So on the recent LJ controversy
Aug. 8th, 2007 01:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petronia(I was going to write about Daft Punk, but I figure I'll do that tomorrow when I'm rested.)
I didn't post regarding this, because I was busy with Important Shit, id est putting yet more content on LJ's servers that 6A would not approve of. Which suited me fine anyway, because I'm irrationally furious, in the way I always am when Someone In Authority tells me not to do something I feel like doing. My instinctive emotional response to this is to say FUCK YOU and keep right on doing it. I'm serious. The only reason I've made it this far in life without running afoul of the law is because I mostly don't want to commit illegal acts. Also, I look both ways for police vehicles before I cross the chain-link fence every morning.[1]
In practice I don't think I - petronia, carnet, etc. - am in much danger of being suspended. SSBB is wide open, but it's not the tallest nail that greets the hammer either. (Out of the venues I give a damn about, that would be y_d.) 6A just stated they're not going after text, or rather that they find it far easier to derive artistic merit from any given fanfic than the equivalent in fanart.[2] If one laboured over the SSBB archive one might perhaps find one or two illustrations depicting sexual activity between characters described in the accompanying story as minors. Maybe there's none. I don't know - I can't remember any offhand. I could make a rule that says from now on no more shota stories, and no more graphic illos unless the characters are 18+, and the comm would accept it without a gripe, but I don't want to do this. In fact the LAST thing I want to do is suggest my writers and artists self-censor. I'd shut the zine down first.[3]
...Maybe this comes across as quixotic. ^^; Again in practical terms, SSBB has loads of nitpicky content rules already. But I feel very strongly about this. It goes against some fundamental value I hold. People have been saying that the smart-and-reasonable way out is to not post possibly-iffy stuff on LJ's servers, or at the very least keep it under lock and require some kind of age verification. Which is the case, and I'm hardly going to quibble if others do it, but I find the idea of taking said steps myself revolting. Maybe I'm spoilt by living in liberal Quebec in liberal Canada, but I refuse to even appear to feel ashamed of anything I write (unless it's badly written). I don't wave my NC17 anime fanfic sometimes involving under-18 fictional characters in the faces of the uninterested, but I don't hide it. My RL friends and family know it exists, and even a couple of people at work. If any twelve-year-olds want to read it, it's there. There's a disclaimer against the clueless but no disclaimer against the underaged.[4] I've been fired for it once, so being potentially banned from LJ is small potatoes. I was young and the circumstances were stupid, but in principle and going forward, any workplace that would fire me for what I write on my own time isn't one I want to be part of anyway.
Everyone is going to have their own take on this (I don't even want to make this an admin post at SSBB - the tone is too inflammatory), but insofar as anyone can own a community project where they do only a small part of the overall work, I "own" SSBB. It was set up to reflect my aesthetic values, my guiding principles for what a publication ought to accomplish, my... mode de vie or ikikata, as it were. XD;; So this is a lot of verbiage to say that business goes on as usual, sans half-assed compromise.
[1] Not a joke.
[2] Which I actually agree with, because that's how the world works. I mean, name three books you read as a preteen that would so, so not have been in any kind of all-ages lending library if their content was portrayed as-is in images, still or moving.
[3] Of course, before I'd shut down the zine, I'd move the zine (which is fully backed up). And I wouldn't move the zine on principle alone, because that shit takes effort. *g* All the existing LJ clones are subject to the same potential issues, besides.
[4] Because I believe this is stupid. I don't care if it's unwise not to; it's stupid. I have an entire chatlog of me ranting at Erin that I might ask her permission to post, but it essentially boils down to kids are better at self-censoring than adults are at censoring them, and BTW DOES NO ONE REMEMBER ACTUALLY BEING TWELVE.
