An Analysis of Recent Drama

[l33tminion]

I want to link to this essay, entitled How Six Apart's Greed Allied Them With Neo-Nazis, on the the recent mass banning (and subsequent apology and slightly-less-mass unbanning) and the resultant controversy. It's a good look at the conflict between a blogging service business's desire to make money and their desire to not anger their users by showing respect for free speech.

(Note: I'm not saying that Six Apart (the company that owns LJ) has any obligation to respect free speech, as they're a business, not the government. Nonetheless, too much disrespect for free speech could be bad for business, since bloggers generally don't like the threat of censorship, and it isn't too hard to go elsewhere.)

(Also, here's a link to an older version of the essay on LJ, in case you want to comment and you'd rather comment there.)

Comments

[vitalycherno.livejournal.com]

I didn't believe that there was a purge until I saw the apology. It just struck me as such a ridiculous idea that I didn't even think that it could be true. I mean, logically, if you take away one of the only things that fanfic writers have in their life (namely their ability to publish terrible fanfiction) what would you expect to hear except complaints from people with nothing better to do because they can't post their Harry Potter/Captain Picard slash story?

[l33tminion]

If fandom has one superpower, it's the ability to be really, really annoying (enough to get media attention in the process, even).

I feel sort of bad for Six Apart. I can't see how this could have ended without "LiveJournal" and "pedophiles" mentioned in the same news story.

[chiaki777.livejournal.com]

I will say though that fandom isn't the only people feeling wary of this. A lot of people on LJ use this site to network with more adult themes as well. Most of the adult themed groups I know and people concerning them have been getting wary and ready to fight back if need be.

What I just think about all this is that Six Apart made a choice to purchase LJ, but if they can't run it how its users want it to run, their investment was a total waste.