LiveJournal users fight erotic 'Harry Potter' deletions

Editor's note: This story was updated at 5:15 p.m. PST to clarify and elaborate upon some of the concerns raised by LiveJournal users.

LiveJournal users who patronize sex-themed Harry Potter fan art and fiction communities--and a host of other concerned users--are revolting a second time over account suspension notices they say are unpredictable and trample on their free-expression rights.

The most recent saga over user-generated Harry Potter artwork appears to have started late last week, when at least two users, "ponderosa121" and "elaboration," reported receiving notices from a LiveJournal abuse team member who informed them that their accounts had been "permanently suspended." (One user tracking the situation says an "undetermined" number of other Harry Potter artists have also been suspended in recent weeks, but we've yet to get official confirmation on that.)

The reason for the deletions? The users' journal entries contained "drawings depicting minors in explicit sexual situations," which represented a violation of LiveJournal's policies, according to copies of the letters posted by their recipients.

In ponderosa121's case, the offending image depicted an unclothed Harry Potter of ambiguous age receiving oral sex from sometimes-villain Severus Snape. The image posted by elaboration, who describes herself on an external site as a 21-year-old Atlanta sometimes-resident with a fondness for "zombies, pie and cold pizza," showed the twin brothers of Ron Weasley, Harry's good friend, in their own intimate moment. There were no ages listed in the fantasy images, however, so they could have been meant to depict the lads when they were 18 years old.

The uproar is reminiscent of an outcry around Memorial Day weekend, when thousands of users mobilized against LiveJournal parent company SixApart's deletion of about 500 journals of a seemingly similar nature. CEO Barak Berkowitz ultimately admitted the company had "really screwed this one up" and vowed to restore many communities deleted in an effort to wipe out allegedly inappropriate pedophilia-related chatter.

This time around, SixApart representatives have not responded to my repeated requests for comment on Monday. An official explanation has also yet to surface on LiveJournal's official news page, where the most recent entries have found their comments quotas maxed out by user gripes about the latest kerfuffle.

But one user miffed by the suspensions has posted what appears to be a copy of a response on Friday from a LiveJournal abuse team member who identified himself as Eric.

Although the content in question did not meet the legal definition of child pornography, "non-photographic content involving minors in sexual situations which does not contain serious artistic or literary merit is likely in violation of Federal obscenity laws, and is content LiveJournal has chosen not to host," he said in that message.

A team of LiveJournal moderators, employees and SixApart staff reviewed the images and "clearly did not see serious artistic value in content that simply displayed graphic sexual acts involving minors," Eric added.

The company also states in its Terms of Service that it "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."

Those explanations hardly appeased some exasperated users, who alternately mocked or scolded that line of thinking. One user who goes by the name Guma Kawauso argued that by that logic, people could face journal shutdowns for posting images by the renowned photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whose common themes were flowers, portraits of famous people and nudes--which encountered charges of "pandering obscenity."

"'Obscenity' is the perfect tool to weed out everything that doesn't fit in a nice, clean, straight, male-dominated and preferably white world," charged a user named erestor.

"The policy makes LJ an unwelcoming environment for sexual expression and experimentation, which is a change; in the past, LJ has been a valuable environment for many groups who are expressing, experimenting with, or identifying as non-normative sexualities to speak free of constraints which are often backed by patriarchical [sic], racist, classist, or heterosexist behavioral norms," another user, who goes by the moniker "coffeeandink," wrote in a recent entry.

To make matters worse, some users have been complaining that a LiveJournal employee named Abe Hassan, who goes by the username burr86, has posted "mocking" statements about fandom communities, which they argue is unprofessional and deserves at least a reprimand.

While apparently on a much smaller scale, the latest episode has fanfic devotees once again encouraging livid LiveJournal users to switch to "clone" sites in protest and to register their discontent through feedback emails.

Update at 5:15 p.m. PST: Some readers have commented below that they're concerned this report doesn't reflect the breadth of concern from the LiveJournal community about these incidents.

Let the record reflect, then, that a number of users who wouldn't consider themselves Potter fans, per se, are fundamentally concerned about the way SixApart has handled these situations in recent months. They're taking issue with everything from its "customer service" practices to what concerned users argue is an unevenly enforced terms-of-service policy in the first place. Some said they're not so much concerned about what LiveJournal deems inappropriate as how the company goes about deciding that.

[butterflypersona]

Clarifications are the main problem

Actually, most people are pissed off over LJ/6A's unclear stance. Since the Memorial Day Strikethrough, they've released 'clarifications' in lj-biz.livejournal.com, but as you can see if you check the comments, these didn't really clarify anything.

We know that this is their sandbox, we know what it says in their TOS. But we'd really like to know where we stand. We want to know what is and isn't allowed, clearly, not vaguely. If they're going to stick to vague, they need to stick to handing out warnings, instead of perma-banning users without warning based off small offenses. Especially since *we don't know* what will or will not get us banhammered.

For many this feels like a sudden change in policy, in how LJ/6A handles things, even though they've promised this wouldn't be the case. Interesting how they tried so hard to reassure us and apologize before their big permanent account sale, and then do this once it's over.