I didn't post regarding this, because I was busy with Important Shit, id est putting yet more content on LJ's servers that 6A would not approve of. Which suited me fine anyway, because I'm irrationally furious, in the way I always am when Someone In Authority tells me not to do something I feel like doing. My instinctive emotional response to this is to say FUCK YOU and keep right on doing it. I'm serious. The only reason I've made it this far in life without running afoul of the law is because I mostly don't want to commit illegal acts. Also, I look both ways for police vehicles before I cross the chain-link fence every morning.[1]
In practice I don't think I - petronia, carnet, etc. - am in much danger of being suspended. SSBB is wide open, but it's not the tallest nail that greets the hammer either. (Out of the venues I give a damn about, that would be y_d.) 6A just stated they're not going after text, or rather that they find it far easier to derive artistic merit from any given fanfic than the equivalent in fanart.[2] If one laboured over the SSBB archive one might perhaps find one or two illustrations depicting sexual activity between characters described in the accompanying story as minors. Maybe there's none. I don't know - I can't remember any offhand. I could make a rule that says from now on no more shota stories, and no more graphic illos unless the characters are 18+, and the comm would accept it without a gripe, but I don't want to do this. In fact the LAST thing I want to do is suggest my writers and artists self-censor. I'd shut the zine down first.[3]
...Maybe this comes across as quixotic. ^^; Again in practical terms, SSBB has loads of nitpicky content rules already. But I feel very strongly about this. It goes against some fundamental value I hold. People have been saying that the smart-and-reasonable way out is to not post possibly-iffy stuff on LJ's servers, or at the very least keep it under lock and require some kind of age verification. Which is the case, and I'm hardly going to quibble if others do it, but I find the idea of taking said steps myself revolting. Maybe I'm spoilt by living in liberal Quebec in liberal Canada, but I refuse to even appear to feel ashamed of anything I write (unless it's badly written). I don't wave my NC17 anime fanfic sometimes involving under-18 fictional characters in the faces of the uninterested, but I don't hide it. My RL friends and family know it exists, and even a couple of people at work. If any twelve-year-olds want to read it, it's there. There's a disclaimer against the clueless but no disclaimer against the underaged.[4] I've been fired for it once, so being potentially banned from LJ is small potatoes. I was young and the circumstances were stupid, but in principle and going forward, any workplace that would fire me for what I write on my own time isn't one I want to be part of anyway.
Everyone is going to have their own take on this (I don't even want to make this an admin post at SSBB - the tone is too inflammatory), but insofar as anyone can own a community project where they do only a small part of the overall work, I "own" SSBB. It was set up to reflect my aesthetic values, my guiding principles for what a publication ought to accomplish, my... mode de vie or ikikata, as it were. XD;; So this is a lot of verbiage to say that business goes on as usual, sans half-assed compromise.
[1] Not a joke.
[2] Which I actually agree with, because that's how the world works. I mean, name three books you read as a preteen that would so, so not have been in any kind of all-ages lending library if their content was portrayed as-is in images, still or moving.
[3] Of course, before I'd shut down the zine, I'd move the zine (which is fully backed up). And I wouldn't move the zine on principle alone, because that shit takes effort. *g* All the existing LJ clones are subject to the same potential issues, besides.
[4] Because I believe this is stupid. I don't care if it's unwise not to; it's stupid. I have an entire chatlog of me ranting at Erin that I might ask her permission to post, but it essentially boils down to kids are better at self-censoring than adults are at censoring them, and BTW DOES NO ONE REMEMBER ACTUALLY BEING TWELVE.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 07:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 04:25 pm (UTC)It leaves a bad taste in my mouth that the pseuds - which I came up with for lulz - might actually be seen at this point as protecting the contributors. But them's the breaks. I'll probably change the emails to de-link
no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 07:40 am (UTC)And yes, I have been waiting to see whether you'd write anything on the matter. As usual you pretty much said everything I wanted to say but was a bit too furious to say. This whole thing seem to be a loaded gun aimed at certain 'type' of content - it isn't even explicit art so much as Harry Potter explicit art, which, hmm.
And I applaud you for business as usual because that's the point dammit. I refuse to censor my own taste (not that I create anything that would ban me, only commentary and links) just because someone of Authority told me so.
As usual, you are my hero.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 04:44 pm (UTC)The difference is that I would fight the good/losing fight even while praying that the whole thing becomes someone else's (GJ's, IJ's, Wordpress's) problem, whereas 6A have no balls and are crap at media relations to boot. So long story short I'm not leaving, because I feel disinclined at this point to do them any favours.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-09 12:54 am (UTC)(And wow, you were fired from somewhere over writing porn? I thought that sort of thing only happened to school teachers. o_o;)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-09 12:17 pm (UTC)Speaking as someone who read Frank Miller's Dark Knight at age six and every year thereafter, I completely and unflinchingly agree.
Didn't want to leave, so I was slightly cowed by 6A's stance until I read this. Thanks. I don't have to leave, but I don't have to cower either.