popular interests update

[rm]

The filter has been removed: http://community.livejournal.com/the_lj_herald/80784.html

The guy who removed it isn't authorized to speak on the subject: http://community.livejournal.com/changelog/6283445.html

LJ says: http://news.livejournal.com/106909.html?thread=70124701#t70124701

Actual statement with content in a place easily accessible to most users remains missing.

Irate users continue to post on news

I also seem to be the only user marta commented to, this, no doubt due to some combination of how annoying I was being, how civil I was being and the fact that through my publisher, I'm an advertiser on this site because of one of the filtered interests (fanfiction).

Comments

[robertainnc.livejournal.com]

This I found very disturbing.

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

I'm really hoping that LJ/SUP did this in part because NAMI contacted them. I can't be the only user who emailed their Stigma Busters department about depression being removed.

[zarq.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, what interests were being filtered out?

[rm.livejournal.com]

boys
girls
sex
bondage
yaoi
fanfiction
bisexuality
depression
pain
faeries

guys was briefly filtered out and readded yesterday

slash was not filtered out of the original list, but was added to the filter at some point in the last 24 hours, before being restored when the filter was removed a few hours ago.

Hence the wide and weird swathe of pissed off or confused people.

[zarq.livejournal.com]

Wha? None of these make the least bit of sense. Faeries? Depression? Pain? Love the double standard, too: Yaoi, but not Manga.

I'd always assumed that the reason they removed certain interests from being searchable is that LJ wanted to determine legal culpability in case of a lawsuit or federal prosecution. I figured the admins would put them back eventually, once whomever panicked had removed their head from their ass.

This is just idiocy... unless they're simply trying to agitate their userbase.

[rm.livejournal.com]

A lot of the stuff that came up on "faeries" went to gay content, so we're assuming that one is in the homophobia category as opposed to the incompetence at protecting children category or the this doesn't look good category.

[zarq.livejournal.com]

You know, I rarely assume there's deliberately malicious intent behind these sorts of moves, because I truly have difficulty believing that any company could be so profoundly clueless about their own demographics.

But I have to say, stupidity this vast can only be deliberate.

Thanks for explaining. Much appreciated.

[backwards7.livejournal.com]

I think it was inevitable that, once the strength of feeling against the censorship became known, SixApart would be forced to backtrack.

There is a deeper issue which remains unresolved - the mindset of the people who made a decision that was so out of touch with the spirit of the community and which could also be construed as prejudiced against certain groups.

There also remains the lingering impression that the people currently running livejournal don't really understand how internet communities work, if they that think they can sneak out bad news with no repercussions. Wherever there is, for want of a better word, a paper trail, the truth will out.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yup. And people are already finding parts of it in the code update communities.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info!

Commenting here since News posts won't take Open ID comments

[...from the library at snape manor (from livejournal.com)]

Saw your link to your Illusion TV post and will digg,stumble etc it. I could not take the buggery any longer so I deleted my LJ today. Just a suggestion, if you could link all of your blogging about this topic, I, for one, will help to spread the word.

When word spread outside of LJ about Strikethrough and Boldthrough last year, it seemed to worked to reign in LJ's blatant censorship attempts. I am not sure shame would motivate SUP to alter their disastrous course, but one must have hope.

Thank you for staying and fighting.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

"Guys" came back on 3/16 around 12:01 a.m. PDT, if that helps anyone. :)

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

Sorry, correction. It returned around 10 p.m. 3/15 PDT.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

Yet more yammering (obviously I'm a basic user who can't edit comments!).

If slash disappeared (I did not see it, as I was away from the Internet for a long chunk of time), it happened between 3/16 noon PDT and 3/17 5pm PDT.

I verified several times that "guys" and "slash" were showing up (at the same time) on the morning of 3/16. I checked top interests compulsively, as I'm sure many others did.