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.

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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.

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