Webupon

Blogging. In recent years, this term has come to light and become a part of the mainstream thanks to news reports and the rapidly extending reaches of the internet. What is it? It, broken into its component parts, is simply “web logging” or, an online diary.

Diaries are no longer those small secret books that you stash under your mattress, and then threaten to break all your brother’s G.I. Joe’s for reading. They are online things, available for almost anyone to read. Or no one. It all depends on how much you feel like sharing with the world at large.

One of the most famous is, of course, MySpace. MySpace is a notorious name, due to news events that have brought to light a darker side of the internet. However, they aren’t the only ones. Oh no! There are quite a few more. In fact, if you’ve done any web surfing at all, you probably stumbled across one, even if you didn’t realize what it was. LiveJournal (also called LJ), GreatestJournal (GJ), Xanga and BlogSpot are, along with MySpace, some of the biggest ones. But there are even more. InsaneJournal, JournalFen, the list goes on and on and on.

They are all a part of something called “open source code.” Meaning that anyone, anyone at all, can get their base code, take it, and start up their own blogging sites. I know that that is JournalFen was created, as well as GreatestJournal.

Now, these “blogs” are customizable. Everything from a background image, to something called a “mood theme”, literally a small representation of “how you’re feeling”, to what font you use can be changed. And they can be changed as often as the “blogger”, the writer, chooses. Some are eye-searingly bad. Some are works of art in themselves. Some people even offer “style creation services.” Meaning they will create a background, mood theme, font colour, and header image, according to what the asker wants. Now, this usually goes hand in hand with an exchange of some sort, but never involves money.

Seems a bit harmless doesn’t it? People, sharing their thoughts, hopes, dreams, and fears, across pixelated pieces of text around the world. It’ll bring the world closer as a whole.

For some this is true. Support groups for everything from eating disorder recovery, to child abuse recovery, to gambling addiction range far and wide across the internet in many, many different languages. There are tips on surviving divorce, or on how to get out from under credit card debt, or even on how to live “greener” without all the chemicals, and pollutants so prevalent in our world today.

And blogging sites make it possible for all these different kinds of people to get together from all the corners of the globe, without leaving their living rooms, commiserate with each other and then move on. All with the anonymity of a fake name, and an icon, a small picture used to represent the user.

Of course, there is a darker side. Paedophiles, rapists, and even worse sometimes stalk these sites looking for their next victims. They are, regrettably, a part of our worldwide society. There are procedures in place to protect minors and others from them, but there are cracks through which they can fall.

There is, however, one other group that needs an introduction, because, again with the help of the internet and these blogging sites, they have found each other, across oceans, and trade fictional stories, photos, icons, art, and thoughts on every single aspect of books, comics, television, movies, and more.

They are, collectively, fandom.

“Fandom” is the only word that can describe any of them. There are artists, writers, icon makers, analysts and more. They take characters from any type of media and draw pictures of them, write stories about them, and dissect the “canon”, the original work, by the original author, from every point of view.

You want to read about Sirius Black and Remus Lupin (from Harry Potter) or Legolas and Gimli (from The Lord of the Rings) having more than just a close friendship? Someone (many someones) has written it, or drawn it, or used selected pieces of text from the books to support the theory.

Your favourite anime has ended without a satisfactory ending? Write it yourself! Or, find someone who shares your love of the series, and has written their own version.

Think about it. An entire section of society that reads, and watches the same sort of things that everyone does, and then takes it and extrapolates it further. These are mothers, teachers, lawyers. They come from every single walk of life, and in a variety of age ranges. Some of them still remember the days of underground “fanzines” (magazines written by fans) for Star Trek: The Original Series. They remember the days when it was hard to do all the things that fandom does now and takes for granted.

Blogging sites have brought them together. They form “communities” that discuss the book, movie, or whatever, and offer art drawn by fans, or stories that are written by other fans.

These fan works range across the entire spectrum; from the most benign to the most erotic and pornographic possible. Some are, frankly, disgusting and disturbing. Others are just plain bad. And still, they are there. Still, people continue to produce them.

