LJ abuse go ape?

[ciphergoth]

Updated: meta has updated his web page.

meta, who I've known for over a decade but never met, has had his account suspended by the LJ abuse team. Here's his side of the story. Now, in context, the "innocent" act of copying a publically available address from one place to another isn't innocent at all - it reads as an incitement to violence - but nonetheless, it's pretty clear that if things are as he describes them, the Abuse team's response is pretty inappropriate.

I'd like to link to the support request, but we don't have the privs to see it.

Comments

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

As others have said, I don't think it is necessarily right to repost information just because it is available somewhere on the web, but (assuming we're not missing anything and this is the first time LJ abuse have had to deal with meta) suspending his account is overly harsh.

I wonder whether they would have done anything if he'd have merely linked to the webpage with the guy's details on?

Whilst it's not relevant in this case, I note that the TOS makes no exception for paid accounts and says that you won't get a refund. I wonder how legally sound this is - whilst it's reasonable that they can suspend a service they offer at any time, it's another thing entirely to not provide a service that someone has already paid for. And whether it would legally stand or not, it makes me somewhat reluctant to pay for anything that has a "we can stop offering the service for any reason we like, but still keep your money" clause in the terms..

More generally, I think this is a worrying effect when something that is very useful such as LiveJournal exists, and as a result people become dependant upon it, but it is ultimately controlled by a single private entity. On a similar note, there have been some web forums I've been on where moderators have locked threads, sometimes simply because they personally were bored of the topic. Such events make me wish usenet was more popular; whilst some moderation can be good to avoid things like spam, I'd rather have no moderation than over-zealous moderation. I've mainly thought about this worry if LiveJournal were to simply shut down one day, but the same is true if people's accounts are suspended unfairly. Hopefully things like RSS will mean that LJ-like journalling becomes less dependant on a single server/site in future.

[kitty-goth.livejournal.com]

> it is ultimately controlled by a single private entity

Quite so. We have talked about this very subject, haven't we?

We must arrange some time to get together soon... It seems like ages since we saw each other.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

Quite so. We have talked about this very subject, haven't we?

I don't remember the occasion, though it's quite likely I have rambled on about the matter before;)

We must arrange some time to get together soon... It seems like ages since we saw each other.

Yes, I would love to! Did you get my last email? Hoping it hasn't gone missing again..

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

You gonna be at B Movie? Because sweetie Mark and i are planning to meet up there :)