Yesterday, May 29th, popular blogging site
Livejournal.com
began to suspend user accounts and communities without warning. Alarmed, bloggers banded together to find out why; rumors of censorship and site-monitoring were spread about. It was soon discovered that the organization Warriors For Innocence (WFI) was responsible for reporting LJ accounts to LJ Abuse, resulting in their suspension.
The reason given for the suspensions was that the user accounts had listed several “illegal activities” as their interests. These were mainly the interests of “incest”, “rape”, and “chan” - sexual relations between an adult and a minor. Other interests, most notably “beating people up” were also targeted.
At first glance, there seems to be nothing wrong with this; pedophiles and rapists certainly deserve no quarter. However, many of the deleted communities and users were in fact referring to genres of fan fiction in various fandoms. These accounts were interested only in fictional characters acting in fictional settings.
To quote one angry commenter, “Just because I write about a murder doesn't mean I'm going to go out on a killing spree!” Notably, the journal lolita07, a Spanish community for the discussion of the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nobokov, a literary work included in many university-level English courses, was suspended without recovery as well.
Warriors For Innocence justifies its actions by remarking, in a reply to a letter from an LJ-user, that “It's time to value child safety over free speech.” Certainly the protection of children from harmful and explicit materials is a priority, but one would think that concerned parents would be able to limit their children's web-surfing. Either by tracking websites visited, or implementing software such as Net Nanny, parents can find ways to protect their children from harmful internet material without infringing on the right to free speech, one of mankind's most treasured dues. Indeed, the right to free speech is what keeps many children safe, from speaking out against corrupt daycares (a big issue in Ontario at the moment) to ensuring that they can live and grow without the limitations of a police state.
Of course there are sickos on Livejournal; this is undeniable. But they are a select few, and the WFI purge has had about as much effect as dropping a bomb into a crowded shopping mall: sure, maybe you got some of the suspects, but that's vastly outnumbered by the amount of innocent bystanders who are killed or injured. And now those who were targeted (the rapists, pedophiles, and their ilk) have been warned, and no doubt have quickly beat a hasty retreat to a dark corner where WFI's misguided zeal will not find them for a while. Would it not have been better to monitor the suspect LJ-users to find concrete evidence of deviant activity off the net and then dealing justice where it is rightly deserved?
Perhaps that idea had not occurred to the folks at WFI. Obviously they haven't watched enough police movies... oh wait. Those deal with rapists and pedophiles, more often as not; they're probably harmful and encourage deviant behavior. Never mind.
