Excuse me while I faint dead away on the damn floor.  Six Apart has sold LJ to a Russian Company. *gggggggg*
ETA: Brad is back!
ETA: I’m providing a link to Wired’s article on LJ transitioning to SUP. Quite frankly, I’m feeling uncomfortable about this. I wonder how much of our database will be transferred to Russia’s servers despite the fact SUP will set up a company in California. I’m worried about the social politics that is vastly different from America and how this ideology will affect us here on LJ. What about privacy, the financial transactions of citizens outside of Russia, and our ability to maintain free speech.  Maybe I’m overly worried. Will have to chew on this one real good and see what will follow in the coming days.
http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2006/11/72060
Maybe I’m overly worried.
yes, you are.
I see your points on privacy and finance, but they are the same concerns I have with every (online) company. There are always black sheep.
[politics wank]
now, social politics and ideology? we’re not all gonna get infected by an incurable virus that turns us into communists. THEY are democrats by now. I am more afraid of pseudo-democratic US ideologies than of those of the Russians.
[/politics wank]
but seriously, Russia has come a long way, and they’re facing the same problems as all East European countries on their way from communist to capitalistic economy. now, if LJ had been sold to a Chinese company, I would have expected ‘bad words’ to be automatically filtered (lol, imagine NC-17 fics with **** all the way through), or for internet traffic to LJ’s URL to be simply dropped at the country border. with Russia though, I don’t think that our freedom of speech is any more endangered as if the parent company had stayed American.
apart from all that:
LJ has a huge client base in Russia, and SUP has, to my understanding, handled that traffic so far. I guess it all went pretty smooth?
PS: SUP has a standing collaboration with last.fm. and I was wondering why I suddenly could select LJ as target code for my last.fm charts. hah.
LJ has a huge client base in Russia, and SUP has, to my understanding, handled that traffic so far. I guess it all went pretty smooth?
So, well that I have read articles of some Russian users jumping ship for fear of having their opinions squashed. That even some journals have been deleted by SUP.
It’s nice and comfortable to stay in one’s backyard and think the events surrounding them will not affect them and take on the what I don’t know, won’t hurt me, attitude. However, I’m not quite that type of person. I care when I know my little payment to LJ may contribute to silencing people of their freedom of speech.
As I said, I’m taking a wait and see attitude on this. Mainly because my fandoms are here and I do love LJ and communicating to users with common interest.
yeah well, contrary to many people on here, I don’t really care if LJ becomes a site that I cannot stay on because my “opinions are squashed”. the world’s not going to end just because they will not host my journal. and I even just got a permanent account, I’d throw over a hundred bucks out the window. I’m not rich, but it’s just a journal, just money, I don’t care.
That even some journals have been deleted by SUP.
so they have been by 6A. question is why. those deleted will always claim that the company had no reason to. In Austria, there is a law against “Wiederbetätigung”, against spreading/acting on national socialist ideas. I believe it is a kind of censorship, but I’m glad it’s there. those who do it never find anything wrong with it… do you know what I mean?
I don’t know why those journals where deleted by SUP. they might have had a reason I can relate to, but the deleted can’t.
some Russian users jumping ship for fear of having their opinions squashed
means it never got that far that they actually were censored, just that they feared they might be?
I’m very wary of what I hear through the news, other online blogs, “articles” that are, in the end, written just by other people of the community. it’s a very one-sided point of view, and I’m always cautious if I feel that I’m not getting the whole picture.
not saying that everything’s going to go without a hitch. just that I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. I need it proven to me that they are evil.
also, LJ Inc will be an American company, under US laws and regulations, right? it’s gonna be kind of a foreign subsidiary. they’ll have to uphold US laws, just like 6A. (actually, I’m not sure if that alone shouldn’t get me off LJ *lol* countries where companies can be sued for millions because they didn’t write in the manual that ‘No, you can’t dry your pet in the microwave’ can’t have all their jurisdictional marbles… Funniest thing I ever read was on the inside of a car door window, to the effect of “first check the traffic before opening your door”. It’s so sad it’s hilarious. But it’s just a weird phenomenon, and besides the point of this comment.)