Notes on recent lj-specific scandal
Clicked on kukutz@lj journal few days ago - "suspended" comes back. Me puzzled. Then the story behind it comes to light.

American schoolchildren ask Russian lj-user antistatic@lj to remove them from his friends list. They don't read Russian and are not terribly amused by something they perceive as invasion into their privacy. Once their requests are not satisfied one of them complains to Abuse Team - something un-thought of in Russian community 'cause we - PROUD TO BE RUSSIAN - are taught from young age not to rat on our friends. Note: not to rat on our friends as opposed to not to complain about I-don't-know-who-you-are-please-leave-me-alone strangers. Still, I would think there are other means of protecting your privacy - ban someone from commenting in your journal, keep sensitive records as friends-only. I never used the first measure and I think the latter one is stupid (my personal opinion is that my lj should be unconditionally public otherwise what’s the point), but I have full respect for those who use both. Better than using Abuse Team anyway.
I added non-Russians to friends list without asking not once and me/ them never had an issue with that. Unlike teenagers involved in the recent scandal they knew better than to feel pressed to add people to their list once they are added. kukutz@lj cited Abuse Team letter and was suspended. Tough shit. He did right and suffered for cause (he was suspended for breaking absurd one-side non-disclosure agreement between Abuse Team and their e-mail recipient whoever that might be).

But then Russians definitely beat American teenagers. kukutz@lj himself was resurrected and behaved reasonably – asked to stop harassment “ACTION” of mass adding of teenagers to friends list. If only that. IMHO, exchanging Russian comments in English lj is not polite. Mocking teenagers in Russian in their own journals is disgusting. Well, this happens to many Russians - they expect no one to understand their language and they make comments about girls behinds out loud in public. Whatever...

Abuse Team: We have to be powerful to be useful. To be powerful we have to use terror. We are not be messed with.
Krylov: http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=krylov&itemid=474977&nc=106>We should stand for our cause however dangerous it might be. We should harass those who rat and those who don't but were initially befriended by __dead__user__@lj and kept against their will. I’ll break my rules not to add friends first (Crowd, in awe: Wow!). I will befriend them against their will. Back up your journals and follow me!</a>
Russian herd crowd: Those Americans! They don’t even speak Russian! American teenagers – there is nothing there to read in their journals! But we add them anyway!
Kukutz – resurrected: Stop it already! Well, too late. The ACTION is out of control.
American high school girl: Me virgin or not, fuck you all.
-- End of show? ---