Read this (I*heart*youFirefox). No, just read it. Done blinking yet? No? Ok, I'll give you a second to swallow the absurdity.
So SixApart bends to the will of an internet vigilante group, on a mission to rid the internet of pedophiles and everyone else they deem morally corrupt (LOL interwebs justice!), by deleting hundreds or journals with questionable interests and pissing off thousands of members. Including literature discussion groups (specifically the Spanish book, Lolita), and support groups for survivors of rape, incest, child molestation. Brilliant 6A, brilliant.
WfI (Refer to the Firefox clip for the name of this group. I won't link nutters like these back here), a group of Christian Dominists, might have good intentions, but those intentions are quickly muddied by their self-righteous, knee-jerk, high handed moralistic actions (This is how disgusting these people are. One has since made their Blogger invisible *lol*) It only takes a person a minute or two to skim through the exchanges between WfI and Fandom to realize that this group's agenda isn't just search and destroy pedophiles, it's search and destroy anyone they find questionable--no questions asked. Thats fucking scary.
That said, I hear by decree the Bible be banned, because no book has more rape, murder, child molestation, or incest than it does. People might read it and start getting ideas, right? Oh wait! That's been happening for thousands of years now! Silly me!
Recap!
WfI humped the hornets nest when they tangled with Fandom. When Strikethoughgate began to happen, Fandom raised its ugly head and shifted predatory eyes on the Ones Who Ruined Their Lives. WfI, having no idea what they'd gotten themselves into, began denying any involvment (despite the fact they admitted it AND posted a list of pedo journals--some of which were actually Fandom journals) while making snarky remarks and deleting comments left on their website (which, by the way, uses stolen images from a video game called Vampire: The Masquerade:Redemption). Suddenly, 6A is under attack from thousands, and I don't mean a couple thousand, I mean THOUSANDS of pissed off users. At last count, there were +31000 journals all related to, or interested, in Fandom.
The Internet begins to catch wind of the debacle, news groups and large sites such as Fark, Something Awful, 4chan, etc., raise their brows and start talking--the rest of the internet holds their breath (Thankfully there were no casualties. All websites and people related to them are still standing. Though I do admit, seeing WiF try to tackle SA would be something I'd pay money for. Comedy Gold, indeed.)
6A finally makes a reply to the outcry, only to stick their foot so far down their throats it comes out their ass. More internet attention is gathered, thousands more angry posts are made on the LJ news page. People start threatening to abandon LJ all together. The members of JournalFen (home of FandomWank) hold their breath, waiting for the exodus to come their way. FandomWank sits back and eats popcorn, while muttering about the Robustness of the server.
6A starts to backpedal. CEO posts. People jump all over him like stink on shit. Some journals are reinstated. Members still pissed off. Today, most journals have been reinstated. Members still pissed off. WiF is displeased with this turn of events:
Unfortunately, LJ also deleted hundreds of unrelated journals, much to the dismay of many authors. In an effort to quell the huge backlash that they were receiving from their broad blanket of suspenses, they apologized, agreed to review each journal, and reinstate those that were mistakenly suspended. In their zeal to grease the squeaky wheel, they have also seen fit to reinstate many of the very journals that started this entire issue: those of admitted pedophiles. Nifty.
And the question I have to ask is "Who do they consider admitted pedophiles? People actually posting nekkid pics of kids or Fandom members writing incest, rape fantasy fics, or dare I bring the Furries into this? As squicky as the latter is, there's a big difference between pedos and Fandom's many faces. Considering several Fandom Journals were on their 'list' of tracked pedo sites to be deleted (some of which were RPG Journals and Fanfiction sites), I really don't think they're too interested in discerning the difference, despite their claim otherwise. A read through their group's maintainer blogs, as well as a quick glance at the comments of those advocating Wif's mission is telling of the character of people this particular group leads.
A quote from someone who misses the point:
WfI has recently struck a nerve with a segment of the population that does not appreciate what they stand for, or against rather. WfI is against childporn on the internet. Through their endeavors LiveJournal, owned by Six Apart Incorporated, deleted over 500 of its sites or journals that it deemed as portals for pedophilia, child sex, child abuse, and other illegal activities. They hope that other Journal and blog providers will soon follow suit.Go to this posting on WfI and get the first hand story about what happened and be sure to read the comments wherein some of the people in this wonderful world show they are not happy with the results Warriors is achieving.
