[ŴRITING] On the end of my LiveJournal experiences

[rfmcdonald]

Almost two hours ago, I deleted my LiveJournal. User rfmcdpei is no longer active on this site.

I do allow for the possibility that I might change my mind. Maybe I will bring it back temporarily, so as to convert it to some kind of personal docment via BlogBooker, or perhaps I will restore it in the name of minimizing link rot on the Internet and to continue to be able to read what few (ever fewer) people still write only on LiveJournal. This post, however, is the first post that I will not be crossposting from Dreamwidth over to LiveJournal, and no other post shall follow.

I did join the rush on account of the new user agreement unleashed earlier this week, of course.



Any number of news sources, like the Daily Dot and Boing Boing and Gizmodo and Charlie Stross at Autopope, have written at great length about the new terms of service agreement. That this agreement is not available, not in a legally binding form and not in a well-translated form, in the English language made the exodus inevitable.

Russia, as a classical dictatorship, wants to be able to restrict what people write about within its sphere, to do away with anonymity and to limit the range of permissible subject matter. LiveJournal, which happens to be based in Russia as a consequence of a long series of business decisions (bad decisions, I would argue, ones which kept LiveJournal from emerging as a lasting social network of worldwide scope), is subject. Therefore, anyone who is not dependent on LiveJournal is leaving a social network that appears to be fatally compromised.

(What is the opposite of soft power?)

I have had alternatives ready. Back in October 2012, I blogged about how I had moved away from LiveJournal as a primary blog, towards Dreamwidth for LiveJournal-like social networking and to WordPress for the more blog-like functions. I am losing nothing as a consequence of this. My regrets about this are not especially profound ones, characterized much more by wistfulness and nostalgia than by serious regret.

rfmcdpei has been around for a month short of fifteen years. It's amazing.



LiveJournal was always been there for me. I remember reading Tom's LiveJournal, and the LiveJournals of others, back in early 2002 when I was so desperate to connect with anyone. I remember how excited I was when I got an invite code from Darren back in June of 2002. I remember writing an online diary of my life there, and then, first slowly then with speed, transforming this diary into a blog. I know that I met all sorts of people who I know nd like even know there, came to learn all kinds of things there, helped other people learn through LiveJournal. In my life, LiveJournal was a huge net positive.

And now it's over. It's an era that was bound to end, I know, and what an era it was. Thank you, LiveJournalers and LiveJournal founders, too, for making this so good and fun.

Comments

[echomyst]

Yeah, definitely end of an era and I'm glad the LJ communities were bustling when I needed them. In queue for import here! I'm leaning towards writing on DW and keeping LJ for reading & commenting on friends' journals.

[dewline]

Again: congratulations on the migration, and condolences on the reasons behind it.

[mmcirvin]

This thing is almost LiveJournal, though (more specifically, LiveJournal before the last few rounds of pretty but mostly destructive changes), and right now--doubtless spurred by the mass migration--it feels more alive than LiveJournal had in years. My active reading list was basically down to you, autopope and james_nicoll, maybe mostly because I hadn't sought out people to add in a while.

So to me it feels less like the death of LiveJournal than like a kind of small revival.

[robertprior]

I will note that the "translation is not legally binding" is a common feature in contracts. although usually it's the non-English version that isn't legally binding. I'm kinda surprised so many people have their knickers in a knot over that particular aspect of the transition.

Leaving because you disagree with the new terms is entirely reasonable.

Likewise, leaving because you would rather have your data accessed by the US government than the Russian government is reasonable. Assuming that basing in the US somehow eliminates government surveillance (as I've seen some people apparently assume) seems dangerously naive.

[rfmcdonald]

In that so many of the users left were LGBT or creators, being confronted with a TOS in a language they cannot read backed by a state that has been loudly homophobic and repressive may have been a breaking point?