LJ flags another comm as 'Explicit Adult Content'

[charmian]

LJ forces a comm to declare itself Explicit Adult Content, then after complaints from the comm owners, changes it to Adult Concepts.

http://ineptshieldmaid.dreamwidth.org/192601.html

While I don't really approve of LJ's policy, although I do acknowledge they are within their rights to have such a policy, I'm confused as to why anyone is surprised by this. This has been LJ's stated policy for a long time (possibly ever since the flag was introduced?), and just a while ago, the exact same thing happened to fanficrants.

And, although people are referencing the ToS, the FAQs clearly state that this is the policy:

http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=281
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=196

Comments

[amadi]

This is another situation where the FAQs and the TOS don't align, which is the loophole that started the infamous nipplegate situation. But people agree to follow the TOS, not the FAQs. The FAQs aren't binding. Really, what, 5 or 6 years later, LJ should know that.

[charmian]

In general, though, I've found that LJ tends to act as though the FAQs are the interpretation of the ToS. For example, now breast-feeding icons, but the ToS didn't change, whereas the Abuse Policy did.

http://www.livejournal.com/abuse/policy.bml#adult_content

If anything, in response to the complaints (if it doesn't claim that this is a legitimate interpretation of ToS), LJ will just update the ToS and then magically it will be binding on everyone.

[amadi]

Oh, they do act that way, I'm just saying that they don't really have justification for doing so.

[charmian]

I don't really know, though. The ToS reserves some pretty broad powers to LJ. They say they 'might' call on you to restrict the content, which is not the same as promising they definitely will.

[fadedwings]

I'm not surprised. To be honest it is surprising that it took them this long to do it. I don't like it but I don't really care much about LJ anymore. I'm reading and cross posting for the people that won't migrate elsewhere but I don't really feel invested in it anymore...not even with my permanent account.

[charmian]

Nah, the way LJ works is that Abuse Prevention staff/volunteers don't go wandering around LJ looking for things to report. They act when people report on them. So, depending on whether someone reports you, your comm with adult content may get flagged on day one or day 1234.

Basically, though, it would help if LJ would make more announcements about it, if they are going to have this policy. What can definitely be seen here is that a lot of people have no idea what their policy is.

[amadi]

This is true, but the ToS does go to the detail of a sequence for how adult content issues will be handled, to do something completely outside of that sequence is bad faith, at the very least.

[charmian]

Hah, maybe they'll claim that since the TOS basically says that they can remove content whenever they want at their sole discretion, this is somehow related.

[azurelunatic]

I wonder how deep the backlog is, too.

[charmian]

Well, there's no way to know, unless someone tests it out, I suppose.

[azurelunatic]

I just used myself as a test case, and one can still manually set the content level of an individual entry to specify not-adult, even when the journal as a whole is explicit. Though that was me setting my own settings, rather than having the settings of my whole journal set for me. I did get a great big scare-label on my journal before I could even see anything, not even the sole entry that I'd specified was totally safe.

The places where this hits hardest is communities where all content is locked, because then one cannot log out and see stuff.

I have a chart:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AhtWr7PvrMa4dEM3a2NzUC1xXzl5LUpQaGlEQWY5UEE&hl=en

It doesn't (yet) address whole-comm flagging from Abuse.

[charmian]

Nice chart!

That's some good information to know.

Yeah, this probably does hit hardest the communities where all content is locked. LJ and its users have a big conflict: LJ has essentially made it against the rules for under 18s to view explicit content, and many comm owners don't agree with this. (So what happens if someone is under eighteen and they flag their own journal explicit adult content?)

[azurelunatic]

Someone under 18 who flags their own journal can still see their own journal, but none of their other under-18 friends can see this.

This has, in the past, led to some *epic* hard feelings.

[charmian]

Whoa, really? Why would they even do that? Though, if I knew a website imposed such restrictions, and I were under eighteen, no way would I bother to give my real birth date, since there is no way for them to find out without me telling them.

[azurelunatic]

I have no idea why a user would do that either; perhaps if they felt that they would get in trouble for posting "adult content" type stuff without using the flag. I know there was a lot of paranoia going around in the post-strikethrough era.

[charmian]

It seems in that situation the users ought to work it out amongst themselves how the content should be presented. I have to say, though, SUP appears to be much more liberal than 6A regarding content, since incidents like Strikethrough seem to have markedly decreased (incidents like strikethrough=objectionable/obscene content)

[foxfirefey]

I can understand the policy, given the climate LJ has to navigate. I think my only problem here is that LJ expects maintainers to garden their communities in a certain way, but does not give them the tools to do so--that is, a maintainer cannot give a post to their community a higher content rating if the poster does not include one. That means the only choice the maintainer has is to delete a post (and all its conversation) in order to toe the line if the poster can't or won't. And in the case of fanficrants, lots of those posts were made years ago when that policy didn't exist in any form, and they can't feasibly go back and fix it even if they wanted to.

[charmian]

Yeah, that's a tool that would definitely help. Much of the userbase doesn't seem to share your understanding, though, which also complicates matters.

[foxfirefey]

The policy is one thing, though. The implementation of it is another. A little, like an appropriately apologetic and explanatory notice to maintainers of a community, could go a long way along with giving maintainers the tools they need to mark things on their own.

And my "understanding" takes a lot less personal sacrifice on my part than the people who are upset--some of whom will be locked out of communities they used to participate in, being underage, or who remember being that age and participating, or know people who get locked out. So I can understand the frustration, too.

[matgb]

I have a different suggestion for why. The same reason some people have a friends only journal, that restricts comments to friends only, and have a 'comment to be added' post that doesn't override normal journal rules.

I'd blame the LJ UI, but sometimes even the best UI can't stop people doing that sort of thing.

[azurelunatic]

Not just a box of rocks, but a box of hand-picked Dendarii hill rocks.

[azurelunatic]

Since Strikethrough, there's also been adult content flagging developed. And there was just a bit ago a kerfuffle with certain comms being turned all adults-only without the knowledge of the maintainers. Unsurprising to me, since the FAQs have been clear about that since forever, but apparently very surprising to the rest of fandom.

[charmian]

Oh yeah. What is it with it being a surprise to people if there were FAQs made about it? Shouldn't they have announced these policy changes somewhere so that people could learn about them?

[azurelunatic]

I am, er.

In this case, the policy dates back to when the feature was introduced, as far as I know, and while I am not 100% positive, I have the inkling that it was in fact mentioned when the feature was rolled out, and ... this is not quite on the same level as "surprised water is wet; surprised fire is hot", and I had not thought that it was obscure enough to be "surprised that the user-head links to the profile".

[charmian]

I see a lot of people in discussions citing ToS and claiming that it says that LJ has an obligation to alert people to any changes LJ has made in the flagging. Perhaps what they should do is alter the ToS, then, to make it clearer.