Chilling Effects

[octothorpe]

Chilling Effect:

A chilling effect is a situation where speech or conduct is suppressed or limited by fear of penalization at the hands of an individual or group. For example, the threat of a costly and lengthy lawsuit might prompt self-censorship and have a chilling effect on free speech.

Livejournal has instituted a new method for not only blog owners, but any registered user to flag a blog as "inappropriate" for various age groups. In order to view a flagged blog, a registered user must include their date-of-birth (DOB) in their profile, and explicitly click a button that states they're aware that the content has been deemed "inappropriate" for an age group. The blog owner has no recourse, and can't un-flag their own content that others have flagged. It's effectively a scarlet letter.

This is profoundly distressing. If you don't understand this, reply, and I'll explain it to you in excruciating detail. I assume my readership is actually smart enough to understand the far-reaching consequences of this.

A Modest Proposal
We're all registered users. Create a new (free) account. Now find all posts from all 6Apart (owns Livejournal) and LJ administrators, all blogs that have never contained anything more than puppies and flowers, all posts from 14 year old girls and boys, and flag them as "inappropriate content for under 18s". Do this for every post they have. This is a protest for free speech.

For the record, I'd have no problem with a mechanism for allowing (not forcing) people to flag *their own* content, but to allow any random user with a grudge to flag your posts is poorly thought out at best, and otherwise downright insidious.

Edit Added thornyc's idea of creating another LJ alt before flagging everything under the sun.

Comments

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

Obviously nothing prevents a kid from establishing an adult identity on LJ and reading whatever they want. This new policy is to respond to external accusations that LJ has smut kids can read without hindrance. If the user reporting system only applied to public posts, it might almost make sense... almost. But the "friends only" posts should suffer no interference.

I'm not willing to get excited about this, because I suspect LJ is trying to navigate through the shoals of fundie legal harassment and user outrage, and while clumsy I expect the policy is only a first effort. Of course it's silly, but then you'd have to reform the twisted little minds of "save the children" [from learning about reality] citizens to avoid this kind of fig leaf response.

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

Clearly, I am willing to get excited about this, as I think this new mechanism creates Chilling Effects. Yes, I understand that the LJ gods get to dictate what can and can't "go" as far as content, however, the idea that now every user has the ability to stifle any other user is rather insane. There are no checks and balances.

Fuck fundie legal harassment. LJ already has a TOS, and and Abuse Ticket system. If someone is violating the TOS, a user can open a ticket. This new system only encourages an agenda of fear, and hate.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this is the result of the trouble ticket system becoming burdensome -- too much headcount to deal with. One would think it sensible to have LJ legally protected as a common carrier, with those who post deemed the only responsible parties for any legal problems with their material. But apparently this is not now the case; if I call up children and whisper dirty stories to them over the phone, it doesn't occur to anyone to ask the government to force the telephone company to install smut filters, and that should be true here as well.

I agree it's a good idea to protest this to make it clear that the adult communities here should not be harassed by random busybodies (which reminds me of the Simpson's episode where Ned Flanders reviews videotapes of TV shows for "bad" content and his kids suggest his time might be better spent looking for a new mommy.)

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

Sensible. I'm just reacting from selfish interests:) I don't want anything to interfere with my main source of communication with my friends.

[grandiva1968.livejournal.com]

…What he said, for the most part.