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Let us start first off by questioning what this will actually achieve. This is supposed to stop us dirty dirty porny people from abusing the innocent little minds of kiddies out there. And how will it do that? Well, prudish folk looking at my journal can flag contents that are deemed mature, lj will look at it and say "tut tut" and mark it as mature (of course, this relies on said prudish folk actually READING my journal, which is rather remote). Alternatively, dirty, slashy moi will voluntarily parse through the literally THOUSANDS of entries in my journal and label them accordingly (I am NOT locking down the whole thing because I refuse to accept that much of what I have written is for 'mature' audiences only). Of course, that relies on MY (the porny slashy one) judgement (which we assume the prudish ones are not going to be best pleased with).
So, stuff in my journal is now mature. You know what this means? It means if your birth date in your journal profile shows you as being less than 14/18 you can't read the post. You will be protected from all porny slashness dear kiddies! Of course this assumes that said kiddies (up to 17 years old) are actually incapable of, you know, EDITING their age in the profile or creating a braaaaand new journal with a fake age. Because, y'know, no teenager would EVER lie about their age and such technological mastery is far beyond the skills of your average blogging 16 year old.
Really, parents. If you are THIS concerned by what your child or teenager is accessing online then you need to monitor them better (the parenting thing, remember?) Because this system is beyond useless.
So, on a scale of 'hilariously pathetic' to 'my god this is so stupid it destroys my faith in human intelligence' how ridiculous is this idea?
But wait, there's MORE!
See, we've already seen wrangles back and forth about what constitutes child porn. Want to see some of the new definitions?
'Adult concepts' Suitable for 15+
Anyone know what this means? Are we talking life insurance? Mortgage parents? Complaining about one's inlaws? Wedding planning? Child rearing? Exactly what DOES count as an 'adult concept?' And relationships? Where do we reach adult concepts? Acknowledging there is a relationship? Kissing? Homosexuality? Because, the thing is our journals can be flagged by anyone with their OWN definitions of what makes and adult concept unacceptable for kiddies - and with such a vague term who can say what the LJ team (who are hardly known for their good common sense. Or uncommon sense. Or any kind of sense at all) will decide needs attention?
Offensive
Yeah, I'm sure we're all laughing about this one. There is a large portion of the world's population that finds my very existance offensive. The fact that Ann Coulter continues to draw breath is very offensive to me. JUst about every world that Pat Robertson defiles paper with offends me. We have a woman locked up in sudan for calling a teddy bear Mohammad - that certainly offended some people (both the naming and the locking up). It is possible that by sitting very carefully in a cave in the Andes away from all society you MAY escape from offending someone. But it's not likely. Frankly this is the most useless flagging toold of all time.
Hey, want a bonus prize? If LJ decides to change the status of one of your posts to "adult" or "explicit" they're not going to tell you! That's right, no notification. Half your journal could be locked down right now and you'd not have the slightest clue. All it takes is one train load of nutty fanatics and your journals can be marked as a mature purveyor of slutty porn and you wouldn't even know. Of course, you can appeal - except what's the point of an appeal if you don't know it's happened?
Oh and the new system of reporting? See, they're going to look at the ones with the most flags. Sooooo, a paedophile site with low traffic? No monitoring/random ban hammering. A fanartists or author or just someone a random fundamentalists whack group decides to galvanise its members against? Flagged and examined and left to the... judgement of the abuse team.
Gah, this is just so many kinds of stupid it's unreal.
EDIT TO ADD:
LJ's first lie - this will not affect users over 18. Well, to be sure it DOESn'T effect you, you might want to go to your settings http://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/ and scroll to the bottom and make sure LJ hasn't decided to change your settings to filter out the naughty inappropriate stuff. It seems filtering is the new default.
So, stuff in my journal is now mature. You know what this means? It means if your birth date in your journal profile shows you as being less than 14/18 you can't read the post. You will be protected from all porny slashness dear kiddies! Of course this assumes that said kiddies (up to 17 years old) are actually incapable of, you know, EDITING their age in the profile or creating a braaaaand new journal with a fake age. Because, y'know, no teenager would EVER lie about their age and such technological mastery is far beyond the skills of your average blogging 16 year old.
Really, parents. If you are THIS concerned by what your child or teenager is accessing online then you need to monitor them better (the parenting thing, remember?) Because this system is beyond useless.
So, on a scale of 'hilariously pathetic' to 'my god this is so stupid it destroys my faith in human intelligence' how ridiculous is this idea?
But wait, there's MORE!
See, we've already seen wrangles back and forth about what constitutes child porn. Want to see some of the new definitions?
'Adult concepts' Suitable for 15+
Anyone know what this means? Are we talking life insurance? Mortgage parents? Complaining about one's inlaws? Wedding planning? Child rearing? Exactly what DOES count as an 'adult concept?' And relationships? Where do we reach adult concepts? Acknowledging there is a relationship? Kissing? Homosexuality? Because, the thing is our journals can be flagged by anyone with their OWN definitions of what makes and adult concept unacceptable for kiddies - and with such a vague term who can say what the LJ team (who are hardly known for their good common sense. Or uncommon sense. Or any kind of sense at all) will decide needs attention?
Offensive
Yeah, I'm sure we're all laughing about this one. There is a large portion of the world's population that finds my very existance offensive. The fact that Ann Coulter continues to draw breath is very offensive to me. JUst about every world that Pat Robertson defiles paper with offends me. We have a woman locked up in sudan for calling a teddy bear Mohammad - that certainly offended some people (both the naming and the locking up). It is possible that by sitting very carefully in a cave in the Andes away from all society you MAY escape from offending someone. But it's not likely. Frankly this is the most useless flagging toold of all time.
Hey, want a bonus prize? If LJ decides to change the status of one of your posts to "adult" or "explicit" they're not going to tell you! That's right, no notification. Half your journal could be locked down right now and you'd not have the slightest clue. All it takes is one train load of nutty fanatics and your journals can be marked as a mature purveyor of slutty porn and you wouldn't even know. Of course, you can appeal - except what's the point of an appeal if you don't know it's happened?
Oh and the new system of reporting? See, they're going to look at the ones with the most flags. Sooooo, a paedophile site with low traffic? No monitoring/random ban hammering. A fanartists or author or just someone a random fundamentalists whack group decides to galvanise its members against? Flagged and examined and left to the... judgement of the abuse team.
Gah, this is just so many kinds of stupid it's unreal.
EDIT TO ADD:
LJ's first lie - this will not affect users over 18. Well, to be sure it DOESn'T effect you, you might want to go to your settings http://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/ and scroll to the bottom and make sure LJ hasn't decided to change your settings to filter out the naughty inappropriate stuff. It seems filtering is the new default.