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LJ news

Control of LiveJournal as a blogging platform has been transferred to SUP Media LLC, a legal entity based in the Russian Federation. This decision stems from the urge to become closer to our users, most of whom live in Europe and Russia. Every LiveJournal user will be offered to sign the new User Agreement with SUP Media. Paid services, however, will still be provided by Live Journal Inc.

Despite the changes, LiveJournal remains an international blogging platform. Specifically, LiveJournal’s policy on user privacy and data security has undergone no major changes.

I know that a lot of people have been freaking out about this, but at the moment I'm not particularly worried, it seems similar to the user terms that most social media websites have? LJ just didn't handle it brilliantly by forcing everyone to sign the agreement in the way they did, but ultimately I feel like my content is still safer here than it is on somewhere like Facebook. Heck for all the 'but Russia' protests, I would imagine the recent change in US law (allowing your ISPs to sell your entire internet history) is going to have a much bigger affect on American posters then anything that LJ may or may not be doing...

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I'm not freaking out, I just think it's worth remembering to back up more than I have since the risk of being deleted without warning seems greater than it was before.

Also I think most people are trying not stress too much about what's going on in the US because there's literally nothing we can do about it. Leaving LJ (for those who are planning to do so) is relatively small in comparison.

I'm definitely still backing up to DW just in case, but it does seem like it's simply a case of LJ updating their terms of agreement, and there's nothing there that's all that radically different from what you get on any social media website :shrugs:

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txvoodoo.livejournal.com - 2017-04-08 03:35 (UTC) - Expand

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frelling-tralk.livejournal.com - 2017-04-08 10:32 (UTC) - Expand

I'll be breaking the TOS by talking about

lilacsigil as my partner, so I'm feeling unhappy about it. I've ticked the box for now, but I think either I'll stop cross-posting or I'll disable comments on my LJ? I don't know. I'm still pondering.

I hope that you do stick around, but you have to do what's best for you of course, and I can understand you not feeling comfortable with the servers being based in Russia

I might be too dumb to find that but where does it say that this is a breach of the ToS?

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st-aurafina.livejournal.com - 2017-04-05 07:29 (UTC) - Expand

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sometimesartist.livejournal.com - 2017-04-05 07:54 (UTC) - Expand

I totally agree with you! :)

Is this a deal? Yeah, it was weird to sign the agreement and then an hour later for LJ to explain it but that's how LJ always rolled no matter who owned what.

I don't think this is a big deal for me. I do feel for the Russian users. It may be a really big deal for them. I just hope people are happy here.

Edited 2017-04-05 00:55 (UTC)

Yes I suspect that it's not the international users that they're interested in, but I can certainly understand the Russian users feeling worried at the servers being over there now :(

Yeah, I'm the same. I was initially concerned but after the announcement and seeing other people kind of give a simplified explanation of what the TOS means, I'm not that worried about it at the moment. I do understandable people being confused and freaking out because it wasn't handled in the best way, especially since they kept this silent for moments before even making an official announcement about the situation which stirred much of the initial panic.

I do think backing things up on DW is a good idea regardless, because it's better to be safe and be cautious more than anything. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm not going anywhere.

Oh yeah I definitely agree that LJ doesn't have the best customer relations, I had a panic myself when the pop-up first came up and wondered what exactly I was about to agree too, but really I haven't heard anything about the TOS being anything but fairly standard stuff, so I'm not sure why there's such a big panic about it

I think you're right. This is aimed squarely at their Russian users, not us.

I think so, I doubt they pay any notice to the rest of us

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wendelah1 - 2017-04-05 21:31 (UTC) - Expand

Exactly, everyone is just freaking out and complaining because "OMFG RUSSIA" but I don't see an issue. It's just a TOS, that people had to 'read' You sign a TOS on every site it's going to be there anyways.

I'm not leaving until they pry this from my cold dead hands.

