When yaochi suggested that I Screen Capture the actual LJ Support/Abuse conversation, I felt like hitting myself in the head.

Yes. A screen capture proves that I not only had the conversation, but that Alice of LJAbuse really said what she had said.

Read the previous entry so you can have the full context behind the discussion

Warning: Huuuuuuge image underneath the LJ Cut

( Screen Capture Proof of My Conversation with Alice of LJAbuse )

ETA: I have provided a Screen Capture of the back and forth between myself and Alice of LJAbuse to show that all information presented below is truthful.



You might remember that on August 9 I sent a support request to LiveJournal asking them to confirm if it was true that they were going to smack people around — i.e., either suspend or ban accounts — for simply linking to objectionable material off-site.

The rumor seemed ridiculous to me. Talk about a complete misunderstanding of how the Internet works. It's not unheard of for formerly "safe sites" to suddenly become "unsafe" as a result of Web page movement and disappearance. The Internet is, by its very nature, an unstable and temporary place. It's virtually impossible to be sure that a once-linked site will be safe forever.

Especially if you tend to do link round-ups for breaking news or interesting Web sites of the day. The very thought of regularly checking every off-site link I've ever posted to make sure those links are still "safe" under the rules of 6A/LJ is enough to make me break into a cold sweat. And I'm only a link princess. I can't imagine what some of the link queens on my FList (as in they do a daily news round-up consisting of a zillion links) and news communities on my FList are going to do.

So, as I said, it was time to go to the source.

I didn't receive an answer by August 13, when lj_biz posted the non-clarification of 6A/LJ policies. The mention of hyperlinking to off-sites was not at all helpful, either, especially since they were throwing that "child porn" label around like they were hoping it would stick to anyone who dared to complain about 6A/LJ's high-handed behavior and lack of customer service.

Following the "clarification" post on lj_biz, a number of people have tried to get a straight answer on the linking issue, only to get the whole child porn thing thrown out there again and again.

Well, your intrepid correspondent has decided to push the issue to its logical extremes. And thanks to finally getting an answer from LJ Abuse, I have an answer...sort of.

Please keep in mind that this whole conversation was set to private by LJ. Therefore, I can't objectively prove that I had this real conversation with someone from LJAbuse.

The short answer is: Yes, we will be held responsible for the content of all off-site sites that we link to. Yes, we are expected to regularly check those links to make sure that every hyperlink within our journal real estate remains "safe."

If there's any good news, current policy dictates that if LJAbuse is able to determine based on the content around your link that you initially posted to a "safe" site and that link has now been redirected, you will be contacted and asked to fix the link. They will most likely not use it as a "strike" against you in their shiny new "two strikes yer out policy" if LJAbuse decides that you didn't intend to link to a site LJ/6A thinks contains ToS-able content.

Below the LJ Cuts are the actual back-and-forths between myself and LJAbuse.

( First, my initial inquiry to LJ )

( Response from Alice on LJAbuse, Thursday, August 23 )

( Clarification Request from Liz Marcs, Monday, August 27 )


( Response from Alice on LJAbuse, Wednesday, August 29 )

( Clarification Request from Liz Marcs, Wednesday, August 29 )

I'll post the response when I get it (assuming I get a response).

You know? That closing line of my email just gave me a good idea.

Maybe, just maybe, we need to show 6A/LJ that it isn't just us, the customers and journals owners, who create the community here on LJ.

We need to show that as content providers we also bring eyeballs to the site, eyeballs that have to see their advertising.

To that end, maybe we should all post our Technorati and LJSeek links, just to show that taking down one journal could very well mean a big drop-off in the number of visitors LJ gets. And I know for a fact that I have nowhere near the number of visitors and/or links most people on my FList have.

So, here goes. My stats from LJSeek and Technorati.

From LJSeek:

My rating

From Technorati: View blog authority