Flagging

[amari_z]

I’m curious. I’ve just seen the information of LJ’s latest attempt to cover its arse be a responsible hoster of internet content. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here. In brief, LJ has added a feature that allows you to rate your content. Such content will be hidden behind a warning link and no one who‘s logged in as minor can view it. The part that’s really annoying people is the ability for anyone to flag other’s posts as inappropriate.

I realize that there’s been a lot of discussion in many places about it already, but I’m interested in what you, O Mighty Friends List, are planning to do and why.

I’m not completely decided, although I will probably end up flagging some of my fic--eventually. On one hand, as an attorney, I do appreciate what LJ is trying to do, although their execution, as always, leaves something to be desired, especially this public policing function. As a user, I’m a little annoyed, actually. This is clearly meant as a purely legal CYA, despite the whole “Think of the children!” hand wringing. There’s nothing to stop a minor from viewing the post when she’s not logged in. This, however, is a problem without an easy solution if you‘re going to go LJ‘s chosen route, since otherwise you ban all non-lj account-holders from viewing the flagged content, which to me would be unacceptable and a reason not to bother with the flags. Also, I don’t view my fic as being all that explicit, and arbitrarily deciding what qualifies as “Adult Concepts” or “Explicit Adult Content” irritates me. I’m not enthused by the prospect of actually having to go back and remember what’s in each fic and deciding whether to flag it. Do I look like I’m made of time to waste? Shut up.


[Poll #1098463]

I'd love to hear the reasons for why you've adopted one position or another in the comments, if you're inclined to explain.

And next chapter of Resurrection should be up tomorrow. (Insert standard form force majeure clause here.)

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

The jury's still out for me. The fact of this feature is less important than how people start using it. It has the potential for abuse (with just two clicks you can mark anything as illegal! No need to actually hunt up an email for the lj abuse team!), but unless it is abused, I'm not going to worry. I suspect that either a) no one will really use it in the fan community or b) the abuse team will get so swamped they'll give it up as a bad idea.

I appreciate the sentiment of keeping minors for seeing explicit content, but it's the internet. Any unsupervised child on a computer's going to be able to find all the porn that they want. I think trying to regulate the internet is inherently flawed and will never work. The only way to keep kids from seeing "adult concepts" is for the kids to be supervised.

All I've done so far is set my profile so lj never bars me from seeing anything. I'm legal! I swear! And my entire f-list should probably be flagged.

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

I set my profile and added a birth year for the first time, but I'm not sure that does it, since I'm still seeing the flag cuts. I read somewhere that it'll only work if you put in your birth year when you originally registered. As silly as it sounds, I am finding the extra clicking really annoying.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

killabeez has a how-to here.

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

Excellent, thanks!

[cat-o-wen.livejournal.com]

I read this yesterday and had a mixed reaction. Paranoid as I am...if I flag my LJ as containing adult content (those posts are locked 'friends only' anyways) do I set myself up for some kind of scrutiny, possible deletion? I don't know. Right now...I figure I'll go on as I always have...publicly post my graphics, which are usually 'G' rated anyways...and lock my private stuff, which always contains at least 'adult' language. *laughs* I just don't want 'big brother' deleting my journal for inappropriate content. *shrugs*

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

It does make one paranoid doesn't it? I am feeling a desire to yell, I plead the Fifth!

[d-violetta.livejournal.com]

I am not really sure i like this at all as an idea. I refuse to put the year of my birthday on my profile page so lots of the pages I now read need two clicks to get the right section which is annoying.

I friend lock most of my posts so they are not open to the general public finding them. I am not going to use any more than this I trust that my friends are adult enough to read what I am writing.

I don't really understand this odd need to suddenly protect people from clicking things that their parents feel are inappropriate. I feel it is the parents job to educate them and if they do find something the parents don't like then don't blame the person who wrote it.

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

I'm finding the extra clicking very annoying as well--plus that you can't at a glance tell whether or not you want to click.

I'm with you; I wish people would stick to watching their own kids rather than running around trying to force everyone make the world child-safe.

[blade-and-roses.livejournal.com]

I step away from the place for a week and I gotta catch up! Hmm, wonder if anyone at lj read myspace or facebook -- some of those words I didn't even know! As for content -- my comment to parents who object to things on the net would be go check out what your children and their school mates are saying in im's and their online sites.

Most of these kids should be grounded for life plus 50.

Aside from the occasional swear words in my bits (and any child over the age of 5 has already heard every one of these words from parents, school mates, neighbors and at least two ministers that I personally know), my stuff is pretty innocuous. I tend to write funny, and non-explicit, as my friend's children might read it. That said, I may just lock down the whole thing.

I make one observation, having gone to a seminar on this recently where it was id'd as the 'next big area for lawsuits' (and corespondingly, legal firm profits). If someone flags something as illegal and it doesn't deserve it or it was done maliciously - someone's rep online has been damaged. And everyone who assisted in it is opening themselves to suit.

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

Some idiot may be touting it as the next big thing, but it's just so damn stupid--plus what sort of damages are you going to be able to recover for something like that? I can't imagine many judges are going to be too interested in entertaining such suits--but then again there are plenty of idiot judges out there.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, but I'm in Philly, the home of the most litigious lawyers in America, according to numerous publications. There are people out here who will sue over anything.

And btw, thanks for Resurrection today -- I so needed a good read!

[amari-z.livejournal.com]

Some lawyers don't have enough paying clients, I guess.

You're welcome. Just checking, though--you did see that there were three parts, right?