adult content flagging comes to LiveJournal: the POLL

[metaphorge]

(This poll relates directly to this previous entry.)
[Poll #1075683]
This is, of course, accepting that we have no idea as of yet how LJ-Abuse will handle such reports, nor how having your content or your entire journal flagged as "adult" will affect access to it by other LiveJournal users and the general public....

Comments

[iamsquid.livejournal.com]

This isn't a government institution, it's a private website, the owners can do what they want.

Do I think they should? No.

Does it really matter? Not to mee.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

While yes, of course, they can pursue the course of action they wish, we don't have any obligation to remain their customers.

It's also unclear at this time whether being flagged as having "adult content" in your LJ will cause only age-verified LiveJournal users to be able to read your journal at all, which makes the issue much more potentially problematic.

[warpanda.livejournal.com]

I agree. Six Apart can do what they want, but we don't have to pay for thier services.

Of course, as a free user, I really don't pay, nor would I. I was going to consider the Lifetime account special, but it came on the heels of the Strikeout, and I decided then that Six Apart can only use me for thier advertising impressions and that's it.

[iamsquid.livejournal.com]

there are a million blogging communities online, if people get frustrated enough with LJ, they'll find another

and actually, for years people who had been on my LJ flist have been moving to blogspot, blogger, etc.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

Of course. I'm not taking a chicken little approach to this, I just simply will no longer be a paying customer and will drastically reassess what, if anything, I'll use LJ for.

(It's also worth mentioning that this sort of thing is smack in the middle of my field of professional interest, so I'm going to find it more interesting than most people are.)

[iamsquid.livejournal.com]

And if yoo can mobilize a bunch of paid members and get the point across to the LJ admin that they will be losing money by doing this, it's likely they'll listen.

I suppose since I neither pay to use LJ, nor let ads appear on my LJ, I don't feel as strongly as other people do.

[mightydoll.livejournal.com]

If it's just a ratings system, fine, I'm all over limiting access to adult materials. If it's something else...well, it sucks, but it's their servers, they can do what they want with them.

It seems a bad move to me, in an age of facebook, when a lot of kids are moving out anyway.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

The huge potential fly in the ointment is that this could end up substantially limiting access to particular journals period to anyone who is not an age-verified LiveJournal member. This means everyone else on the internet that is not a LiveJournal member. That is very bad unless you post friends-only.

If the rating were self-determined by the author of the blog or the maintainers of communities then I'd bne much more comfortable with it, but other users? Seems like yet another way for people to "get back at" those that they are unhappy with, and will end up in a lowest common denominator of what is "acceptable".

I think the solution to this issue is that parents need to limit their children's access to potentially harmful material on the internet. I feel it really should be the sole responsibility of the parents to do so.

[mightydoll.livejournal.com]

I think one of the responsibilities we hold as members of any community is to be willing to help each other.

I think it's predominantly a parent's job to monitor their children's input, but it's impossible to read everything before they get there. I don't see anything objectionable about asking people to point out where their contributions may be considered inappropriate for children.

My journal's user info page states, in concordance with pre-six apart LJ tos that some of the content is not appropriate for minors. Discretionary warnings seem fair.

I'd rather flag my own 'adult content" than be subject to someone else's morals, but that's the anarchist in me.

Anarchism doesn't mean doing whatever we want, it means taking responsibility for what we do.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

I don't really disagree with anything you're saying here, and I don't have an issue with discretionary warnings. However, I'm not willing to accept making any content I choose to publish in my personal LiveJournal contingent upon someone having to be an age-verified LJ member in order to view, which is the tack I expect that they'll take once this system is in place since this will force anyone (even those that are of legal age) who is not an LJ member to get an account to view such material. That's not what I'm paying LJ for.

It isn't like I'll delete my account, as I would still want to follow people who choose to continue to primarily blog here. Such a policy would, howeverm cause me to stop paying LJ for their services and drastically reassess what platform I wish to use for my personal internet publishing.

