LiveJournal – Six Apart Delete Hundreds of Pedophile Sites
May 30th, 2007 . by CaryLiveJournal Says No to Pedophiles:
Setting a new precedent, LiveJournal, owned by Six Apart Incorporated, deleted over 500 of its sites or journals today. Responding to requests from Warriors For Innocence, LiveJournal chose to remove sites that promote pedophilia, child sex, child abuse, and other illegal activities.
LiveJournal has revised their Terms Of Service (TOS) to include new standards that will ensure that they protect the safety and well-being of everyone who visits LiveJournal.
As pedophiles and their sympathizers scramble to find new hosting options, we will be following them and contacting each web host in order to work to enforce a TOS that will ensure that these hosts maintain a responsible and respectable reputation.
LiveJournal and Six Apart have taken a very important step. They chose to maintain accountability for the content placed on their sites. By setting this precedent, they have opened the door for other web hosting companies like Blogger/Google, Blog.com, Xanga, WordPress, and others to follow in their footsteps.
Special thanks go out to Scott Kraft, the Executive Vice President of Marketing for Six Apart, and Denise Paolucci, the Manager of Customer Service for LiveJournal. They have both been very helpful.
Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, support Warriors For Innocence, and write in Cary Cartter for President in 2008!
Thanks for passing on this good news Cary – GBYAY –
That is awesome!!!!! What a score for the fine folks at WFI. And good one LiveJournal, I’m proud of you for finally taking a stand.
Look forward to hearing you on Dougs show this Saturday.
Before you all pat yourselves on the back you should know that among those 500 blogs that Live Journal deleted were blogs that were support groups and survivors of child abuse and/or incest. People that had a support system in place now have lost that. These people did a random interest search and sent a list of accounts to Live Journal without even looking to see who they were about to ban. If you looked at my “interests” I have rape listed as I am a survivor. While I understand and support what “The Warriors” are trying to do perhaps a little more rationality and homework is in order?
The anon poster has a good point.
Actually, only SIX of the sites purged were sites created by/for pedophiles. However well-meaning you are, you’ve just prompted an ill-thought-out witch hunt that gave a heads up to other pedophiles (who’ve no doubt gone underground) and the deletion of hundreds of journals devoted to, among other things, fiction and its discussion, role-playing journals (run by and for adults), and survivor support networks.
You have not done very much good, and you have done a great deal of harm.
Dear Anonymous: Perhaps you’re not aware that Six Apart, the company which owns Live Journal, voluntarily deleted sites which THEY deemed violated THEIR Terms of Serivce. As for your other comments…that is for your own conscience.
Veritas et Fidelis Semper
To the first anonymous poster – did you list “rape” or “rape survivor” as your “area of interest”? Their is a huge difference there. Discussions of rape are morally reprehensible. Discussions about surviving rape are laudable, and to be encouraged.
And yes, Six Apart owns the site – and they have, at the urging of members of the internet community, decided to tighten up their Terms of Service. WFI did not kick these sites off LiveJournal. We just helped give some momentum and food for thought to the owners of the site.
“Actually, only SIX of the sites purged were sites created by/for pedophiles.”
Nope, not even close there buddy.
Hundreds. Yes, hundreds of peodphile sites were suspended. Yes, innocent sites were also unintentionally affected, but LJ is fixing that right now.
“Hundreds. Yes, hundreds of peodphile sites were suspended”
Wow… it’s just lovely when people make things up, and cite it as fact.
Unless you have a way to quantify that statement, you should really stop spreading mis-information.
Sues, you truly show your ignorance by making a statement about a subject of which you have so little knowledge. You may delude yourself to think you are in the know, but trust me; the truth is a different matter.
In a statement released by six-apart, even they admit that this was a mistake and that only a few of the suspended blogs were the actual targets.
All they did was dump a large number of accounts that had particular keyphrases WITHOUT looking for context.
This is much akin to early child-protection filters which would filter words such as “breast”, and in fact stop many more people from learning about breast cancer (and ordering KFC) than it would from seeing a woman topless.
This is also akin to cutting off ones arm to fix a wart on your finger.
In other words, its just more reactionary nonsense.
I don’t think anyone here is a proponent of incest or rape; but when you make false accusations and limit PROPER discussion of these topics, you only help the predators.
Burying your head in the sand only leads to ignorance and fear.
And it is apparent that many of you live with a lot of unwarranted fear in your lives.
I am in awe of the ‘stink’ this has caused, nothing worse than an offended pedophile I guess…
Great jobs folks…
Your Leader, The all powerful, TexasFred…
LMAO…
Yes. How horrible of these molestation victims to want a safe space to discuss their ordeals.
That you people can sleep at night scares me more than I can say.
ethicalBob, and anonymous, I’ll say it again – if your “areas of interest” were listed as survivors of rape or incest, that’s one thing, but if you listed “rape” and/or “incest” as your area of interest, then you were targeted.
Yes, oh almightyleaderofall, highly exalted Fred of Texas, methinks they doth protest too much…