[Flitcraft1]

Stigmatising your own customer base

What's astonishing about this, is that the people they are going after are young women who find actors like Daniel Radcliffe and Alan Rickman attractive. People less likely to be actual paedophiles are hard to imagine, and as the drawings are 'slash' (how shall I put it delicately?) the offenders don't actually have the necessary real world 'equipment' to carry out any of the acts they depict, not to mention the absurdity of how they would get their hands on a fictional character to begin with.

Yet despite this Six Apart have stigmatised the mostly young and female demographic of these fan groups as potential paedophile menaces. It's a huge insult to a surprisingly loyal and sizeable part of their customer base, but they seem to be gambling that they can draw in more mainstream advertising money by sacrificing the fan demographic, hence the utter and unprofessional contempt with which they are treating their customers.

[hikarukujo]

Lack of Artistic Merit?

The issue is not whether fandom should be allowed to post freely to LJ. They have every right to ban, delete, and censor everything they desire. However, their TOS needs to clearly state what and how something will be judged inappropriate.

SixApart seems to want to change the TOS willy-nilly and make up policy as they go along. And while they have the right to alter their policies, as a California-based company they also have the legal obligations that come with said changes. See: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9028240&source=rss_news10

It all boils down to money: SixApart is shopping for a new buyer, since the current management has borked the company and they want to bail out. Part of finding the next owner is "cleaning up" the community to avoid potential embarrassment in discovery during the purchase. All they need is people like Warriors for Innocence coming along to a potential buyer and presenting a list of 1000 ?pedophile? members pushing underage sex and imagery. Makes good business sense to clean it all up. But does it make good business sense to drive away all your longest-lived customers?

[Suzene Campos]

This Article's Title Is Misleading

The title of this article misleading; the author has played down the fact that a good number of people involved in this do not care about HP fandom, but are upset about LJ/6A's deplorable and short-sighted handling of customer concerns (the demand for a clear and unambiguous TOS started in May '07, but LJ's TOS has not been updated since '06, which puts them in possible violation of California law), hypocrisy (claiming to be doing this for the good of the children, when most of their efforts have been directed against erasing depictions of fictional characters while real-life pedos continue to use their service; claiming that they have no tolerance for illegal activity when previous reports of stalking, threats, and other illegal activity to the LJ abuse team have met with a "Sorry, we're not the police" attitude), and generally poor customer relations (an April Fool's "joke" that involved mocking customer concerns; neglecting to mention that the charities that 6A were going to donate to in the wake of the last Permanent Account sale were tied to a venture group that had purchased 6A).

This article -- http://www.darksiderainbow.net/dr-weekend-edition-080507-livejournal-arouses-the-ire-of-its-usersagain/ -- provides a much clearer overview of the entire mess.

[havenstar]

Misinformed

To put it bluntly, the majority of the protesting isn't about porn. Quite a lot of the people who have been commenting have little or nothing to do with Harry Potter. The issue is not about the right to erotic art/writing- as 6A/LJ own the site, they have the right to put whatever they like into their Terms of Service and determine who can and cannot use their blogging service. What people are upset about is the fact that they have not made their stance clear, and have then suspended users based on these unclear rules.

As a company, it's their responsibility to update their Terms of Service in a clear manner, and inform users of these changes so that they can comply or else bring their business elsewhere. Their ToS have not been updated, and requests for clarification have gone unanswered. It's poor business practice, and allowing this problem to go on for so long without an official statement is even worse.

[AnneBroache]

Updated blog

Thanks for your comments. We've updated the blog in an attempt to flesh out some of these concerns.

[havenstar]

Thanks!

Thank you for listening to our input and editing accordingly- it's very much appreciated and certainly more than LiveJournal's been willing to do.

[Xenu7-214951314497503184010868]

Anime

It could be argued that a lot of Anime is also non-photographic content involving minors in sexual situations which does not contain serious artistic or literary merit.

[hikarukujo]

Thanks

Yes, I would also like to thank you for the update. Certainly a lot faster response then SixApart ...

[semishade]

A correction to the correction

"Let the record reflect, then, that a number of users who wouldn't consider themselves Potter fans, per se"

Actually, that should read, "a number of users who have absolutely no interest in Harry Potter whatsoever" etc. Per se means "by itself" and taken with "wouldn't consider" implies that you still think that those concerned are all from the Harry Potter fandom really. There are some people left on this planet, including irate livejournal users, who haven't even read the books. You don't need to be a Harry Potter fan (or even a fan at all) to be annoyed at shoddy business practices.

[fluorojade]

It's not just mockery

Personally, I am willing to forgive Abe Hassan, considering the circumstances. But I am not really impressed with the level of professionalism coming from the LJ/6A team.

Anil Dash, a VP with Six Apart, LiveJournal's parent company, is calling people names in his own LJ:

http://anildash.livejournal.com/25989.html

"And a big hearty ****-you to rumormongers who stir **** up just to demoralize people who do good work. If you don't have enough drama in your life, go make something that millions of people think is valuable."

I'm aristaea on LJ.

[fluorojade]

LJ response

LiveJournal has posted an official response in the lj_biz community, and many people (including myself) are still unsatisfied and asking for further clarification.

http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/241884.html

[inkydoo]

why is LJ trying to define what is "art?"

it seems to me that it would be much easier to make the case that these accounts were deleted because, well, fanworks are basically plagarism. Art is impossible to define, but copyright laws are not.