Missing Interests and Planned User Strike on Livejournal
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| Title: | Missing Interests and Planned User Strike on Livejournal |
| Creator: | Melissa Wilson |
| Date(s): | March 17, 2008 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | multifandom |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | Missing Interests and Planned User Strike on Livejournal |
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Missing Interests and Planned User Strike on Livejournal is a March 2008 essay by Melissa Wilson.
It was posted to Firefox News.
The topic is LiveJournal, changes in business plans, glitches, and the advance of the Russian ownership of the site.
Some Topics Discussed
- Strikethrough
- Nipplegate
- fan anger about LiveJournal pulling fast ones
- fans as a product
- censorship
From the Essay
Things are getting a little tight in San Francisco. Livejournal Inc., previously owned by Six Apart, before that owned by Brad Fitzpatrick, now in possession of Russian company SUP, has been gearing up some major changes for the site. Last week, keen-eyed observers found out that Basic accounts (the no-frills unpaid accounts with no ads) were about to become artifacts. Users with accounts prior to March 13th could keep or scale back down to Basic, but all new accounts created after that time default to Plus, with an option on Paid. (Plus accounts are still free, but ads run in the margins much like competitor sites MySpace and Facebook. Paid accounts are exactly what you think they are.) With no official notification to current users that this was going to be the case, Livejournal users once again applied excrement to fan and hit "High."
Then came this past weekend. Again, sharp-eyed users noticed a problem. This time, certain words were no longer showing up in the site's "Most Popular Interests" list. Among the missing interests: "depression," "bisexuality," "faeries," and "fanfiction." The interests in question appear to have been blocked after 2/28/08, according to one user's cache of the data.
Firefox News contacted SUP's corporate office and were told by a spokesperson: "Regarding the possible censorship of certain lists, this appears to be a technical issue. LJ is trying to fix this at the moment." As of this writing (and checked as of earlier today) those interests have been restored to the list. No reason was given from SUP as to the nature of the technical problem, leading some to speculate that an ad-monitoring program may have been the culprit; no use putting ads on that page if the program grabs the wrong keywords, after all.
The purchase of Livejournal by a Russian-owned company raised questions at the time of SUP's commitment to LJ's long-standing relationship with its user community, for good and ill. The recent decision to drop the ad-free Basic account is "a business decision. It is, emphatically." It may however be a poor business decision, one made in the hopes of making a fast buck off the content provided by the users without understanding the background of those users' relationship with the site. The removal, for whatever reason, of possibly controversial interests gives users good reason to worry that we are not wanted on a site we helped make so popular. The restoration of those interests, allowing us our thoughts on yaoi once more, does not immediately restore our faith in the company, especially with the clandestine removal of the primary way in which most of us first came to the site (and then brought our friends).
In short, Livejournal users no longer feel like customers, but product, and that's bad business all around.
Fan Comments
[lena]: Technical glitch my ass. What kind of technical glitch targets homosexuals and mentally ill people? I'd say it's deliberate bigotry.
[bluefirestorm]: Can't be technical if they were the ones to apply a filter. Sorry. I just don't buy it. I smell BS.
Melissa, the essayist]: The "technical glitch" explanation makes sense in light of what they did next. Had the removal been deliberate, LJ would have made up a dumb reason about why this was "actually good for us/the company/The Children" as they did during Strikethrough and Nipplegate. Instead, they restored the list without arguing about it. As to why those particular interests would be censored, again the "ad filter" speculation makes the most sense. People who aren't logged in will see ads on that page and considering the range of interests, the keywords selected by the program could be something that the Warriors for Idiocy types would raise a stink about. I'm not saying it's what happened, I'm saying that based on our current level of information about the subject, it's the simplest explanation.
[unknown user]: I don't buy the 'technical issue' explanation. If it really was one, then how to you explain that 'guys' returned to the interests list long before all the other missing interests? And that 'faeries' was one of the words censored? And 'depression' wouldn't really be a keyword to trigger unwanted ads, would it now? You're giving them way too much credit. My take is that they simply counted on us not to notice it and acted only when people were starting to spread the word around. At this point it doesn't even have to do with being 'mainstream' or not anymore, removing 'depression' and 'bisexuality' from that list sends a clear message of intolerance.
Melissa, the essayist]: "Depression" triggers ads for illegal web-based pharmaceutical sales (at least it does on our site). "Faeries" triggers gay-themed chat room ads (again, based on what I can observe from our site). Pretend there's a conspiracy all you'd like, but based on past performance, LJ has traditionally come up with a bad excuse when users find things out and again, not fixed the problem without a huge amount of butt-covering and complaining. This was noticed over the weekend and fixed first thing Monday morning. There may be other reasons for the interests to have been censored. I've seen a large number of theories floating around, the most believable one being that LJ didn't want the public page that advertisers visited to see "sex" and "fanfiction" so high up, nor did they want to have "depression" up there so that they didn't get the reputation as the emo-cutting-teenager place. Fine. Again, makes sense with previous debacles.But it doesn't explain why they brought the interests back. Neither does a kneejerk "ZOMG oppression" theory. LJ does not in fact listen to its users and never has, not when they could make a buck or appease an outside lunatic fringe. The fact that they *did* bring this back as soon as the users brought it to their attention indicates someone screwed up. Any ulterior motives to the screwup can only be speculated (again, ad-blocking is the clear frontrunner for a sensible explanation). I have a lot of problems with the way LJ has dealt with its customers in the past, and really don't like the way the Basic accounts took a midnight train out of town.
But this was fixed without a whine or protest of "for the Children, omg" from their side. They didn't offer a bad compromise (like the "three strikes" rule from Boldthrough) and they didn't change the Terms of Service (like in Nipplegate) and they didn't send an ill-informed staff member to placate the masses (like in Strikethrough). They fixed the problem. So instead of whining about something that's already been fixed, why don't we focus our efforts on the Basic account issue instead, where the arguments might do some good?
[Marian]: It wasn't a technical glitch. The change-log shows that 'correcting' it was actually removing a filter which obviously did exactly what it was designed to do, namely, prevent certain interests from showing where press/advertisers/LJ users could see them.
[Toniaha]: They're full of shit.
[Karla]: The censorship of certain words is just another sneaky underhanded tactic. Come on fanfiction? depression? bisexuality? The way they made the changes to the accounts were just as sneaky. Why NOT post it on the news with where ALL the major news (changes of this nature) are posted. They thought they could get away with it without any one noticing. Poor way to conduct a business.
[kitsune]: They may be "business decisions" but they're ham-handed and foresight-free. Even my mild, bookish friends, all there for years and most of us dropping money not only for accounts but extra pics, paid community journals, and even those dumb virtual gifts --- even these staid, unflappable folks are totally incensed at the removal of the "Basic" option. And every day, the more we learn about current practices, especially regarding the bloody advertising, we hear more and more sneaky, dumb, greedy BS. If they make LJ a place we can't happily invite our friends to, they make our "investment" in LJ worthless. Why stay, stay and support and PAY, when the situation just keeps accelerating downhill?
[AsteraPallas]: Thank-you for posting this. The business practices of SUP are appalling, pure and simple. Time to look for a new journal home. I've had a paid account LJ for five years now, have purchased many virtual gifts, journal time for friends (who have gone on to become paid members, themselves) and have always purchased additional user pics, too. Obviously SUP doesn't want a loyal customer base. A business person should not be marginalizing the very community members that make SUP a (monetarily-speaking) viable business, in the first place. Said again. This is appalling.
[iP]: SUP looks like they are in badly need of cash. It's sad that you can't boast to other people that you own an LJ account (and use it).