liz_marcs | 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

.....

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.

I Just Pinged LJ Regarding the Issue of Linking

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