
After Moving Servers to Russia, LiveJournal Bans ‘Political Solicitation’ - danso
https://advox.globalvoices.org/2017/04/04/after-moving-servers-to-russia-livejournal-bans-political-solicitation/
======
delegate
For any person who is familiar with the soviet mentality this shouldn't be
surprising at all.

I guess LJ has introduced these changes because otherwise the officials would
shut down the whole thing, seize all the servers and arrest the management,
possibly for unrelated charges - just to make a point. It was an offer they
couldn't refuse...

These people will _ban the Internet_ before giving up power and that will
probably be met with relative apathy by the population - "well, if we have to
suffer for our motherland, we will...".

Of course 'motherland' has nothing to do with it - everyone knows that they
are pawns in a game played by a handful who have all the power and that's a
game that's been going on for centuries.

Interestingly, we, the software community, are also unknowingly giving a huge
helping hand to these guys, not just in Russia, but pretty much everywhere
else.

The idealistic desire for 'freedom', the main motivation behind 'free
software' is actually backfiring hard right now. We've open sourced so much
technology that any student can put together powerful country-wide
surveillance and control systems, offering incredible powers to _whoever is
the alpha male_ around there, for free...

Technological superiority was the reason why the USSR lost the cold war, but
now we've handed those people all this tech for free and are actively
maintaining it - from operating systems to databases, encryptions systems,
etc.

Of course we only had good intentions, who would have thought...

~~~
bitJericho
You act as if the US isn't an equal player in that game.

~~~
frozenport
You act as if life in the USA is comparable to Russia.

~~~
bitJericho
It is for a lot of people.

~~~
PerfectDlite
Really? So if life in North Korea is comparable to US "for some people", you
will happily draw an equal sign?

~~~
bitJericho
I think your patriotism is getting in the way of your perception of reality.

------
leoc
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8c_m6U1f9o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8c_m6U1f9o)
is pretty evergreen, yes?

------
ungzd
In recent times, Livejournal was used mostly for 3 things:

\- Furry, slash fandom

\- Political blogs

\- SEO spam (it sells usernames of deleted accounts, some of which was popular
and there are lots of external links to them)

So since the first two are banned, the only use of Livejournal that remains is
spam (which is ineffective for modern search engines I think).

------
rhapsodic
Haven't thought about LiveJournal in years. Glad to see it still exists.

~~~
teddyh
For some value of “exists”, considering these rules.

~~~
cema
Yes, I have just imported my LJ to Dreamwidth, and I am not alone: there has
been a spike in the number of Dreamwidth accounts.

------
retox
"the website’s data will now be fully accessible to US police snooping, in
accordance with recently enacted “anti-terrorist” legislation"

I changed one word, guess which.

------
shmerl
Some FOSS developers who still use it, should move to Diaspora*.

------
deepnet
Relevant Doctorow:

"Livejournal's Russian owners announce new anti-LGBT policy, fandom stages
mass exodus" [1]

[http://boingboing.net/2017/04/08/six-to-
end.html](http://boingboing.net/2017/04/08/six-to-end.html)

------
mirimir
This is rather amusing. I never used LiveJournal. But I associate it with
Encyclopedia Dramatica, the chans, and all of the other lulzy trash that's
been used by the alt-right.

Edit: Oops, my apologies. I didn't realize the LGBT connection. I guess that
the chan folk were predators.

~~~
pjc50
Odd. I associated it with "fandom" and fanfic culture, although that was
rather a long time ago. Ever since the platform was sold to Russian owners its
become more hostile to that kind of material, especially from LGBT people. I
think they've all abandoned it for Dreamwidth.

~~~
creadee
It was bought by Russians because it had become the most popular social
network for Russians. See...
[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17177053](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17177053)

------
avodonosov
advertising and/or political solicitation

 _9.2 User may not: ... 9.2.7 post advertising and /or political solicitation
materials unless otherwise directly specified in a separate agreement between
User and the Administration;_

[http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos-
en.bml](http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos-en.bml)

So it's not banned, you probably just need to pay for it.

Some other May Nots:

 _9.1 register a legal entity as a User;

9.2 register himself/herself as a User on behalf of another individual;

9.3 mislead Users as to his/her identity and relationships with other
individuals;_

~~~
Buge
Regarding "pay for it", I think that's confusing ads with content.

On Facebook, Reddit, Youtube, Tumblr... you can pay for political ads. But you
can also post political posts/content without paying. If you're blocking
posting of certain types of content that's a type of censorship.

~~~
pabloski
"On Facebook, Reddit, Youtube, Tumblr... you can pay for political ads. But
you can also post political posts/content without paying. If you're blocking
posting of certain types of content that's a type of censorship."

But this was the past. You know, with all the bullshit about "fake news" we
now have subtle censoring of facebook, google, etc... too.

