jmtorres | An exercise

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An exercise

niqaeli and I both had the experience of trying to figure out how to tell non-fannish co-workers why were were upset (about livejournal/fandom) without coming off sounding like the crazy pedophiles that need to be stopped.

Fandom, we sound like the crazy people.

This is not to say that we are crazy or wrong. This it to say that our arguments need to be reworded in a way that non-fannish people will see the validity of, because right now, to the non-fannish, what's going on here makes us look like the bad guys.

As an exercise, try figuring out what you would say to your completely non-fannish boss/mother-in-law/the grocery story checker who asks how your day's been. Try figuring out how to explain the problem on LJ and your argument about it in a way that sounds sane to the non-fannish.

And when you figure out how to do that, tell ME, because I haven't.

When you figure out how to do that, use that language with 6A/LJ, because they are not fannish.

When you figure out how to do that, use that language with the politicians and the voters to get the laws changed to be permissive of us, because they are not fannish either.

I am posting this publically because I feel like this is important. I am leaving comments on because I am hoping someone will come up with a perfectly reasonable-sounding way of talking about it. But do not expect me to respond to most of the comments to this entry, as this whole business is just making me tired.

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Don't talk about kiddie porn; talk about obscenity laws. Congress passed a law criminalizing pornographic depictions of (possibly fictional) minors, and it got struck down by the Supreme Court. So they passed another one, this one merely tacking additional penalties onto the obscenity laws if the obscenity in question involves graphic visual depiction of minors. So, there are two points to raise:

1. Obscenity laws are inherently bullshit. There's no constitutional basis for them other than a vague, intentist* "that's not the sort of speech the founding fathers intended to protect." Ask people whether they think it should be criminal for one private individual to sell to another individual materials that hurt no one, but are sexually explicit, and that someone else has judged to be lacking in value, and offensive to the standards of their community - regardless of the fact that no one is trying to expose the community at large to the materials.

2. The picture in question would almost certainly be found to have serious literary and/or artistic value (it just needs some, not a lot) - if not at trial, then at least on appeal. Consequently, under the Miller test, it is not obscene. Which means that the obscenity laws are here being used as an excuse to quash speech that isn't even legally obscenity. Ask them how they feel about that, and its potential implications for other speech.

*As I grow older, I swing more and more towards Constitutional textualism - the Constitution says what it says, and if that's a problem, then it should be amended. None of this bullshit about "original intent." While this would mean an end to a lot of useful federal programs (at least until someone got around to passing enabling amendments), it would also mean an end to, among other things, the federal drug war.

Here's how I'd explain it:
A) (and I don't believe this is a crazed slippery slope argument) This doesn't just affect fannish content. This affects any artwork or story someone might post that might be considered questionable. While I'm not into underage HP fanart, I think a dangerous precedent has been set, and I really don't feel confident about how content is judged. In fact, I have *no idea* how content is judged. Which brings us to...
B) LJ has *not* done a good job of defining what is and isn't allowed. Their statements after Strikethrough part 1 made me feel pretty relaxed-- I felt confident that most things people wrote/created would be considered okay as long as they were clearly defined as not advocating the acts involved (e.g. it'd be obvious that a survivor journal was a survivor journal, RPG journals were fictional, etc). This means that everyone is scared, particularly people who've put money into a paid or permanant account. Their account could be suspended or deleted with no warning, giving them no opportunity to back up their entries (and of course their money would not be refunded). At this point I've observed people completely uninvolved with fandom backing up journals (I haven't seen anyone outside fandom state that they're locking down or removing content yet, but it's probably happening). At least one fannish person on my flist has locked *everything* that contains anyone under the age of 18 doing anything remotely sexual. And frankly, I don't think your average nonfannish person would consider the majority of those stories about teenage sexuality to be particularly objectionable, unusual, or lacking artistic merit. What was that LJ statement about content that could be found in a mainstream bookstore being okay?
C) LJ is doing an absolutely horrible job of communicating with users about this. This is lousy customer service. No statement has been made, there's been no further official clarification about what content is and isn't okay, and ah yes, we have the LJ employee who was mocking the situation in an LJ community. Classy. I think most average non-fen would understand being annoyed about this kind of treatment of customers.

I'm probably leaving something out, but this has been enough rambling. In any case, I feel like it's possible to explain this to nonfen without sounding like a crazed pervert.

I don't know if this will help in the least.

I made an entry in my journal explaining how fandom is the least of my concerns.

My reply to one of the comments I received explained it a bit more (at least I hope it did):

~Many, many years ago, I was listening to Jerry Falwell being interviewed.

He was asked if he thought the US government should legally ban publications like Playboy.

He didn't hesitate in saying no.

He explained once that door was open, the Bible wasn't safe.

I never was a Falwell fan (for obvious reasons), but even *he* got it.

