The Future of LJ?
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.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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.
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.
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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.
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You're welcome! I'm not sure how widely known this change is, so I thought it would be useful to spread the word.
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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.
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I am less confident about my security in that respect but I don't think lj is going to make it any worse :/
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Then again, it might not be such an immediate threat when you live so far away, so... *shrug*
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I really don't want to delete either - for most of the same reasons you cited. I dunno. I'm dithering.
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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.