It's very interesting to see the drama playing out over LiveJournal's hamfisted handling of their mass deletion of blogs and communities this week. It's always curious when usually well-meaning Internet companies get played by extremist elements. The one "activist group" that is cited in C|Net's coverage of the debacle, is Warriors for Innocence. You would think, as I did, that this group is a watchdog group by concerned people about the real scourge of pedophilia, a condition that truly mentally disturbed people of our society are afflicted with.
But if you look more closely, you find that this organization is, in fact, not an organization at all, and by the writings of their principals, isn't really even all that concerned about pedophilia. What really gets their ire up, apparently, is homosexuality. You would think that a company as savvy as Six Apart (LiveJournal's parent company) would have done its due diligence before taking an action that was totally unnecessary from a legal standpoint and had huge potential to harm their company under the best circumstances. But C|Net had no trouble turning up this tidbit:
"A representative from the group (Warriors for Innocence), who gave her name only as "Sues," said in an e-mail Thursday that "we did not knowingly report any 'fandom' communities or role-playing journals." In posts to her personal blog, Sues describes herself as an ardent conservative who views homosexuality as "sick" and a "twisted agenda" and lumps gays and lesbians into the same category as pedophiles and rapists.
That last part is particularly telling, since many of the purged communities had little, if anything, to do with pedophilia, though did contain references to homosexual practices. If "Sues" equates homosexuality with pedophilia, it's not surprising they would not shed many tears over missing their supposed target. "Sues"'s first statement is also disingenuous: One need not lodge complaints about specific blogs, they simply must structure their complaint in such a manner as to ensure they were caught up in the purge. It also appears that, far from being "a representative of the groups", "Sues" is in fact the principal of the organization, which is made up of no more than a few individuals who apparently share this extreme bigotry against people whose sexual orientation differs from the norm. There is also apparently evidence linking Warriors for Innocence to the Dominionist movement.
This whole event seems to reinforce my view of extremist Christians, who consider sexual orientation to be equivalent with violence against children and women, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. That view is that these people, who call themselves Christians but are in fact truly evil, will lie to people, and harm bystanders, in their headlong rush to power over us. I would propose that companies such as Six Apart take greater care before heeding the advice of seemingly well-meaning "activists".
But if you look more closely, you find that this organization is, in fact, not an organization at all, and by the writings of their principals, isn't really even all that concerned about pedophilia. What really gets their ire up, apparently, is homosexuality. You would think that a company as savvy as Six Apart (LiveJournal's parent company) would have done its due diligence before taking an action that was totally unnecessary from a legal standpoint and had huge potential to harm their company under the best circumstances. But C|Net had no trouble turning up this tidbit:
"A representative from the group (Warriors for Innocence), who gave her name only as "Sues," said in an e-mail Thursday that "we did not knowingly report any 'fandom' communities or role-playing journals." In posts to her personal blog, Sues describes herself as an ardent conservative who views homosexuality as "sick" and a "twisted agenda" and lumps gays and lesbians into the same category as pedophiles and rapists.
That last part is particularly telling, since many of the purged communities had little, if anything, to do with pedophilia, though did contain references to homosexual practices. If "Sues" equates homosexuality with pedophilia, it's not surprising they would not shed many tears over missing their supposed target. "Sues"'s first statement is also disingenuous: One need not lodge complaints about specific blogs, they simply must structure their complaint in such a manner as to ensure they were caught up in the purge. It also appears that, far from being "a representative of the groups", "Sues" is in fact the principal of the organization, which is made up of no more than a few individuals who apparently share this extreme bigotry against people whose sexual orientation differs from the norm. There is also apparently evidence linking Warriors for Innocence to the Dominionist movement.
This whole event seems to reinforce my view of extremist Christians, who consider sexual orientation to be equivalent with violence against children and women, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. That view is that these people, who call themselves Christians but are in fact truly evil, will lie to people, and harm bystanders, in their headlong rush to power over us. I would propose that companies such as Six Apart take greater care before heeding the advice of seemingly well-meaning "activists".
[Commented by thaliakitty on 6/2/2007]
ReplyDeleteThe latest speculation is that 6A is/was planning an IPO RSN and panicked when accused of ZOMG PEDOPHILIA! This is from [info]stewardess although she has more at her GreatestJournal site of the same handle.