With how blindly irrational that man was, he was still willing to see the bigger picture.~

I'd say something like this:
People paid anywhere from an annual fee to a lifetime subscription fee for a journaling service (sort of like MySpace, if you've heard of that). And the company is just now changing its terms of service and ejecting (without refund) certain account holders on the grounds that they don't approve of the content. But SixApart refuses to clarify what's okay and what's not okay, and they aren't answering customer's questions about it (though they offered reassurance just before their latest round of permanent accounts sales).

Now, people who've paid $20 or even $100 aren't sure whether the company will suddenly decide to delete their account without refunding their money.

Simple as that. Poor customer service on an Internet service provider.

Ha, I can't manage to communicate in comments with people inside fandom who are familiar with the situation without coming across like an idiot.

I think part of the problem is that it's splitting into separate arguements. There's the "We are going to sit and scream until LJ defines obscenity" camp, who are going to be screaming for a while, as the Supreme Court has been trying to do so for decades.

There's the "If you don't let us play by our rules, we'll go elsewhere" group which quickly falls into an intense discussion of where, exactly, to go, with a couple of folks standing nearby with arms crossed, shooting down suggestions by reminding folks that any large enough system is going to have a TOS of its own.

There are the folks like me, who have put down our knitting and our pens and are looking for LJ to explain what the new rules are, but getting only stonewalled and burr86's unfortunate choice of reaction - the efw mockery. And we are growing frustrated, despite our willingness to play by the house rules, with not knowing what those rules are. Flocked isn't enough anymore, it seems. Maybe.

But more to your point --

Reasonable or not, I don't object to 6A's choosing not to host certain types of material. I do want them to explain what things they won't host in advance of stripping paid accounts. I do want them to draw a line and stick with it. I do want them to give warning and a chance for correction before they suspend a paid/perm account without appeal. I do want them to address their users and their concerns in a timely and professional manner. ⁽¹⁾

Nowhere in that paragraph do I attempt to defend chan, or even explain it. Because that's really, for me, not the point.

(1)The LJ representative publicly mocking irate members was a really bad idea. With no other response from 6A/LJ, his is the only word we have. I do not think that his reaction was company sanctioned. But we have not yet been given a company sanctioned response. I'd love to see one.

Couch it in bad customer service terms, man. At least that's what I'd do, because that's what I'm upset about.

Bad business practices/bad customer service is the way I'd go.
I like the points made here, you can always just not mention the Harry/Snape bit . . .

liz_marcs has a fairly good way of putting it. In one of her posts she explains precisely how Livejournal's current apparent policy is bad customer service, and also theft. The way I'd personally put it is that Livejournal has repeatedly lied and shown a stunning degree of hypocrisy in that it allows and even advertises comms dedicated to misogynists and other hate groups including ignoring reports of genuine pedophiles but steals from an artist whose only crime is to draw AN ADULT VERSION of a fictional character who is underage in canon involved in sex.

And to the extent you talk about the actual contents... don't get annoyed at the Really Twisted stuff... get annoyed at the fairly borderline/innocuous stuff, like the previously mentioned dirty pic of an adult-looking Harry... (who, even at 16, would be above the age of consent in England...)

keeping it vague like"...company is objecting to the content in the journals and is reviewing them and then deleting without warning or refund" (plus what you said above), is broad enough that most people will feel alarmed.

the bigger issue is that people don't understand what blogging is about and what is wrong with LJ monitoring and reviewing - I explain it as an online diary of your life and thoughts that you share with family and friends. that, with the monitoring - reviewing - deleting without warning or refund = most people get it then.

I'm struggling with the same question -- I just posted about it, from a different perspective, here (http://cryptoxin.livejournal.com/2581.html).

Fandom, we sound like the crazy people.

This is a great line. Funny and sadly true.

bubble_blunder's written an open letter (http://bubble-blunder.livejournal.com/80818.html) that kinda redeems fannish sanity. There's some hope for us yet!

Personally I'd simply explain the issue as relating to censoring artistic endeavours. Art, in many ways, does not have to be explained -- the validity of art is that it exists as a form of social commentary.

This commentary being stifled is problematic in and of itself.

It's highly difficult to explain to those outside of a culture exactly what happens inside of it because those cultural rules do not exist. Wincest is NOT something I tell coworkers or those who don't know about my academic study because to them it sounds like a bunch of freaks. That said, the concepts inherent are not ones that are ignored in contemporary art.

heh. I mostly stick with the "art is life" dialogue and go from there -- many don't get it and it will be confusing for a while. However, one of the major issues is that there's no sense of coherency to when and where people will be let go. There's a sort "fascist regime" fear in the making, which I think many might understand.

Not mentioning the Harry/Snape bit makes it sound like you're deliberately hiding stuff, if they happen to look into any more details.