I’m not going to get into “why.” That would take too long, and frankly, I’m not even sure of all my own reasons for being involved. Let alone anyone else’s. Suffice it to say, we will paint them with a broad brush and say “because they want to.”

Back to the blogging sites. They have brought together the legions of fandom, and spread them further. People no longer feel isolated in their love of these things, even though there isn’t anyone close to them to talk about it with. Even if there’s no one in your city that likes a show, or book, or cartoon, chances are, there’s a website, archive, or “blogging community” dedicated to it.

At the end of May, one of the biggest ones, LiveJournal, seemingly bowing to the outside influence of an online vigilante group, posed a massive deletion and banning of over five hundred journals. Considering their site numbers in the millions of users, that may seem a very small percentage.

However, some of those banned were fandom journals. Very popular fandom journals. As well as an online discussion group about the book Lolita. Then the rumblings began. Fandom, pretty much as a whole, pulled together and demanded an answer. They wanted to know why this was happening without explanation.

Fandom, though, is, quite terrifyingly, legion. They did their own digging, made their own discoveries, and found the online vigilante crowing about how they’d finally made LJ/SixApart delete all those “paedophile journals.” Some of those journals were for evil characters in an online role-playing game. Some were rape, or molestation survivors. And some were a discussion group for Lolita.

It took LiveJournal, and their parent company SixApart, almost two days, to finally address their users; after, of course, they’d already spoken to a reporter. No one, whether they paid for the service or not, received any answers at all. Then, when Barak Berkowitz, CEO of SixApart, finally did speak, his post was vaguely worded and didn’t answer the questions posed to him.

Over the next pair of weeks, LiveJournal did its best to control the damage they had done to a surprisingly, to them it seems, large number of their user base. Then, they sold what they called “permanent accounts.” What these are, are for one hundred fifty ($150) American dollars, a blogger can buy an account with a few extra perks, and never have to pay again. They even offered to donate some of that money to several online watch groups. Everything seemed, once again, semi-harmonious in blogging land.

People still weren’t satisfied, though. They wanted clarification on site policies, and laws used to determined said policies. They wanted to know, exactly, what they were and were not allowed to do. LJ/SixApart remained vague. They attempted to explain, but they didn’t seem to realise that while they may see fandom as a useless pastime, those that participate are not all teenagers without full time jobs and no social lives.

Fandom wanted answers. They wanted clear-cut answers that made sense and didn’t contradict itself, sometimes within the same paragraph! LJ/SixApart were annoyingly vague.

What came next is still on-going. LiveJournal Abuse having received a report, deleted, and banned, a pair of fandom artists. When they were contacted for an explanation, the one they gave was in direct contradiction to earlier statements. The explanation? “The material in question, while not depicting child pornography, has no artistic merit.”

Apparently, there is a loophole, in the law that states that something can be non-pornographic legally, but still be obscene. These “obscenity laws” are the ones that are being quoted as for the reason for the refusal to host said “art.”

Now, there is the problem. See, most of fandom, no matter how childish they may act at times, are reasonable adults. If the announcement had been “We are no longer comfortable hosting this type of content.” then most of those involved would have simply sighed and gone to find another place to be. Now, they would have also taken their money with them.

But LiveJournal/SixApart is a business. They start losing paying customers and something has to be done! So, instead of admitting that they are unwilling to host the content, they keep quoting laws. I said earlier that those that participate in fandom come from all walks of life. Some of those walks include lawyers, who have taken the time to read over said laws and then come back with a resounding “But the law doesn’t say that!” to LJ/SixApart.

Yet, that is what the company keeps saying. We in fandom keep asking for further clarification, and a change in the site’s Terms of Service to reflect those clarifications, but as of yet, we’ve not received a response other than back-pedalling, contradictions, and in one case, a known employee using his employee account with them to post disparaging remarks about fandom in an open forum.

So, LiveJournal/SixApart, Barak Berkowitz and others, I, as a member of fandom, am asking here and now: Will you answer these concerns? Will you take a stand and state what you will and will not allow? Will you actually perform customer service and listen to those customers when they have concerns?

Or will you take your tried and true method of muddying the waters further?

I am cat_mcdougall on LiveJournal, and I am a member of fandom, and I would like some straight answers.