things you should read:

[helenic]

1. In case anyone's not aware of this yet, LJ are suspending fandom users and communities again on grounds of posting explicit material featuring characters who appear to be under the age of 18. There's a lot of debate on both sides of the issue, which makes interesting reading:

silveradept gives a summary of events here.

liz_marcs offers an updated list of relevant links and information, and bubble_blunder is maintaining a similarly comprehensive round-up.

pretentioustfu waxes eloquently wrathful about the way LJ is handling this. "LJ has, apparently, implemented a homophobic standard in regard to its interpretation of "obscenity." This has been fairly obvious in that the actual content bans before predominantly focused on slash or m/m content, and that both of the most recently banned users were banned for m/m fanart. LJ's apparent standard for age adds to the homophobia in that, apparently, "feminine" or "younger" looking guys are forbidden from being shown in even obviously unreal imagery, even if their age can be proved as 18 or older."

synecdochic argues that self-policing is the only way to avoid kneejerk legislation clamping down on social networking sites, and that anger at the culture creating this paranoia is more productive than anger at those sites trying to avoid a legal nightmare.

splash_the_cat expresses similar fury at the sense of entitlement expressed in a lot of the protests. "Speech and expression are not fundamentally free. Free expression does not mean you get to make it all about your
opinion, your words, and that's it, end of discussion, story over, door is closed."

My art doesn't tend towards the explicit, so I'm not feeling the need to leave yet. But I'm wary, particularly about the new "report abuse" option shortly arriving at the bottom of every one of your entries, and which will encourage reporting of any illegal activity as well as child porn.

2. forthwritten brought this news story to my attention this morning, in which the black, female victims of a sexual homophobic assault have been imprisoned for up to 11 years for using violence in self-defence, while their attacker walks free. This is in New York. It's fairly fucking horrific. There's an an essay in support of the women here, which contains a lot more details.

Comments

[vardebedian.livejournal.com]

black, female victims of a sexual homophobic assault have been imprisoned for up to 11 years for using violence in self-defence, while their attacker walks free

I was tolerably sympathetic to the writer until their preposterous claim in the penultimate paragraph that "capitalism at its very core is a racist, sexist, anti-LGBT system, sanctioning state violence through cops, courts and its so-called laws". Having said something so ludicrous I have no idea how much trust to place in the rest of their claims.

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

It was a question of linking to that or to the various news stories which portrayed this as either "lesbians gone wild, man attacked by a gang" sensationalist story or as a 'heterophobic' attack. I think the indymedia is good up to a point, but it, like all news outlets, is biased.

While I'm hesitant about identifying capitalism as the thing to blame, I do think that something's gone wrong here. As someone of a similar height and build to the woman first harassed and someone who often goes around with a group of lesbians, what this man claims bears very little resemblance to the kind of behaviour I've observed. On the other hand, a man being aggressive to a woman who has just turned him done, or claiming he could turn a gay woman straight is something I've witnessed and experienced many times before.

[alcina2.livejournal.com]

I've co-incidentally spent much of today reading up on this too.

AFAICT, all the bannings this time relate exclusively to pictures (not text) which depict actually 'legally obscene' things (for example erect male genatalia). I've been doing some research and seen some of these images on other servers, and they are extremely explicit. I haven't seen (yet) any evidence that people are being caught up in this round who might not expect to be, as hapenned during Strikeoutgate.

It should also be noted that in US law drawings of apparently underage people, whether fictional or not, are definitely included in its definition of child porn, so I can understand lj's actions. OTOH, I believe some of the deleted material has depicted adult caharcters from Harry Potter, so once more they are clearly not looking too carefully.

However, unless you've posted highly explicit drawings or photomanips, so far you shouldn't worry too much.