I also don't even want to think about how this is going to work with sundicated RSS/Atom feeds.

In sunmmary, I think this is an attaempt to address a problem that doesn't really exist and is just caving in to right-wing cencsorship group pressure. If Six Apart caves to this, I sincerely hope they go under, as they are forgetting who is buttering their bread.

[arethinn]

I also don't even want to think about how this is going to work with sundicated RSS/Atom feeds.

How do feeds work on posts with any security, now? Like friends-locked or private? I always assumed the feedbot (or whatever) was considered a non-logged-in user, so only public posts were broadcast, but I've never checked. If that's the case, though, then I imagine content-flagged posts would not get picked up by the feed either, because it is not a logged-in, age-verified user.

BTW, did you see Lupa's post of a reply she got from support explaining this a little more? It sounds like at the moment they would not be blocking content entirely, but interposing an interstitial page (whcih doesn't thrill me either), presumably with an age disclaimer/statement.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

How do feeds work on posts with any security, now? Like friends-locked or private? I always assumed the feedbot (or whatever) was considered a non-logged-in user, so only public posts were broadcast, but I've never checked.
That's mostly corect, unless the person creating the feed includes their log-in and password as explained at http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2004/07/08/reading-protected-livejournal-entries-via-rss (hopefully that's not clear as mud, I'm very very tired at the moment and cannot think of better words to explain; if you need further clarification lmk).

If that's the case, though, then I imagine content-flagged posts would not get picked up by the feed either, because it is not a logged-in, age-verified user.

Who knows? I'm assuming LJ is most worried about "displaying unprotected adult content on their site", but that might be an incorrect assumption on my part.

BTW, did you see Lupa's post of a reply she got from support explaining this a little more? It sounds like at the moment they would not be blocking content entirely, but interposing an interstitial page (whcih doesn't thrill me either), presumably with an age disclaimer/statement

tyrsalvia briefly filled me in on it, I'll read up on it tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up.

[arethinn]

Or did you mean those LJ accounts that are themselves feeds from other places? I don't see why the mechanics would be any different than any other LJ -- the whole account could be flagged; people could report individual posts from it (ugh), although obviously they cannot be set at posting time by the "author". Obviously it doesn't affect the original blog or whatever from which the feed is coming. Hm. Could get entire things flagged when really it's only the occasional post, because there's no other way to do it, which would suck.

This whole thing is just made of fail. If it were *only* self-imposed then I would be fine with it (it's a "cover your own ass" tool if you want to use it that way). Letting others report stuff is just heinous.

There's also the problem that people often don't want to give out their birthdate online for privacy reasons, since birthdate is often used as identity verification for everything from "forgot your email password" to bank account info. I only started listing mine in my profile recently so that certain smutwriters would friend me back, and I still really don't like it.

[dabroots.livejournal.com]

How would they go about assessing a journal entry, especially in terms of graphics? For text, I guess they could apply a keyword search like Google does on all my e-mail correspondence (so Google can send little ads to me about insulating basements if someone e-mails me about how she's resorted to sleeping in her basement to avoid sleeping upstairs with her husband.)

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

They're adding a "flag for adult content" button to all entries, so anyone can easily report it for review by Abuse. How that system is going to work further i still a mystery; the informnation we have is gleaned from technical commentary on the process.

[dabroots.livejournal.com]

I guess it'd be similar to what's used at various personals ads websites to report naked people. solicitations, etc. I guess what concerns me most is whether it would apply only to public posts, or also friends-only posts, although I really don't like it, at all.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

That's a mystery. Like I said, it isn't like 6A actually released a policy statement on all of this.

"He is as clumsy as he is stupid."

[xaotica.livejournal.com]

i'd rather be given the choice to flag my own entries. i'm pretty cognizant of which are naughty ;)

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

I'd have no issue with anything voluntary.

[t3knomanser.livejournal.com]

It depends a lot on implementation, but as a general idea, it's bad.