Yeah honestly, I know that Russia isn't great in a lot of ways, but it makes me uncomfortable when they get treated as such a bogeyman for doing exactly the same thing as any other website would do. I said it in a comment above, but for all the championing of Americans's great freedom of speech, LJ was under American leadership when the whole 'strike-gate' thing happened, and that saw a lot of fandom LJ's being deleted without warning (I think it was because of Harry Potter N-17 content?) All websites have standard agreements about deleting you if you abuse their terms of agreement etc

Seriously, you'd think they still had their cold war going. *hands* I agree the US government is just as or even less trustworthy these days.

Yeah I mean it's probably not for me to say, but personally I would be way more paranoid about the information that could be sold about my internet history if I was living in the US, it's really not like the US is much more trustworthy with your private data.

Edited 2017-04-05 10:51 (UTC)

Uhm... so let the next "panic wave" begin... sorry, I don't really see a problem with this at all? I mean, it's almost a "common thing" now that you can log in on several sites with your Facebook or Instamgram accounts and the likes, but my LJ will still stay as private as it's now.

I have made a DW account years ago, but never used it and don't intend to start using it now...

I still have my DW account for back-up, but that's mostly in case LJ ever goes down for good. As long as LJ is still here, I'm still using it

It makes me a little leery, but I'm not into freakout mode yet. Though I completely understand anyone who feels differently. I just wish I knew what the TOS said before so I could see what's really changed.

There's a translation of it on tumblr

http://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/159192068811/pukbak-tielan-wrenb77-suricattus

I think that people are reading into a lot of it because it comes from Russia, stuff like

prohibiting “the dissemination of information for the purpose of discrediting a citizen or some categories of citizens on the basis of sex, age, race or ethnicity, language, religion, trade, place of residence and work and also in connection with their political convictions.” is all just standard legal agreements imo, but people are talking about how it means that 'LJ no longer pretends to adhere to the concept of Freedom of Speech and/or privacy as (still) practiced in the USA.' Umm they never did? Websites have always had the right to kick people off for abusing their terms of services. I've said it elsewhere, but strikegate happened under America's watch back in the day when they were worried about how their advertisers would be affected by underage fandom porn with Harry Potter etc. The Russian owners have never targeted fandom in that way, yet somehow everyone is now wishing for the American owners to return to LJ to protect fandom, and I don't really get why. I do appreciate why Russian users would be uneasy if they want to discuss politics, but I haven't seen anything yet to suggest that fandom (well what's left of it anyway) is no longer safe on LJ

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silverusagi - 2017-04-05 14:22 (UTC) - Expand

Totally agree with your last paragraph. We need to pick the things we are concerned with carefully and make sure they are important and relevant!!!

I'm just sad that some people are talking about going to DW for good and not even cross-posting any more :(

The only difference with new TOS on other websites is that other websites (in my personal experience) don't make you tick a box again, they just mention that there are new TOS and that you can leave if you disagree.

I think this is an expected continuation to the server move in December. Hopefully people will stop panicking sooner than later.

Yeah that seems to have been what caused the mass panic, because people felt cornered into signing it, but really Facebook's TOS is no different with what it says about owning all of your content etc, so I haven't seen anything to be particularly alarmed by so far.

When that box popped up,I was a bit...shocked would be the wrong word? Concerned? I dunno,I have agreed to user terms countless times in my life and have probably signed my soul away,my firstborn child,bought a washing machine or whatever but when something suddenly changes (or so you think,I tried to read a bit of the new(?) TOS but I don't speak Law so I gave up quickly and just agreed) and it is practically forced on you,I do find that weird. Then again,LJ has always been shitty in their communication and after reading more,I'm not concerned anymore!

Oh I absolutely was as well, I had a major wtf reaction and actually read the whole thing (something that I never normally bother with when it comes to ticky boxes for user agreements lol). Any agreement is probably a bit intimidating if you really take the time to read the fine print, we just normally don't bother with it, but this time we're all extra alert because it's Russia, and so what's actually pretty standard has people wondering what that means for the safety of their LJ.

