LiveJournal's pro-libel policy is causing advertisers to look elsewhere.
LiveJournal's terms of service prohibit the posting of libelous or defamatory material, but when LiveJournal receives a complaint about such material, all they do is alert their subscriber to the possibility of legal action.
Unlike WordPress, a competing blogging platform, LiveJournal does not remove defamatory content.
Several LiveJournal subscribers have posted a great amount of defamatory material about child therapists, making allegations such as:
* Involvement in Internet child trafficking
* Forcing parents to watch torture videos
* Having histories of violent crimes
Several advertisers, when alerted not only to the content being published on LiveJournal but also to LiveJournal's refusal to do anything about it, have suspended their advertising campaigns with LiveJournal.
Others, including Netflix, are considering doing the same.
Anjelika Petrochenko, LiveJournal's new North American manager, could not be reached for comment. Petrochenko replaced Tupshin Harper, who managed LiveJournal for several years, and who appears to have been a key architect of the "hands off libelous content" policy that is now impacting LiveJournal's bottom line.
|
homepage:
Consider for a moment the alternative (which you seem to suggest). That they respond to any and all ACCUSATIONS of libel by immediately aking the material down. That would mean that any and all material would be subject to removal simply by sending a "libel complaint" against it WHETHER OR NOT the acusation had any merit whatsoever.
Are you proposing we return to the 18th Century definition of "libel", defamatory, WHETHER OR NOT TRUE? (it was over this very concept that our colonial courts began diverging from the British legal tradition)
How about some concrete ground rules? How much should the complainant have to produce along with the complaint? Should some sort of court action have begun? (the complaint then being "take it down; it's libel (for real, proceedings have begun agaisnt it)"). That's just intended as an example, ball in your court.