"You said this was about customer service and it was about PORN!!!"

Instead, mention that explicit Harry Potter fanart was the target in this case--but that the guidelines they've given are so vague, they might ban a group for discussing Lolita (and in fact did, at one point), or ban a rape victim for posting before & after photos, even in a locked post that only her friends can read.

No, he wouldn't. The age of consent for homosexual sex in Britain is 18. Equality? What equality? But then, it's a big improvement on 21 which it was only a few years ago.

But if he was 16, Snape would still be his *teacher*, which is a separate sexual offence in both the UK and US(or at least some parts of the US). I think a lot of fans in that part of the fandom do not understand the additional "yeuch" factor that this causes people who do not have this particular interest.

Not any more (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Offences_%28Amendment%29_Act_2000).

Here via

metafandom

I still haven't heard a good argument, an argument that say a teacher could make, where if their colleagues or the parent of one of their children heard them make, would work if they googled the issue. I had a few non-fannish people read the CNet article. I asked them their opinion of 1) Harry Potter fans and 2) LiveJournal after reading the article. Their views were pretty much the same: LiveJournal screwed up in how they dealt with people but ultimately, they shouldn't allow that material.

And one of those people told me that what LiveJournal did makes economic sense: What advertiser would want to be affiliated with offensive material like that?

So yeah, I haven't heard an argument that I would advise a teacher or some one else working in schools to use that wouldn't possibly cost them their jobs if people investigated it.

*awards self epic fail*

How has a whole chunk of history managed to skip my brain? I even remember that now I read the article. Yet more proof that a goldfish's memory functions at a higher level than mine.

*goes to bottom of the class and vows to do better*

I very much get the "yeuch" factor (I'm a college teacher—my students are mostly legal age but I don't even want to think about thinking about them that way)—but as far as UK law goes, is depicting illegal acts in artwork actually illegal?

Not that it matters, because LJ's based in California, so it's their laws that apply.

Not that that even matters, because LJ's finally made clear that they're going well above and beyond the actual law.

The offence in the UK is "making images", which relates to photographic or "pseudo photographic" images of children. I suppose pseudo photographic means "cobbled together in photoshop". The image must be "indecent" - one definition of that is definitely "engaged in an illegal act".

So art - painted images of fictitious characters, would not be covered. Art - photopainted images made from chopped up screencaps, probably would....

"Making" in this Act, also includes "downloading onto your pc or uploading onto your server".

I don't *think* UK law would be interested in the image in question. It's plainly from a drawing, not a photoshopped photo, and there's no real suggestion that living persons (other than the artist) were involved in making it.

It might fall foul of some other part of the Sexual Offences Act 1993 (of which I am not an expert), but not the one specifically relating to child pornography, no matter how old Harry is supposed to be.

(mf-ing in)

I do want them to draw a line and stick with it. I do want them to give warning and a chance for correction before they suspend a paid/perm account without appeal.

This is the reasonable argument for me. I paid a substantial sum for a permanent account on an online service. Without warning, that online service changed its opinions regarding what is acceptable content to host. They will not clearly define what content is unacceptable, but if they find my content to be unacceptable, they will delete my permanent, expensive account without warning and without appeal. They outright refuse to clarify the matter in their TOS.

Moreover, they allow their employees to make public statements about the process which release contradictory information about what will happen, about whether there will be warnings, about who is at risk for deletion, about what is acceptable. Some of those public statements are clearly outrageous, with content such as "we don't care about the law; we judged your content subjectively and found it artistically wanting".

That the employees then make public statements mocking the customers or infantilizing anoerexia sufferers is just icing on the cake, but non-fandom people understand rude customer service just as much as we do.

I would agree with the non-fannish people you spoke with; at issue for me is not whether LJ needs to host the material but how they dealt with it. A simple takedown notice would have sufficed. What LJ hosts is their call as a private business. How they deal with removal of material they choose not to host is a question of customer service provided to paying customers, and that is really what is at issue.

They don't have to sponsor our speech. They do have to honor their implicit and explicit contracts with their customers.

at issue for me is not whether LJ needs to host the material but how they dealt with it.

I understand that a lot of people feel that way and to a degree, I feel sympathy towards that position... but I don't know that a lot of people can say they have a problem with how LiveJournal handled it PR wise and not find themselves having people come back with "And how would you handle people who post material that sexualizes children?" I can't see how say some one working with children on a regular basis can risk publicly having that position with out their livelihood being put at risk by some batshit fan with a grudge who might contact their employer and out them as supporting child porn. (And that sort of behavior, sadly, does go on in fandom. The pattern used to be to out people as homosexuals. Now, the pattern has changed to calling them pedophiles... and that's not something people in some fields can risk.)

