If that's not your point, I'm really at a loss what is. You're defending lj awfully hard here for somebody who claims to think they're treating their customers badly.

Well, you're still using the service, so you must not object to it enough to take your business elsewhere. As for me, like I said, I don't particularly miss that oh-so-precious ability to post links to kiddie porn. Also, I have a prehensile tail. Oh, wait, that's a lie! The horror! Now nothing I say will ever have any meaning, and I'm a horrible person who needs to leave the Internet forever and turn all my web real estate over to people who know how to run it properly and will let people link to all the content they want, because OMG HORRORZ LINKS IS NOT TEH CONTENT! Yeah, I get it. LJ lied, they're evil, they suck, let's all boycott them. Gotcha. Feel free to leave. I won't stop you. My point is that there are pros and cons, and people are really hitting the cons hard. It's like living in any city in the world. You operate under the assumption that, if you don't break the law, law enforcement will leave you alone. Well, sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they screw up. Sometimes they make laws you don't like, and don't follow their own guidelines for enforcing them. Are you going to pack up and move to make sure your precious tax dollars go to support a city that hasn't shown you the seedy corrupted side yet? Apparently, you will. Fair enough. I just think people are reading too much into this whole "we refuse to host links to objectionable content but don't police offsite content" thing... as if they haven't already done enough stupid things worth leaving over. Of course, this entire comment, as I've already mentioned, contains no content, as it's a single giant link. So I don't imagine you'll pay attention to it anyway. (www.anifics.com/hosted/nidoking)

That link is so wrong I have no interest in clicking it to see what it means.

"Long." The link is so long.

Also, because it was so long... I didn't read the text of it.

The link was also wrong, in that it doesn't go anywhere.

So, sort of like the comment?

Not to mention the point, such as it is.

It means what it says. I just linked to my homepage to make the entire comment a link.

Ha. Ha. Ha. So. Funny.

OK. Now you're just looking petty.

SHE called ME "pumpkin". When someone crosses that line, I say all bets are off.

I did notice the pumpkin comment, and it was a bit patronising, but I just think that you kind of undermined your arguement by posting a giant link because of the impression and tone it gave. Sorry.

Ah, yes, the fabled "pumpkin" line. Few have crossed it and lived to tell the tale.

One last thing: if you don't understand the difference between "a link" and "link text" well... no point in talking to you. And since you obviously don't, bye.

By the way, when did THAT become the point? A link is both link text and a reference, and I consider both to be content. How about this: "A link is not equivalent to the referenced content, and therefore should be subject to its own guidelines, not the guidelines covering the linked content." Fair? Cover what we're both trying to say?

Honestly, all I was trying to say at the start was that the LJ Abuse issue

liz_marcs referenced specifically covered the behavior of LJ members on other sites and had nothing to do with links to offsite material. They're not policing offsite material. They're policing material (content or otherwise) hosted on their servers. I'm sure they've said things that contradict what they're doing, but that specific thing is NOT the contradiction! That's the point in its entirety. Everything else has been tangential and mainly backlash for the "pumpkin" crack, to which I take considerable offense.

*snicker* If you're that easily offended, turn off your computer now and go live in a nunnery, pumpkin.

Here's the thing - if you find something objectionable on a link, you contact the that person's ISP and deal with it directly.

You have to draw a line somewhere. Traditionally, on the Internet, the line is drawn between the anchor tag and the actual content.

This is not about child porn.

I just linked to something that violates the LJ TOS.

Oops, I did it again.

And once again.

None of these links are pornographic or have anything to do with child porn. If I want to have a discussion about how insane the SPN fandom is or where the line should be drawn on copyright issues, it is not unreasonable to link to the material so that other people know what we're actually discussing.

Well, naturally. But suppose that I make something and put it on a hidden page on my website (with a non-intuitive or random sub-URL), meta-tagged to repel searchbots, as a gift for my friends or people who do me a favor, like E-mailing me a response to my question, and one of those people posts a link to it so anyone can find it. It's not illegal by any stretch of the imagination, but it's certainly mean-spirited. Shouldn't I be able to ask people not to link to my content if I don't have the webtool-savvy to prevent it from happening, like Gamefaqs does?

A reasonable person contacts the host of the content, yes. People in general, however, are not reasonable. Remember those stories about the Secret Service threatening to shut down a spoof website because people posted links that would fill in the President's name in an obituary or "threatening" story? (Actually, in that case, the links were as much content as the stories themselves.) I'm still not trying to say that LJ is in the right or doing things the right way, but they are WITHIN their rights to demand that objectionable content not be linked, and we can pack up and leave or we can adjust and deal with it. Child porn was just an example that I threw out there as "the big issue" that everyone's focusing on. They talk about copyright issues sometimes, but everyone who's been named has posted or linked to content that was of questionable child porn status.

but they are WITHIN their rights to demand that objectionable content not be linked

I just don't think this is true. They are within their rights to govern content that is hosted on their servers, but I really think they'd have a hard time making a legal case for banning links to content that exists elsewhere, objectionable or not. First, they'd have to spell that out in the ToS outright, and the problem with that is where would they ever draw the line? Any given link is likely to lead to a link that will eventually lead to "objectionable content." They'd have to ban links of any kind, period, and good fucking luck getting users to use a journaling service that does that.

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I Just Pinged LJ Regarding the Issue of Linking

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