So who is at fault? 6A, no doubt, for giving into the threats of a radical fundie group and taking action without any investigation. The stupid is blinding. Also, WfI is responsible too. Their cause is a good one, but muddied by their self-righteous fundie minds. And any group that thinks its ok to take out a few thousand innocent people to get a dozen evil bastards is just as nefarious as the ones they hunt. Disgusting, actually.
Leave crime fighting up to the professionals. Contact the FBI or police. Don't use underhanded threats such as, "I've taken screen caps of such and such on your site and if you don't do anything about it, I'm going to report you to your sponsors" or hijacking websites just because you believe them to morally unsound. I noticed a list of hijacked sites on one of WfI blogs. They'd all been redirected to a web page that says, "Boycott Amazon.com". I wondered how many of these sites were innocent sites--people who are into rape fantasy, BSDM, Furry crap, etc. Sure, its squicky, but they aren't out molesting sprogs.
What we have here is an internet Witch Hunt, led by people who can't believe that there are other people out there that don't share their beliefs on what morality is and therefore everyone who has a fetish is a sicko and a molester. Sadly for them, Fandom has a long memory and is a vindictive bitch. I'm sure this isn't over yet.
For now, I'm going to go buy stuff at Amazon.com! Yay!
Posted by Zoso at June 1, 2007 09:29 AMWait ... what? Banning internet fetishes and thereby angering the fandom community into a stupor?Do I sense internet terrorism on the horizon, because it definitely seems that we're heading in that direction. I'm waiting for the day a site is razed in a virtual atomic blast. :)
Honestly, trying to get rid of pedophilia is a worthy cause, and should be applauded; but taking down sites and journals that have a unique fetish, with no real-world malevolence taking place, is just wrong - on more than one level. Hell, they were taking down support groups, and that has nothing to do with fetishes. As for Lolita - its a literary classic. What, are you all going to take down "A Clockwork Orange" discussion groups next?
I agree with you though - if they move on to try and take down Something Awful, I will be sure to have a front row seat for the catastrophe that would surely unfold. Heck, I'll definitely be there if they try to take down any of the "chan" imageboards. Nothing like a swarm of angry otaku to please the inner deviant. >:D
This just may turn out to be the internet event of the year: "Vigilantes strike to take down those who are different!"
There's a pretty good explaination about why this happened over here:
http://www.greatestjournal.com/users/stewardess_/683.html
LOL Yeah, quite a few people waited to see what would happen when Those Who Deal Out Internet Justice caught wind of this. I was fairly certain SA would do nothing. There's no love for LJ over there, but they were sympathetic (as much as a goon could be). The only way something like that would happen was if WfI managed to piss off Lowtax (sort of the way Ebaum's world did--which was hysterical), since 'rushing' is a bannable offense over there. If WfI ever were to cross SA, I'm sure Lenoard would deal with them, hopefully with same zeal as when he crushed the Ultimate Warrior lawsuit. * lol *
Besides, most of their effort is being pointed at getting a good on "I Love New York", that asinine VH1 show:
http://ilovenewyork2.com/people/TheFireman
Isn't this a thing of beauty? They've managed to get him into the top 5. (yes, I'm voting for him everyday)
I don't know much about the chan boards. I've heard they can be pretty ruthless (even 2chan in Japan).
Posted by: Zoso at June 2, 2007 08:41 AMHmm... Sounds like someone royally fucked up. Honestly the Wif group sounds like it has a good cause, as I am all for getting rid of child pornography on the web. The problem is when you assign Christian fundies to do an unsupervised job while their moral sticks are shoved so far up their asses you can see it down their throats with a flashlight. Honestly, give a couple of fundies the ability to ban anything and they are going to ban anything that they don't like. I wonder how many of those JL's that they banned contained homosexual fiction.
I honestly wonder if most Christian fundies even read the Bible. Like Zoso said, their 'awesome book of humble moral-ness' contains things that they think should be banned from the internet (especially incest. Seriously, if God only created 2 people, someone had to boink their sister).
To get rid of child pornography is a worthy cause, they just picked the wrong people to carry it out. To all those people that wrongly had their LJ shut down, give 'em hell.
"Vigilantes strike to take down those who are different!"
This pretty much sums it up. I've never understood fetishes about pain, incest, rape, furries, etc. But if it's adults and no on is getting hurt...who the hell am I to judge?
People who clout their own sense of morality around like a club offend me far more than anyone who has a weird kink.
Posted by: Zoso at June 5, 2007 06:27 PM