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

[minisinoo.livejournal.com]

I really get the feeling that they are now trying to cover ALL possible bases in order to keep from getting their asses taken to court, even things that are patently ridiculous.

One thing they did make clear in one of those posts was that a link to a site that did not have objectionable content when the link was posted but acquired it later would not necessarily get the linker suspended, but one would be told to remove the link. In short, benefit of the doubt, I reckon. The problem would be determining if it had changed, or not. So it's one of those things that sounds reasonable on paper, but when you actually start thinking about it, has lots of holes, but are they just not thinking about how the web changes (which is really hard to believe of a bunch of techies), orholes on purpose -- e.g., LJ is offering people with links who get reported for it the chance to claim 'they changed it!' and remove the link in order to avoid dealing with it? That is, I wonder if they're doing a wink, wink ... go ahead and link to stuff outside, it's not on our servers, if somebody reports you, we'll warn you and you can move it. Although really, if it's your OWN story (or art) one's linking to, that's a bit hard to argue. So OTOH, I find it hard to believe a bunch of *techies* haven't thought about how the web works, but OTOH, if this is shadow boxing in order to avoid hitting anybody, they're doing it REALLY badly.

As far as I know, they can't be held legally accountable for material on other websites as long as the person providing the link makes it clear the link contains objectionable material? The linker might, but they can't? But this is where things get really shady, and I'm a historian, not a lawyer.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

They told us they'd give fandom the benefit of the doubt too, but when given some doubtfully aged porn, they didn't. Why should we believe they'd give us the benefit of the doubt about links? They said they were going to warn people before deleting accounts, and they didn't.

They've lied quite a lot now, why should we believe them?