Book-burning

The New Adventures of Queen Victoria has a good comment on some of the latest LJ ugliness. (Also pointed to by filkertom; unfortunately the post has been deleted.) In that post, a simple gratuitous mention of H.censored P.censoredand c.censored p.censored drew an immediate snarky comment from an burrLJ employee86.

From which we conclude that LJ is scrutinizing every damned post for keywords. Not really surprising; so is Google, only for a different reason. LJ has also set themselves up as sole judge, jury, and executioner of what content is permitted by their Terms of Service. OK, they can do that: it's their site. I have a permanent account, so I can't send them much of a message by not sending them any more money. (Shakes fist at sky.)

This post by technoshaman has a little more to say about it, and tibicina draws our attention to the fandom_action community for discussion of legal issues and legal action around fandom. More on the recent journal deletions here and here.

technoshaman also points to an airline pilot's take on security. The stupidity isn't entirely confined to LJ.

In other news

My left shoulder is much better today; it tightened up almost immediately after I got out of bed, but it still doesn't seem as bad as it was yesterday. Not clear whether sleeping on my right side or an extra hour or so of drugged stupor sleep is what did the trick, but I'm not complaining.

The flower_cat and I tried a new restaurant last night: a "Mediterranean" place called Shish Kebab, in Los Gatos. Small, friendly, family-run; very tasty. Specializing in lamb. Not clear exactly what nationality but possibly Turkish, since they had Turkish coffee on the menu. (The last place we tried in Los Gatos, Transylvania, seems to have disappeared. Pity.)

More on Strikethrough 07.2

This post by technoshaman points to annathepiper's recent post, which indicates that word of the latest LJ kerfluffle has been spreading, getting as far as Firefox News.

Now, whether Abe Hassan's comments on efw can reasonably be construed as "insulting to fandom" or merely a misguided and tactless attempt to get into the spirit of the Existential Flame War, the fact is that people have been construing it as an insult, adding to a rising tide of cynicism and anger. There is no doubt whatever that Hassan is a SixApart employee who makes official announcements on news, and should have known better (added) than to stick his oar into a hornet's nest (to mix a metaphor slightly).

There's an interesting contradiction in LJ's Terms of Service: Section XIV.2 seems to say that they have to notify you before they take anything down:

Should any Content that you have authored be reported to LiveJournal as being offensive or inappropriate, LiveJournal might call upon you to retract, modify, or protect (by means of private and friends only settings) the Content in question within a reasonable amount of time, as determined by the LiveJournal staff. Should you fail to meet such a request from LiveJournal staff, LiveJournal may terminate your account. LiveJournal, however, is under no obligation to restrict or monitor journal Content in any way;

... but section XVI says

You agree to NOT use the Service to:

1. Upload, post or otherwise transmit any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive to another's privacy (up to, but not excluding any address, email, phone number, or any other contact information without the written consent of the owner of such information), hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable; [my emphasis]

... and ends with:

If LiveJournal determines, in its sole and absolute discretion, that any user is in violation of the TOS, LiveJournal retains the right to terminate such user's account at any time without prior notice.

Which gives them a loophole they can drive a stretch hummer through, and they've obviously been invoking this clause with a heavy hand to please whatever entities are yanking their chain this week. It's an open question whether this loophole is a recent addition to the TOS, and whether it would get them into trouble if it came down to a court battle. I wouldn't count on it.

Bottom line: don't trust 'em. Back up your posts yourself, and start looking for a way to move your primary blog to a host -- or multiple hosts -- under your own control. To your scattered servers go, in other words.