There is no law forcing any particular policy on the media owners, so LJ administration can set any absurd TOS and enforce it arbitrarily.
If you run your own blog server, your content is limited only by law.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

I believe I covered that point in my comments. It doesn't matter that they "can" do whatever they want in this regard. What matters, or might matter, is that they may develop a reputation for being ham-handed in their approach to issues of sensitive content, or may develop a reputation for being sensitive and sophisticated. How they develop is largely up to their user community. I'm urging you -- the intelligent, literate part of the user community -- to engage them in a substantive way and try to help them develop a more sensible policy.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

It makes sense - but one can't ask for making the policy more reasonable and at the same time accuse of the First Amendement transgressions.
I think that the LJ Abuse Team behaviour is unreasonable, the TOS interpretation is too strict, and there are some chances to influence the LJ management - but proposed confrontational mood would be counterproductive.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

This isn't about accusing anyone of "First Amendment transgressions". As I noted, and others have emphasized, LiveJournal management has the right, just like any other publisher, to decide what they want to publish. It would be silly to criticize them for "violating First Amendment rights". Such criticisms should be reserved for Bush administration operatives who pose as Secret Service agents and remove non-supporters of the President from "open" public meetings, for example.
But I *do* believe it's necessary to be aggressive in confronting the LJ management -- to put them on the spot, and cause them to understand that how they deal with this issue will weigh heavily in determining their public image. If the LJ management are satisfied with being a cesspool of teenage angst, with a blunt and unenlightened content policy, better to establish that in black and white and move this, and other, intelligent communities to another place. Why? Because down the road, a situation may arise that has both more subtleties and more at stake. Deferring this issue for another day, or softening the approach for fear of offending your "masters", is irresponsible.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

This isn't about accusing anyone of "First Amendment transgressions".
No, it is. Look what you've written:
The United States has a long history of protecting political speech.
Then you go directly into extremely political territory:
Self-censorship is also a fact of life -- unfortunately, I would say -- when media with corporate sponsors bend to the will of their patrons.


But I *do* believe it's necessary to be aggressive in confronting the LJ management -- to put them on the spot, and cause them to understand that how they deal with this issue will weigh heavily in determining their public image.
The whole point of the campaign is trying to convince SixPart owners and LJ subsidiary management that AT excesses are harmful for LJ/SixPart public image. I don't believe that confrontation would help to achive that goal.
I don't think that LJ/SixPart management understand the real scope of the problem - English language political blogs are rare among LJ accounts and to complicate the issues even further, they have to rely on Russian-speaking AT members.
So it appears to me that the campaign mood should be more concilatory.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Dear Noel,
i've read your letter and i am very touched that you stand for russian democracy, freedom etc.
I have the only concern - have you read the tipharet's LJ yourself?
not this particular slogan - i mean the whole thing, or at least reasonable part

pls, answer.
if not - i would think that you are under the influence of extermal bias.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

I would not say that I myself "stand" for Russian "democracy, freedom, etc." I, rather, wonder why so few Russians "stand" for these values, at least in any effective way. My impression is that there's a lot of cynical dismissal -- "oh, see, that whole free market democratic thing didn't work out so well after all, did it?" -- but not a lot of effective action.

But as to your question about tipharet, no, I have not read his journal. But unless I have been fundamentally misled about its content, I do not believe that this person was doing something other than expressing a lot of extremist, probably ridiculous points of view that I likely disagree with completely. He sounds like a real nut.

But since you're asking me that, I think you didn't understand my point. I don't believe that there's any sensible way to limit political speech. I think it's foolish, for instance, that Germany bans Nazi propaganda, even though I certainly think that Naziism and Hitler's regime constituted one of the most horrible abominations in human history, and I find nothing redeeming in any Nazi so-called "philosophy". But I don't think that Germany will prevent another wave of Naziism by banning Nazi propaganda. Attempted suppression often makes its objects grow stronger.

