I haven't really been here, busy with RL. But I see that account suspensions/deletions are back for fannish activity.

So my forwarding address(es):

romanyg @ greatestjournal
romanyg @ insanejournal
romanyg @ journalfen

I'll still be here at LJ (since I'm not really back), but I'll be at the other places too.

Oh, they won't talk to us, but they'll talk to the press.

LJ stands by its original decision.

Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not.

--Barak Berkowitz, chairman and CEO, Six Apart

Most of you are aware by now of LJ/6A's decision to purge, under pressure from an outside group, accounts with questionably legal interests. These deletions, as far as we know, are permanent and there is no course for redress. But what they've done is purge these accounts using a sledgehammer so that predator and victim alike are silenced, as well as intellectual discourse and survivor support venues.

This affects fandom deeply since these are issues that have been weighed, written and discussed for some time. But this goes beyond fandom. For if one victim is silenced, her personal history erased, that is one too many and should be considered a social crime. And how many more victims will look for a support network that is no longer there? The outside people that instigated this purge seem to care little for the victims that already exist. They have no interest in damage control but only in creating damage themselves.

Unfortunately, if you give a monkey a dart, there's a chance that he'll hit the dartboard, and that's precisely what this small and self-proclaimed organization has done. They've found a legal loophole within LJ's original TOS that LJ had to take seriously. And LJ, as far as I can tell since they've yet to make an official announcement, took draconian measures to save their organization any real civil or criminal litigation. And no matter how much we stand together to retract any future monies that we had been planning to pour into the LJ coffers, all of that is not going to add up to the amount of a single lawsuit in which LJ/6A would be named as the defendant.

Also, to hurt LJ/6A financially is nothing but victory to this outside organization since they consider LJ/6A to be an abettor to the perpetrators they're trying to silence.

So I'm not sure what the solution is. It's a big painful mess.

I did place the following comment in the latest news thread:

( my comment )

So yes, I am withholding any financial support until, at the very least, LJ makes an official statement. And that affects you and I'm sorry. Many of you know that I give birthday and just-because gifts to my flist. I do this for everyone on it. I'll have to find another avenue in which to do that. For now.

I'm not going to lockdown anything that's currently public. I am not going to change my interests list. I have, however, backed up my entire journal using ljbook. Which is just a good idea anyway since there's no guarantee that LJ won't lose that data through no fault of their own.

I'm also romanyg over at greatestjournal for those that are going over there. I've been terrible about checking that account, let alone posting to it. But whither thou goest, I will go. Your country shall be my country. And so forth.