Livejournal Censors Its Users
May 31st, 2007 by Bobosan
There was an article posted on Slashdot today, that linked to a discussion of livejournal about LJ censoring and banning accounts talking about incest. I’m all for deleting accounts of pedophiles and other detrimental people, but to just do a blanket ban on ‘incest’ is in pretty bad taste on Livejournal’s part. From the article, many of the affected users were incest survivors themselves, and were likely sharing experiences in order to heal themselves. Because of LJ’s actions, these poor people have had a way to cope shut off.
One of the greatest things about the Internet is the anonymity it provides its users. I’ve talked to people online about problems I would never have spoken about to someone face-to-face. I’m sure the embarassment of incest is quite a large stigma, and most of these people are only guilty of being victims. So once again, they are being punished for what wasn’t in their control.
Sure other people that were banned may have been writing about incest. But that is a moot point. Love it or hate it, it’s free-speech protected under the first amendment. And who’s delegated the role of decency monitor to Livejournal? If we were all judged by what we wrote in our blogs, quite a lot of people would be in very different places right now. The lesson we need to learn from this event is people are greater than the sum of their online words. Just because a person mentions incest doesn’t mean they’re supporting it. Censorship is generally a bad thing, and I for one, would be quite happy to feel akward about what I read, and allow the person who wrote it to exercise their free speech. As long as it doesn’t stay into the lines of illegality it should be fine.
I quit using Livejournal years ago because, quite frankly, it sucks. I used to blog on it constantly, and all I ever got out of it was discussion I couldn’t export to Wordpress. Right after SixApart bought out LJ, I began to despise it. And, lets face it: Livejournal is all about drama. Just this time it isn’t the users themselves making shock news; it’s the company.
Shame on you, Livejournal. So much for that original vision you had.