The point is that you can't draw a line around "acceptable" and "unacceptable" political speech that even most people could agree with. You get tangled in endless refinements and counter-refinements, and fail to address the real substantive issues that were at stake in the first place: the subjects of the speech itself. While you're busy arguing whether this or that radical party line should be banned from the public airwaves, the skinheads are busy organizing, so to speak.

Where I believe a line *can* be drawn is around "speech with the intent to organize violent activity". Someone who is systematically trying to mount a violent action is *doing something* very concrete that it is in the interest of the law to stop.

But someone expressing hatred, or extremist political views, is articulating (or at least giving vent to) a complex of emotions, beliefs, superstitions, personal conclusions, hypotheses, etc. And those who are worried about such speech "inciting" violence ought to stand up and do something about it -- counter that hatred or demagogery with compassion and reason -- not try to suppress it. After all, if you *don't have* a good argument against the hateful speech or political radicalism you're reacting to, then how can you feel protected against it, even if you manage to silence everyone who echoes it? In any case, if you take the path of suppression, you'll eventually become what you're fighting against.

Noel

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i agree with you sometimes
but overall I feel that you are missing the point
tipharet is an open provoker
his slogans (over time) do not express much of political extremism - they look like they do - the matter of fact is - he is just challenging all the possible boundaries.
his goal was not to kill anybody
his goal was to bait LJ and AT, shock the community.
intentionally breach the TOS
he definetely succeded.
and his LJ was suspended.

all this has nothing to do with open speach and democracy.
policing actions in this case were aiming not to supress freedom of speach and political opinion, but to protect the community from hooligan gang
this is the angle many russian LJ-users see the situation in.
ps
btw, people who know the person which writes as "tipharet" - mention that he is very talentedand blah-blah-blah.
i have to no problem with this.
in LJ - tipharet was playing a role of a clown and a provoker - and this is nothing to do with democracy

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Actually, I have just been informed that tipharet is M. Verbitsky. I didn't understand that. That being the case, given what I have been told about his comments, I have to retract my statement that "he sounds like a real nut". From what I understand of Verbitsky's writing in LiveJournal, it sounds as if it is, yes, quite provocative, but not "nutty" by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it seems to me that Verbitsky has been a pivotal player in this whole development, and is an important voice in the Russian LJ (now NPJ?) community.

The person I *thought* I was talking about is someone else -- the original poster of the "Kill a NATO person" comment. I don't know the name. As I understand Verbitsky (tipharet) was repeating this text from the previous person (whose name I don't know). Now, I have not read his journal either (the person whose name I don't know) -- I can barely read Russian -- but all the rest of my comments stand.

I think that there is a very important place in this world for provocateurs, who seek to test every boundary and offend every sensibility. This is actually a very critical function in a healthy society. You may think that testing limits is simply about "being difficult" or trying to get attention in some simplistic way, but I don't agree. Testing limits is how we decide whether those limits are legitimate. Their legitimacy for a particular society may change over time, so they need to be tested frequently. Testing limits is how we discover whether what we *think* are the limits are really the ones in force. Sometimes we find that the actual rules in play are very different from those that are proclaimed, and this is important information that can largely be determined only by testing the limits.

Think of it. This is how the law functions as well. We don't really know what a law means until it is tested. Laws are very often written badly, or are as written detrimental to society in whole or in part, but until we have actual cases to test them, we don't know whether they really work. A good society of law needs to know whether its laws actually work. This is an *essential* feature of democracy.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Thanks.
I just wanted to point out that I corrected
the slogan a bit when I joined the action: from
"Kill NATO-er" (which might constitute "hate speech"
or not) to "kill NATO", which is a purely political
statement.

The distinction was lost on Abuse Team, of course,
since they are not Russian speakers, in fact
they (apparently) use some translator program,
which mangles the meaning quite badly.
The rest is history.

All the best
Misha

(Reply to this) (Parent)