The Future of LJ?

[owlmoose]

Lo these many years ago, when LiveJournal was bought by SUP, a Russian company, I wasn't too worried, because the staff and servers were staying in the United States (specifically California) for the foreseeable future.

Fast forward nine years. Although no announcement has been made as far as I know, there are strong indications that the servers have recently been moved to Russia. lynnenne explains why this is a problem; the short version is that international courts generally hold that, when legal issues arise around Internet content (privacy, copyright, freedom of expression, etc.), the laws that apply are the laws of the country where the servers reside. Therefore, when the LJ servers were in California, if SUP did something sketchy like sell your personal data or resell your content without permission, you could sue them in California court. Assuming these reports are correct, that's no longer true. And while I don't know specific details about Russian law regarding privacy, copyright, and free expression, I think it's a pretty safe guess that they aren't nearly as strong as those in the USA, much less California.

So... how worried are we about this? I backed up all my LJ content to Dreamwidth years ago, and have been crossposting even longer, so I won't lose any content if my LJ suddenly goes dark. But that fact doesn't assuage the other concerns: loss of privacy, the selling of personal data, copyright infringement, Russia deciding that my political opinions are suspect and someone needs to come after me. (I understand I'm a pretty tiny fish in a very large ocean as far as that last issue is concerned. Still, the fear is there.) Therefore, a few thoughts and questions:

1. Those of you who are cross-posting DW to LJ: are you going to keep doing it? Any thoughts of deleting?

2. Those of you who are still posting and/or reading on the LJ side: are you concerned? Thinking about deleting and/or moving to DW? If I stopped cross-posting, any chance that you'd keep reading me on Dreamwidth, or do I risk losing touch with you?

3. I am deeply reluctant to delete the old content from my LJ. The librarian in me abhors the idea of contributing to the link rot that has caused so much fandom history to be lost (I'm still sad about the abrupt disappearance of Journalfen, for one example). I wish there was some way to redirect links to the archived DW content. On the other hand, link rot is just a part of life on the Internet, and shouldn't my personal safety come first? Any thoughts welcome.

A year ago, even three months ago, this development would not have worried me nearly as much. But with the mounting evidence of Russia and Putin meddling in internal US politics, it's pretty hard to see this move as benign. And that fact that I'm a little nervous even typing that last sentence in an entry that's going to be crossposted to LJ? Maybe that's my answer right there. Still, I'm not making any decisions yet. But I want to put my concerns out there.

Comments

[pete_thomas]

1. When I moved to DW, I moved all of my posts with it. I only cross posted for a few months after to give friends a chance to either move over too, or decide that they wanted to sever the "journaling friendship." I don't have anything worth "keeping" on LJ, so if that's the case, I'll just be shutting it down all together.

3. While cross links do shatter at this thought, the only thing I realize I would actually lose (which I've been trying to desperately save) are my voice posts, something that I used for a brief segment in my life. Chances are though, if they didn't care about the first set of changes, these ones won't matter either and you will likely lose touch. :( I'm sorry.

Most of the other stuff, with some time and energy, can be replicated here if you didn't want to lose it for good. I've found a way to save those voice posts which I think could be one of those most challenging things; everything else should be easier than that, I'd presume.

Good luck with it though, and thanks for the heads up.

[owlmoose]

I'm not to worried about losing content -- the only content of mine that would be lost if LJ were to go dark would be the voting results of polls, a couple of voice posts, and any comments that folks left on the LJ side after I started crossposting (and in truth, there are precious few of those).

You're welcome! I'm not sure how widely known this change is, so I thought it would be useful to spread the word.

[conuly]

I'll continue crossposting for the forseeable future - some people I care about either aren't moving or are having trouble making the move. Honestly, I don't think Putin cares about me. If things get bad enough that I'm worried for my safety, then I think it's safe to say that deleting my journal wasn't going to help.

[owlmoose]

Fair point. And yeah, I don't particularly see myself becoming a target for anything either? But I want to make sure that whatever I decide is done with eyes open.

[firecat]

I've been on DW for years. I'm still cross-posting to LJ and reading the posts of a few friends there who haven't decamped elsewhere. I'm less comfortable with cross-posting now than I was, but I haven't given it up yet.

I think that deleting my existing info/posts from LJ would constitute belated closing of the barn door and would not actually make me any safer. But I limit how much identifying info I put on social media anyway. I definitely agree that safety outweighs the problem of link rot.

[owlmoose]

I take some care with personal info online, too (particularly not connecting my wallet name with my fannish identity), although I think anyone who was truly determined to connect the dots could probably do so. On the other hand, my fannish accounts are fairly well connected -- especially given that have the same username on DW and LJ, it's not like like it would be a huge leap to find one from the other, even if I did delete my LJ.

[alias_sqbr]

I'm still crossposting. I can't think of anything I have in locked posts that would be super bad for a company to know, and the public stuff is already data mine-able.

[owlmoose]

Good reminder about the data mining. The family tree maker scare that went around recently was also a good reminder. At least on that account I have been fairly good about not connecting my wallet name with LJ/DW, so that would be a difficult (though probably not impossible) connection to make. (It also helps that my wallet name is *extremely* common.)

[alias_sqbr]

I am less confident about my security in that respect but I don't think lj is going to make it any worse :/

[irreversibly]

My LJ is long gone and buried. I live in a country right next door. When you live so close there is one thing you instinctively understand...when they get involved, you get the hell out. It may not seem that they can threaten you specifically by just their mere presence for the moment, but that presence is more often than not just a way to keep tabs on you for when they do move against you. Staying around when they take an interest is not good at all in the long term, especially when the known inner circle of their president is involved.
Then again, it might not be such an immediate threat when you live so far away, so... *shrug*

[lassarina]

I'm still cross-posting for now since there are people there who never came here and I'd miss them profoundly. My primary interaction these days is DW; I will always comment here in preference to there; I no longer spend money there (I bought a permanent account Before The Shenanigans so I take comfort in the fact that I cost them money through my use rather than adding any.)

I really don't want to delete either - for most of the same reasons you cited. I dunno. I'm dithering.

[auronlu]

I imported everything here some years ago for both my important accounts.

I am extremely uneasy about leaving my content on LJ even though I have a permanent account.

I stopped crossposting years ago. Most of my friends moved here. But that means I have less reason to keep an archive there.

I've been waffling between deleting my extra LJs and clearing out this one's content apart from a few key posts, but I haven't done it. I am uneasy for the same raesons you are -- it's not benign, and I do believe they're going to be gathering data from it. For my fandom blog, it really doesn't matter that much; I doubt they're going to come after me for f/f erotica. But for my personal blog, which could at this point be traced to the real me by a determined searcher, I'm not so sanguine. Stuff behind flock needs to stay there.