Forum - View topicNEWS: Shota Community, Other LiveJournal Accounts Suspended
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GATSU
Posts: 15299 |
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It might be a private account, but it's still caving in to the opinions of a fringe group, hence why it can be considered censorship.
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Shale
Posts: 337 Location: The Middle of Nowhere, DE |
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Self-censorship is not the same as violating the first amendment.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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They're all fringe groups. Unless you want to argue that the dudes with the rape communities on Livejournal are the level-headed mainstream. LJ just picked which "fringe group" it wanted to appease. |
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neko ewen
 Posts: 30 |
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That's where I take issue. In many ways WFI's goals are laudable, but it's yet another example of a small group using complaints and (hollow) threats to get stuff that they find "objectionable" removed. In that respect they're very much like Jack Thompson, the PTC, and so forth. It's a tricky thing, since we're talking about objectionable content, which makes it very easy to confuse which issues we're talking about. I'm reminded of the thing about how Noam Chomsky *still* gets flak for basically saying that a holocaust denier should have a right to free speech. The First Amendment doesn't come into play, but the overall concept of free speech does, and you should be able to support someone's right to free speech without supporting or even condoning the content. |
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birdboy2000
Posts: 22 |
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I'd consider a far-right Texan who waves the confederate flag and is convinced us 'liberals' want to legalize rape and murder(http://suesviews2.blogspot.com/) to be just a bit fringier than, say, a community dedicated to the discussion of Nabokov's Lolita. Or even incest erotica comms. After all, this IS the internet. 
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pat_payne
Posts: 179 |
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There's a difference between taking flak or suffering decreased CD salees and someone putting a gun to your head and saying "silence or die." I see nothing wrong with disagreeing -- vehemently so at times -- or refusing to subsidize someone I disagree with financially while still supporting their right to speak their mind. |
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birdboy2000
Posts: 22 |
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What about destroying longstanding communities you've been hosting because all of a sudden someone complained to you as part of the anti-pedophilia hysteria? Or taking them down because you might lose money, even if in practice this severely curtails the ability of others to utilize their free speech? They haven't exactly been giving warnings and giving time for said groups to leave in an orderly manner. (Thankfully, there *are* places which will take them, still.) Should you be allowed to fire someone, in your America, for, say, membership in the socialist party? Free speech that makes one lose their job, free speech but we can delete what we want at any time... that's not real freedom. |
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tarrin4ever
Posts: 34 |
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A big problem I see in their quest to rid Livejournal of all things "bad" is that they might not be looking very closely at what they're reporting.
For example, roleplaying communities are taking a hit. These communities are made up of people's alternate Livejournal accounts where they roleplay as characters of whatever the fandom they're in. So for those who were roleplaying a villain, and had evil things written down in their profile or interests, *boom* gone. Were they real pedophiles? Probably not. Granted, there have been some real pedo pages that have been removed, and rightly so. I just think that maybe there should be a little deeper investigation then just reading what the "interests" are. I've heard someone claim a friends journal was deleted for having DEATH NOTE as an interest. |
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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The article(at this time) states they didn't target Lolita which suggests the group is homophobic if shota needs to be deleted, but not lolita. Now you know why places like 4Kids sanitized their titles so thoroughly. These groups are scary. I lived thru that PMRC stuff, passed petitions to gals I worked with, one who had beef-cake posters in her cubicle & commented how nice it would be to find a teen to "bring up properly" in the bedroom department, yet no one wanted to sign the petitions because kids (in a broad generic sense) need to be protected. These are the same types who parade pictures of aborted fetuses at High Schools (2 months ago at my daughter's) & shopping malls the day Santa arrives. Because only they know how to protect kids. And our nation was built on it. Wasn't it the Puritans who had that "Our way or the highway" attitude of leaving one country for religious freedom, but didn't allow anyone to vary from their faith? Christmas was illegal? |
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pat_payne
Posts: 179 |
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Lincoln is said to have said "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." If a company feels it is in their best interests to restrict some speech on their own property, they can restrict it. You cannot say any damfool thing you wish in a shopping mall, for instance, and for the same reason -- offended shoppers are not going to shop there. Brutal? Yes. Undemocratic. Yes. But it is the fact that on your own private property, so long as laws are upheld, you can permit or restrict whatever you wish.
It's not the company's obligation to give warning. ANN, for instance, could remove this forum altogether in an instant if they wanted.
That is up to the employer. If he/she does not want socialists, he/she is not obligated to hire socialists or retain them in his/her employ (particularly here in California, which is an "at will" employment state, so long as you can prove you did not fire for gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or a couple of other criteria, you can fire for any reason -- or no reason -- you desire). Again, your free speech rights do not de jure prevent repercussions from others who object, for good or ill, so long as they do not express their objection through criminal activity (telling you "you can't say that here" if they own the property is kosher, but punching you in the nose is grossly out of bounds.) In fact, some jobs (particularly in the military and efense sectors) DO weed out members of inflammatory political parties as security risks.
Well, then, where should the line be drawn? DO we allow everyone to say anything, anywhere, any time? Because I am convinced that freedom is not freedom unless it is tempered by responsibilities to your fellows to make sure that one's speech is constructive to the community. And, before you say anything, political dissent is constructive as well. I do not see how writing stories of sex between prepubescent children and adults is constructive to a functioning society. I mean it's not like the Ancient Greeks went out and said: "OK, we're scribing Socrates on Thursday, Pericles on Friday, Aristophanes on Saturday,...what we really need now is a first-hand account of Spartan sexual practices to really round out the intellectual caliber of Attica." Last edited by pat_payne on Wed May 30, 2007 5:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Horitsuba
Posts: 35 |
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...and Fandom_counts currently has 7,637 members and growing. (3,000+ members within the last two hours).
Warriors for Innocence has the right objective in mind, but like people are saying, it's how they're going about it, is wrong. Like tarrin4ever said, they aren't looking closely before they click the delete button. I heard they even deleted a victim support group. D: That's what ultimately getting people mad. I know LJ has the right to do whatever they want, but really, doing anything of the sort like this will get people angry and the way that they're handling this, by not saying anything, isn't making anyone calm. For me, although I have a LJ, I know I won't be affected (unless having, "history" and "anime" listed as interest will get mine erased... o_O), so I'm not necessarily steamed over this. I'm more interested in what's going on. |
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pat_payne
Posts: 179 |
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If that's true, then they should tone it down. I understand and support their stated objectives, but if they are casting a wide net, they're going to end up making themselves look like fools when this shakes out. |
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Daemonblue
 Posts: 701 |
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Me thinks that the bulk of people should watch the Humbug episode of Penn and Teller's BS, it really gets into the first ammendment and they bring up very profound points which would suit this discussion very well.
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RadicaLElly
 Posts: 194 Location: Coral Springs, FL |
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While I agree that Livejournal has the right to remove accounts they deem inappropriate, I think they should take the time to review the content of the communities and journals theyve been deleting rather than removing them simply because they list an interest related to loli/shota or incest. I mean, they deleted a community related to the BOOK Lolita. It's no wonder panic has insued. I'm sorry, but they've been terribly lazy and unprofessional in the way they handled this issue.
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Horitsuba
Posts: 35 |
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I don't have evidence on that, but I don't doubt that they did, for one reason. They're deleting by the tags and the interests that have certain words in them. If there is a victim support community, more likely than not, they will have those words there. As to where I read that, it's here, under the 7th paragraph. Fandom_counts, currently at 8,203. |
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