The issue, of course, is that individuals or groups of LJ users can become self-proclaimed censorship squads, marking anything they dislike as "adult". Can it be done without gameable vulnerabilities? Possibly.

I think the only way to work is to give journal owners the option of marking their own journals as "adult". Doing so redirects logged in visitors to a "splash" page that requires clicking "yes" on a "Hey, are you suuuuure?"

Complaints to LJ abuse can result in LJ admins marking a journal as adult, and there has to be a well-defined appeals process. A journal owner can contest such a decision and the system should be weighted so that they'll generally win unless the content is obviously adult (hardcore porn).

That said, I think the whole thing is unnecessary. But it's their servers, as others have said.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

The issue, of course, is that individuals or groups of LJ users can become self-proclaimed censorship squads, marking anything they dislike as "adult". Nail on the head. This, combined with Six Apart's previous ham-handedness with Slashgate, does not fill me with warm feelings.

[t3knomanser.livejournal.com]

No, no it doesn't.

And might I add- I was one of the suckers. During the Six-Apart takeover, they offered another round of permanent accounts. I said, "What the hey. It's LJ- things never change around here. I'll jump on that!"

I am now, slightly, regretting that decision. If nothing else, it removes my "vote with your wallet" rights- I've already given them my money. I'll never give them another dime, and that's how both parties planned it.

[tiggrrl.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

[airshipjones.livejournal.com]

My problem with this idea is that the definition of what qualifies as 'adult content' is fuzzy at best, and down-right screwed up most of the time. I can write about horrific violent topics, as long as it doesn't involve sex or mention genitalia, adn that somehow isn't adult content. But if I mention two ficitional boy kissing, call the press corp, we haz discoverd The Gay pedophile porn ring which threatens the fall of civilization!!!1!

[serpent-sky.livejournal.com]

Ah, America.

Violence? Awesome.
Any mention of the human body or sexual organs? People's monocles fall out as they exclaim, "Well! I never!" in absolute horror.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

I like my friends to help me out with "should I click on this at work?" because I shouldn't be looking at sexually explicit photos at work (or, rather, I fear the negative outcome of violating the policy". But that is really all I want from my friends and people on my flist.

[twopiearr.livejournal.com]

This is, of course, accepting that we have no idea as of yet how LJ-Abuse will handle such reports

sure we do - they'll delete first and ask questions later if at all. because that's how they handle everything ELSE.

[pyrogenic.livejournal.com]

If this is anything like what happened on Flickr it's going to be a total pain in the ass for a few people, create moral anguish over flagging transgender (but non-sexual) content as "adult" to protect oneself, be meaningless to many, and do a good job of making "adult content" inaccessible to the general public who aren't logged in. Looking at my (limited) record of pageviews on Flickr, I can see the day they flipped that switch.

Also, Convent of Hell is probably my favorite graphic graphic novel, and that might be my favorite panel, too. :-)

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

Yeah I love Convent of Hell... the original panel read "concecrated dick" by the way, but I though "consecrated cock just flowed a lot better.

Hmmm, that made me think of another problematic point... what if an entry is fine but a response to it is "adult"? This is going to be MORE of a clusterfuck than flickr... and I know I don't want to indirectly cause any chinese bloggers to be jailed.

[serpent-sky.livejournal.com]

They will botch the implementation. What are the lines? They never define these things.

I wish there was a comparable site with actual migration.

I don't want my journal public and it's super filtered for the most part, but I don't want some idiot who slips through my screening to bitch because I wrote something they didn't like.

I miss the old LiveJournal so much. I hope another site rises and takes their place [and I can migrate all 6 years of my entries there without much hassle.]

OMG!

[kiwitayro.livejournal.com]

THANK GOD SOMEONE IS FINALLY THINKING OF THE CHILDREN!!!!11!11!!!ELEVENTY!!!!11!

[lunza.livejournal.com]

Pro-anorexia: Adult content or just harmless kiddie fun?