And hey I might be wrong, but Control of LiveJournal as a blogging platform has been transferred to SUP Media LLC, a legal entity based in the Russian Federation...Paid services, however, will still be provided by Live Journal Inc. suggests to me that the move to Russia won't even affect paid accounts, just the ad-sponsored ones?

For first thanks for this great post and I totally agree with you

Thanks :)

Yes, yes and yes! :-)

Yeah, good point about the US law changes. I'm not particularly worried about this change affecting me personally, but I do think it's going to speed LJ's decline as some people will decide it's time to make the move elsewhere.

That does seem to be the case sadly, this seems to be the final straw for a lot of prople

LJ just didn't handle it brilliantly by forcing everyone to sign the agreement in the way they did
LOL. They have NEVER IN THEIR LIFE handled anything brilliantly...

That is very true *g*

I have to confess to signing but not reading fully, then when I next logged in I was seeing a lot of freaking out. But I feel much the same as you really.

I had a momentary freak-out when it first came up, but then when I skimmed over it I didn't see any real cause for alarm. If LJ was bringing in some new and objectionable policy then I would understand people leaving, but LJ themselves are saying that nothing in the ToS has changed all that much, so I'm not sure what exactly I'm supposed to be panicking about :shrugs:

Edited 2017-04-06 00:04 (UTC)

I realized something was going on when I couldn't log to the lj client due to that TOS thing. Didn't read it really but clicked my agreement. We'll see I guess. Gotta get back into posting direct to DW with the crosspost to lj I think. Not quitting lj yet though. Don't think I will but... time will tell.

Yeah quite a few people have said they're going to wait and see, especially if they still have paid LJ time left, but I hope that not too many people will end up deleting their LJ's completely :( I'm probably just going to end up losing touch with those people, because honestly I don't see myself checking DW everyday as well as LJ.

I did try checking out my DW flist a bit more recently, but I found that most of the activity on my DW flist is the same as it is on LJ. The majority of my DW friends are cross-posting to both platforms, so I'm not going to have the time to read two similar flists every day just to keep up with the people who aren't

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stolenglimpse.livejournal.com - 2017-04-07 22:15 (UTC) - Expand

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frelling-tralk.livejournal.com - 2017-04-08 10:35 (UTC) - Expand

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stolenglimpse.livejournal.com - 2017-04-08 14:09 (UTC) - Expand

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frelling-tralk.livejournal.com - 2017-04-10 11:19 (UTC) - Expand

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stolenglimpse.livejournal.com - 2017-04-10 14:11 (UTC) - Expand

I don't feel like it's going to have a lot of effect unless you're talking Russian politics or something. That said I'm batmarg on DW too, just in case.

I agree, I haven't seen any indication that they're planning on going after LGBT content, or that they care about what fandom is doing. I'd imagine that it's mostly the Russian users that they'll be tracking

I'm not willing to think that a sketchy russian company could have no effect on my lj, but I agree: way less effect than fb, which is literally using facial recognition software to help you speedy tag your pics.

I only get so detailed on here, so I'm staying, at least for the time being.

Edit: sorry, this was supposed to be a reply not a comment. Oh well.

Edited 2017-04-11 04:34 (UTC)

What I've been lead to understand these past few days is that it wasn't actually the choice of the LJ owners to move servers, that they were strong-armed by the Russian Federation, and that's basically because of concerns over what the Russian users are saying now that the elections are coming up. So I've seen a lot of people on ONTD for example (a VERY active comm which would definitely on LJ's radar) wondering why they are still allowed to post LGBT content and political commentary without issue, and my interpretation of it all is that LJ themselves have zero interest in driving away their international userbase and censoring us. And I doubt the Russian Government cares very much either about what people from other countries want to use their LJ for, I think it's purely about watching the political commentary that comes from Russian users, anything else really doesn't have much relevance to them

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