LJ Strike

[snogged]

Okay...when I found out that search terms like "bisexuality", "depression," and "fanfiction" weren't coming up with any results, I was a little ticked and agreed with part of the reason that people chose to strike today.

However, I did searches for each one of these terms and found plenty of results. I even found Pro-Ana (Pro Anorexia Groups) and Pro-Mia (Pro-Bulimia) groups and I disagree with both of those but LJ is allowing them to come up in the search engine.

Seach results for depression:
http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=depression
(The first result was for a group called proanorexia)

Search results for bisexuality:
http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=bisexuality
(The first result was for a lesbian group)

Seach results for fanfiction:
http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=fanfiction

I undestand that people have the choice to strike if they want too but I've had a Plus account (one with Ads) and the ads never bothered me. Yes, it sucks that LJ opted not to tell anyone but I've never seen another corporation put up a massive announcement when they decide to change something.

And that's my two cents.

Thanks for listening.

Comments

[shannon730.livejournal.com]

They way I understand it is that the search terms weren't there for like a day and they were back. People seem to think it was the threat of this strike...I'm sort of more inclined to believe there were search term problems that were fixed or that some things were a mistake. Removing Fanfiction makes no sense at all.

And someone had posted the ToS and they don't have to announce or check with the advisory board or anything else according to it. Nor did they say in the ToS that LJ would be free and ad free forever. Brad did way back in 1999 when the site launched...but fact remains Brad isn't in charge anymore and LJ is much bigger than it was when he made that promise. Kind of wonder if it has occured to anyone that Brad sold LJ because it wasn't exactly a money-maker the way he was running it, yet it was still a full time job...

[snogged.livejournal.com]

These all are good points. Thanks. I didn't hear about the ToS stuff.

[shannon730.livejournal.com]

I don't have the link to the ToS stuff but when it was updated in 2006 it says changes to accounts and well everything can be made without notice.

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I read some disturbing reports that many of the strikers were motivated by anti-semitism, so I did not strike.


Gabrielle

[snogged.livejournal.com]

Wait? What?
That's so nuts!

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

From what I have read, the new owner is Jewish and a portion of the LJ community is rather anti-semitic and that's part of their motivation for striking.

Gabrielle

[snogged.livejournal.com]

That's horrid!

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Luckily, that description doesn't apply to anyone on my f-list, and a lot of the strikers have the purest of motives, but I still did not want to ally myself with even a tiny number of ant-semites, so...


Gabrielle

[hisui-ryoshi.livejournal.com]

A lot of this regards interest listing. Certainly you can search for fanfiction, and bisexuality (now, at other times, not so much), however when you look at the listing for lj's top interest categories these things do not appear on that list (which is what advertisers look at so take what you want from that) which is a lot of what fandom and other community members are upset about because it appears that we are certainly not wanted.

I don't know about the new owner being Jewish, I certainly don't believe it. I did read an interview he gave in which he showed rampant disrespect and uncaring for the members of the lj community and called the strike 'childish'.

Now, is lj obligated to tell us of any changes it makes? no. but I feel like they should have some common decency to do so. I don't think they're going to change their practices unless customers demand more, so I feel they have the right to do that. The ads are whatever, this is after all a business, and for that reason they shouldn't have had a problem telling us.

[tonya-x-nicole.livejournal.com]

i was here of course. we're all rebels...hehehehe