LiveJournal and the Russian Rule of Law

I'm wondering how many people in this group are still active LiveJournal Users. Guess I'm also curious how many are now working toward leaving since the change of user agreement to the Russian ideals of Free Speech rather than the American ideals.

If you've left, what other journal site do you use?

(I've found Dreamwidth and DeadJournal so far. )

I never had a LiveJournal; but I use Prosebox.

My 17th LJ anniversary is next week ... never left ... probably won't because I have links in my books of book reviews pointing to my review site there.

Wait, when did this happen- link?

I'm so used to LJ almost nothing could make me leave. It's the best of the journaling sites when it comes to features and layout.

>5 gilroy: Um, when's the last time you logged in to LJ? If you read the fine print of the translated Terms of Service (which it says isn't binding, only the Russian language one is. And heavens knows if you got the proper translation) it says specifically that LJ is now subject to Russian Law.

I use the app and stay logged in. How exactly does this affect the service?

They have the right to censor your posts if it is against Russian law. Including deleting said post.

You also have to agree that anything which Russian law considers inappropriate for children goes under an adults-only lock (so, any mention that glbt people exist). Among other things. There's also, IIRC, much looser guidelines now about when they will turn your personal information over to law enforcement. A lot of people are leaving on principle rather than agree to those terms.

I've been on DW rather than LJ since before the original sale to SUP so I haven't been paying super-close attention but that was the gist I got from friends. I suspect it's mostly aimed at actual Russian dissidents and they will continue to ignore their English-speaking users, but then, who knows when Russia could decide the Anglophone internet is a political threat?

If you're shopping for a new journal, I recommend DW - I've been there since closed beta and it hasn't added features as quickly as LJ lately, but it does everything I need in a journal site (it has image hosting now!), it's got an ownership that's committed to maintaining the site for its community rather that maximizing profitability or paying investors, and it's a nice place to hang out. It's also set up to very easily import all of your LJ content to your DW and make it easy for your LJ friends to keep in touch.