For those of you who don't have it on your flist

[jlh]

news updated with an explanation about a half an hour ago. The weird karma of that must have woken me from a sound sleep. I made a comment on about page 9.

This is the third enormous PR debacle I've seen since the SA purchase (the others being Nipplegate and the initial sponsored communities announcement) and the surprise of the LJ/SA team when news spreads like wildfire across a website that is built to facilitate social interaction continues to amaze me. aside from whatever they think they're doing and whatever deniability they think they have, if LJ/SA even HAS a consumer relations team they should be (a) brought into the loop much much sooner on all major decisions by the Abuse team, not to alter them but to be aware of them and prepared for the fallout; (b) given sole ability to speak to the press and to the rest of us (the Abuse team should NOT have to do this); (c) fired, if any of this was already policy but they just sucked at it.

Never mind that the explanation of "interests" continues the slippery language of "friends" that gets LJ into so much trouble. Can I not be interested in something I don't like? Can one only be interested in "fighting" whatever this thing is? Because that language is more than a little ominous, and really should be spelled out more clearly in the TOS.

Most of you who have heard me expound on advertising and the media industry (my former career) and the reasons they do what they do know that I don't have a huge problem with companies following economic imperatives. But I do have a problem with lack of professionalism in a company that is entirely too large to not do better.

ETA: In looking at the edits to the news post, I am now under the strong impression that they do not have a corporate communications officer of any kind. At their level of corporate development, I find that to be ridiculously unprofessional. When you are still investigating a matter, you say one of two things to the press: "We have no comment at this time" or "As we are still investigating the matter, we have no comment at this time." And you make sure that everyone else in your company refuses to take calls from the press. Jeez, I'm not even in PR and even I know that.

Comments

[ceilidh]

Oh, completely agreed on all points. Especially firing the PR people.

And their CEO doesn't sound very CEO-ish to me. He sounds like he's trying to affect a "casual" tone, a "I'm just a normal use like you" veneer that doesn't really fit.

[dramawench.livejournal.com]

Word. A company this large, or at least one providing a product to this many people, needs a specific and professional spokesperson.

And their definition of "interests" definitely doesn't sit right with me. You can't be interested in something you don't like? Yeah, right.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

I'm really kind of fascinated by the way that statement is worded. I mean, pussyfooting around the definition of 'interests' in order to validate suspending journals without reviewing actual content was to be expected. But I'm curious about this:

1) Over the next few hours we will review the journals that were taken down and wherever appropriate we will restore these journals or communities before 12 noon PDT. Sorry it will take that long but we do not want to reinstate true and clear violators of community policy.
...

3) Journals that we do not restore will be journals that we are fairly sure are actually intended to encourage activities that put minors at risk but we will review them if requested by their owner to be certain that we did not make a mistake.

And also this:

Another issue we needed to deal with was journals that used a thin veneer of fictional or academic interest in events and storylines that include child rape, pedophilia, and similar themes in order to actually promote these activities. While there are stories, essays, and discussions that include discussion of these issues in an effort to understand and prevent them, others use a pretext to promote these activities. It’s often very hard to tell the difference.

Particularly in context with what he said to cnet:

"Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues," countered Six Apart's Berkowitz. "It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not.

What I'm curious to see is whether they decide that fanfiction involving underage sex, chan-ish stuff, and incest falls into the category of what's not appropriate within the community they want to build and "journals that [use] a thin veneer of fictional or academic interest in events and storylines that include child rape, pedophilia, and similar themes in order to actually promote these activities," or if it ends up falling into the category of "stories, essays, and discussions that include discussion of these issues in an effort to understand and prevent them."

If their no-shades-of-grey interpretation of the word 'Interests' is anything to go by, I would say that communities supporting fanfiction depicting activities that in real life would be considered harmful to children will fall into the first category. I don't know for certain, though, especially given how much he waffles in that statement. It will be really interesting to see what happens.

Also, I agree that their PR needs a lot of work. Seat-of-the-pants doesn't work very well when your customers number in the millions...

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

It just boggles the mind?!

The impression I get is that SA bought livejournal like a parent adopting a teenaged child. They expected to get Pollyanna - a lovable scamp. They got Damien Thorn and they don't know what to do with him.