i think this is finally it for livejournal

[solarbird]

Livejournal’s new Russian Federation-compliant Terms of Service has a lot of bad things in it – seriously, real bad, like, half my journal bad – but this is probably the tripwire for me:

[The user must] Mark Content estimated by Russian legislation as inappropriate for children (0-18) as “adult material” by using Service functions.

Any mention of anything LGBT-related (with some exceptions for condemnation) is 19+ in the Russian Federation, by law. It’s part of the legal structure they use to beat down on queers.

They also have a big “no” on “political solicitation materials” and that’s also pretty fatal for me – seriously, have you read my LJ – but this, yeah, I will not mark my journal “adult content” because I’m queer. Fuck that, and fuck them.

So the only question really is whether I hit accept on the ToS and just ignore it. Or whether I delete my journal (which goes back to when it was running in Brad’s dorm room at UW) and then open a new blank one with the same name just to keep the user account solarbird, or some dumbass thing like that.

As of this morning, despite crossposting being disabled since Monday pending acceptance of new terms, I have the 364th most popular LJ, at least in the Latin character set side of the world. It’s pretty obvious now that we’re done here.

(More bits of analysis here and here – both are Dreamwidth links.)

eta: Important translation of applicable Russian censorship laws here, on Tumblr. This is 400% about speech repression.

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Comments

[oh6]

I re-upped with DW as a paying user shortly before this news, mostly because I happened to visit my own LJ friends list while not logged in and got a sharp reminder of what it's like for everyone else.

[forests_of_fire]

If you decide to delete, there's a way to log in using NoScript that can bypass the ToS for now.

[solarbird]

Only kinda-sorta works. The link says it doesn't work at all, but if you're already logged in (as I was) then NoScript on everything does, in fact, let you hit your journal in a logged-in state. Functionality is obviously very limited tho'.

[forests_of_fire]

Yeah, they fixed the exploit yesterday evening, I think. >.

[numb3r_5ev3n]

I'm glad I backed everything up when I did. I'm *still* hesitant to pull the trigger and just delete everything, but it might be for the best if I did. They need a sharp lesson in customer dissatisfaction. And for some of us, this is just the end of the end...the beginning of the end was in 2007, with LJ Strikethrough. I'm going to be a paid member of DW from now on.

[solarbird]

Well, with the servers in Russia, they really don't have a lot of choice. I suspect they were ordered to move the servers over. That doesn't make it better for any of us, of course.

also, lol lj strikethrough so oooooooooooooold

[numb3r_5ev3n]

I know, right? It's like LJ has taken 10 years to die. But that was really the first sign that things were not going to be the same ever again after the sale to Six Apart, and then to SUP. Things were never going back to the way they were. So many people got auxiliary journals on Dreamwidth or InsaneJournal, or straight-up bailed from LJ to those services, or to Tumblr.

I was an early adapter to DW and backed my journal up way back then. I'm glad I did. I think a lot of people figured something like this was coming at some point.

[solarbird]

Oh, absolutely. I know I did. See also: been here some time.

[sistawendy]

I hit accept, but I'm hoping I can browbeat two particular ex-MOOers in to migrating before I nuke my LJ. Its days are definitely numbered, one way or another.

lol welcome to the 21st century

[solarbird]

lololol ex-MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOers

good luck with that. XD

Re: lol welcome to the 21st century

[sistawendy]

Dude. I'm an ex-MOOer. There are a whole bunch of them in my circle.

[rogin]

hi, another LJ refugeee here. I am flake_sake over there. Glas I found you here. I need your news posts.

[solarbird]

Hiya!

[janne]

Unless those terms are retroactive, old LGBT and political content will remain to annoy the Russians even if you never post again, I suppose? Currently vaguely sad I didn't post more of it. Sticking to dreamwidth and leaving the old LJ in memoria, myself.

[solarbird]

I'm thinking of a sticky post up top saying "I am operating this journal in direct and intentional violation of Russian Federation law" and continuing to echo political and queer stuff in direct violation of TOS. I haven't originated a post there in years specifically because I expected this to come eventually. So there's that.

The paid account status stops as soon as possible, of course.

[absynthe]

That sounds like a particularly excellent response to their garbage.

Also, love your news posts, thanks for taking the time to do those!

[solarbird]

Really, I kind of doubt they'll delete my LJ. This is about the Russian side - and who gets attention on the Russian side, I suppose - more than anything.

Also, I can't comply with TOS without deleting most of my existing journal anyway, so... yeah.