And in terms of LiveJournal, in the comments (http://mycropht.wordpress.com/2007/08/07/finally-livejournal-busts-some-of-harry-potter-kiddie-porn/), the OP quoted this from the Terms of Service:

You agree that LiveJournal, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, journal, or account, and remove and discard any content within the Service, for any reason, including and without limitation, the lack of use, or if LiveJournal believes that you have violated or acted inconsistently with the letter or spirit of the TOS. Any contracts, verbal or written or assumed, in conjunction with your deleted journal and all its parts, at LiveJournal’s discretion, will be terminated as well. LiveJournal may also, in its sole discretion and at any time, discontinue providing the Service, or any part thereof, with or without notice. You agree that any termination of your access to the Service under any provision of this TOS may be effected without prior notice, and acknowledge and agree that LiveJournal may immediately deactivate or delete your LiveJournal journal and all related information and files. LiveJournal reserves the right to bar any further access to such files or the Service. You agree that LiveJournal shall not be liable to you or any third-party for any termination of your access to the Service. Paid accounts that are terminated will not be refunded.

And that is what the people who are calling it porn will link to, what at least one of them has linked to and what the people who have a problem with that material will begin to link for. And how do you argue that they didn't honor their implicit and explicit contract when that gets brought up? How can you argue against not just the child porn frame of reference but that as a back up to counter that argument?

I still haven't thought of a good way to do it.

The argument comes back to the casual way LJ/6A has dealt with customers until now. You say "Despite the wording of the TOS, the president of the company posted publically in an offical forum that it was a mistake to delete fan content ina pedophile sweep. Employees of the company posted in offical forums that warnings would be given so users could take down the offending comment."

They have given contradictory information to their customers in official forums and then deleted accounts in line with the TOS but in violation of the publically stated comments of their president and other employees.

And that is bad customer service. Imagine if Six Flags had a sign on the door that said "we reserve the right to eject any customer at any time" and another one that says "Six Flags is a family park and our customers are required to follow certain standards of behavior". In fact, I'm sure they do. Now imagine that you've bought a season pass and you are wearing a T-shirt that says, say, "FCUK". Imagine that the manager of the park comes up to you and says "Just say you know, all of you people wearing those French Connection UK shirts are totally fine -- none of you are going to get kicked out." And another employee of the park comes up to you and says "Even if we did ask you to leave, we would just ask you to change your shirt and come back tomorrow."

And then the next day they take your season pass that was extremely expensive and they rip it up and say you can't buy another one. Sure, they are within their legal rights based on the explicit contract you agree to when you bought the ticket. But implicitly, when the manager told you "all you people are totally fine" and the other employee said "we would just ask you to change your shirt", they set certain expectations with their customers.

Despite this argument, I don't think that a teacher working in a school with children could make it with out fear of consequences because if some one researches it, they'll find the child porn aspect. And that argument that you've made may work for parts of fandom, but it isn't going to work with a broader audience because they are going to focus on the child porn part. I just can't see a win for fandom arguing this unless the anti-LiveJournal fandom part directly confronts the sexualizing of children part... (and clearly, talking about the artistic merit is not a win. Look at the anti-fandom parts like the link I linked to where they called it offensive and clearly lacking artistic merit.) and the second they do, they still lose. :/

So yeah. It is a good argument for people who are inclined to lean that way but in a broader sense, if they Google it, fandom comes out looking bad and like supporters of sexualizing children and LiveJournal comes out looking inept at public relations. And the fandom part looks worse than LiveJournal.

Without warning, that online service changed its opinions regarding what is acceptable content to host.

LJ has always had the right to do that: it's in the ToS. It's the first thing you see when you read it.

And how do you react when they want to know what exactly was someone banned over? Or when they ask, "People really draw this kind of thing and post it publically?! About a kids' book?!"

Because they will.

Yes, but they're required by law to let you know when they are changing the rules, and what they are changing them to.

(Personally, what I'm upset about is the customer service.)

This is a case of me responding to Juls and not really thinking that other people were going to read my comment . . . if I was explaining the situation to people, I'd go the bad business practices/bad customer service route. Yes, I'd touch on what sparked things off, but I don't think I'd say that it was specifically Harry Potter porn. I'd more likely explain that explicit art was posted and the poster banned because lj decided it had no artistic merit - despite previously reassuring members who posted explicit art.

Probably with a "Yep, they do." Even my mother who is not exactly technologically savvy understands that when people make the joke that the internet has everything, they mean everything.

Then there's no reason not to be upfront about the details of the situation, then, eh?

Dancing around the situation, being less than honest about it, defeats the whole purpose of what the OP is trying to do and could possibly be more harmful, I think. "It's the crime, it's the coverup" -- not just for hotel break-ins and extramarital affairs, anymore

See my comment to

elfwreck above for a hypothetical on how I'd explain situation to someone I didn't know.

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An exercise

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