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

[iko.livejournal.com]

Their treatment of syndicated feeds and the whole anti-linking thing together makes a huge pile of wtf. It's completely inconsistent and makes absolutely no logical sense.

[vichan.livejournal.com]

Anti-linking thing? O_o

[iko.livejournal.com]

No idea what else to call it other than 6A/LJ being "anti-linking". "Anti-linking to objectionable content"?

To me, it's all just really inconsistent how one type of linking is acceptable (syndicated content) while another is not (an individual providing a link within his/her content). A link is a link.

[vichan.livejournal.com]

OHHH. I was thinking you may have meant their syndicated feeds being anti-linking.

On one hand, I can understand their stance - syndicated content comes in from another site entirely, no user on LJ is responsible for what's ON that site, and the person who IS responsible for it isn't on LJ. It's kinda like if you subscribed to a newspaper, and you were held legally responsible for something published in it.

All they can really do is delete the subscription, which they say they can't do (but I know they can). Like I said - I submitted a support request for it but have yet to receive an answer.

On the other hand, their anti-linkiness is complete bull shit, and they have no good way to enforce it. We think that WE found a loophole, they say we haven't - but that creates a hell of a lot MORE loopholes? My gawd, 6A. There is absolutely NO SANE WAY to enforce that rule.

[bubble-blunder.livejournal.com]

So, stupid question, being that I have only a very tiny understanding of RSS feeds....

Does this mean that instead of linking to her personal site where her objectionable art lives, Fanny Fandom could just create an RSS feed of the New Content portion of her personal site, let he flist subscribe to it, and then they could see links to her objectionable content on their flists?

~Lisa

[vichan.livejournal.com]

Exactly. That's basically what I'm trying to find out from LJ - if they would, in any way, take action against RSS feeds. Pretty much the only thing they CAN do is delete the feed, which they've said they can't do.

They've stated in multiple places across the site that they're not responsible for what's in RSS feeds. Oh, AND - I quote: "syndicated accounts are not owned by anyone; they automatically collect content from the source feed." It's true that no one owns a feed itself; someone just owns the source that it came from.

See - I found yet another loophole for us to jump through. It may be why they haven't responded yet.

I just hope they're not considering shutting down RSS feeds or something completely over-the-top like that. If you thought I was upset before...

(And just in case this IS a possible loophole, I've been working on a straight-to-the-basics RSS tutorial, which I'm hoping will be mostly finished tonight.)

I suddenly wish that comments also had mood setting, because I sure feel nerdy. O_o *dons the Dib icon instead*