Oh, LJ...

[mothwing]

I am such a good girl. I never really bother checking communities which are likely to offend me. Still, I thought, things can't get too bad, as they are famously on the paranoid side, and the member conduct says,

"XVI. MEMBER CONDUCT

You agree to NOT use the Service to:

Upload, post or otherwise transmit any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive to another's privacy (up to, but not excluding any address, email, phone number, or any other contact information without the written consent of the owner of such information), hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;"

Hateful content: not allowed. Racism: not allowed. Good. When I found this post (warning, racist bullshit from a community full of racist bullshit), I therefore thought that reporting it would do the trick and the mods would delete it, as it is hateful and offensive. I am so naive.

Nope.

            "Dear LiveJournal user mothwing,

While the content in question may be disturbing and in poor taste, it does not constitute a violation of the LiveJournal Terms of Service. In order for material to be considered a violation of the Terms of Service, it would have to specifically threaten or incite harm against a particular racial, ethnic, or social group. The use of a term, even a negatively-charged term, cannot be considered a violation.

As such, we will be unable to assist you; we encourage you to refrain from viewing this journal in the future if you find its content offensive.

Regards,
LiveJournal Abuse Prevention Team."

So they are condoning this kind of nonsense because it's not hateful?? What is hateful if that is not hateful enough?
Yet another good reason to leave LJ. 

Comments

[lordhellebore]

Meh? That IS "racially objectioable". What is if not that?

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

See, it doesn't incite HARM. Therefore it's fine. *rolls eyes*

[lordhellebore]

*whispers* Writing and drawing chan also doesn't...oh, wait. Been there, done that. Ugh.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

But teh nekkid!! Undermining the morals of our puritan society. They were probably not even married. :P

[lordhellebore]

Oh, and would you mind me linking to and quoting from this?

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

All yours. :)

[firenightingale.livejournal.com]

That is bad. I'm sure that they have legal responsibilities to not host racist material and especially not to condone it when it's reported! They ought to be a bit more careful!

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Apparently it's not objectionable enough. *rolls eyes*

Sadly, I don't know what exactly the legal situation is in the States, but whenever something like this happens, someone always jumps up and goes, "Freedom of speech!", so apparently there are no restrictions.

[rizardofoz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, THAT'S definitely not racist.

I swear, it's burgeoning oftener than I would have liked. And sadly I am not surprised after what I've seen and heard in the past year. :(

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

No, I shouldn't have been surprised, either. It was naive to think that racism was going to be as bad as Potter pr0n.

[moonystone.livejournal.com]

That's not threatening a particular racial group? Not hateful? Goodness.

That reaction is even worse considering how they reacted to the evil pdeophile fanfic writers and artists. Someone needs to get the priorities straight.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely. Still, it seems that the objections against teh nekkid gay seem to be publicly condoned, while everybody gets tetchy around freedom of speech restrictions or anything that even goes into that direction. I think they'll take some time until they realise that teh nekkid is not doing as much harm as condoning racism.

[moonystone.livejournal.com]

Freedom of speech? Well... yes, I can see what you mean, but I still can't understand their decision. I hope they don't take too long with that realisation, they lost too much of my good will already.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

At least I think that was their point - whenever someone asks them to do something against hate groups, or other offensive groups like some of those pro-ana people, they start becoming protective of the freedom of speech, or the freedom of religion. It's pretty strange.

[lordhellebore]

Zwei Dumme, ein Gedanke. Srsly, now tell me again there's no homophobic bias anywhere. Fucking stupid USA *grumbles incoherently*

[duckygirlrocks.livejournal.com]

I don't think the USA is the only place that happens.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

They're definitely not, that bias is pretty much everywhere, one way or another.

[moonystone.livejournal.com]

Hihi. How unusual for us...

It's an homophobic bias alright, but I do fear it's not only the USA. Though they are very, very bad for a Western country concerning that topic.

Have you read the other comments to this post? Shocking revelations, truly.

[aixa.livejournal.com]

I'm a member of dark_christian and we've been having discussions lately regarding LJ not deleting two communities who actively promote religiously motivated child abuse. It's nuts that they go after people who write fanfic but happily turn a blind eye to people who beat children with PVC pipe and teach others to do it too.

[dstroyrofworlds.livejournal.com]

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Of course being beaten with a pipe is not as dangerous as the long-term effects of reading fanfiction. I will never understand why people are so willing to turn a blind eye as soon as religion is a reason for abuse.

Did LJ give reasons for not deleting said communities?

[aixa.livejournal.com]

Something about it being friends-locked and how there was no proof that they were actually doing anything illegal. They basically hid behind the "religious freedom" argument and said that if it offended you, don't read it. It was total bullshit. The comms in question are still going, just friends locked with major barriers before they friend you. It's incredibly hard to see what they're actually discussing now, but the fact that they're promoting a style of disciplining your kid by beating them with so-called "chastening rods" made of PVC and beating children as young as mere weeks old, I'd say that's unacceptable by any interpretation of the rules.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

That's outrageous. It's curious how much violence and hatred you can cover by freedoms.
What I don't understand is what's in it for them by allowing such groups. What are they loosing if they close down hate groups and communities promoting child abuse? Surely they won't be missed by so many people? They did not seem to have problems with randomly closing journals/communities before, so why not these?
Unless they are really that biased.

[aixa.livejournal.com]

And that's the million dollar question, isn't it? The first Strikeout was thanks to a fundamentalist/dominionist Christian group sending in complaints. Those complaints were acted upon right away. Now, regular people can't be heard when they complain about abusive groups. Either LJ is going way too far in the other direction thanks to the backlash from the last round, or, there's a major influence within LJ from the dominionist side. Either way, it's not good.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

After the first Strikeout I would have gladly believed that it had been a backslash, but after the second one, I don't know anymore. Someone who seemed to know all about it said back then that they had acted so quickly because they were pressurised to leap into action by 6Apart and only used the lists the fundies had sent them to save time, but they should have had enough time to catch their breath and rethink after that, and I still don't really get how the boldthrough came to pass. Seems they really are with the dominionists, or at least sympathise.

[duckygirlrocks.livejournal.com]

The only bright spot I can even see here is that there were several sarcastic replies from people who don't share the opinion. Unfortunately, that seemed to get twisted too...

I don't know anymore. Being Politically Correct has taken over LJ. I don't want to blind myself to anything, but they do.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was happy to see those, too. Good to see that they exist. The community itself seems to be a minor threat, after all, they have only those three posts, and all of them are just blatantly stupid, but it shocks me that LJ does not stick to their own TOS in this case. I hope they come to and make up their mind about what they want.