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That Livejournal thing
Dec. 30th, 2016 11:59 pmAs many of you may have heard by now, Livejournal is now keeping its servers in Russia (websites' privacy controls, legal redresses in case something happens, and so forth are bound by the laws of whatever country the servers are physically located in), which is leading to a lot of account deletions from worried users in, mostly, the U.S.
I'm not planning on doing so; as far as I can tall, all the likely worst-case scenarios that I've seen discussed (an increased likelihood of credit card theft, having your personal information sold, theft/duplication of copyrighted material, etc) are already risks anywhere you have an online presence. I don't think people pulling up stakes and moving elsewhere are wrong to do so, especially if they're not using the site anyway; I just don't feel like I need to. The only thing I'm thinking about is maybe not renewing my paid account when it lapses so a) I don't have my credit card info on there, and b) am not financially supporting a business that is known to actively delete/suppress accounts on political grounds. Even so, though ... at least as far as the credit-card risk is concerned ... I've known people who had their credit card info stolen and used by thieves because of info leaks from Bank of America and Walmart, and I just tonight gave my billing info to an online site I've never heard of to buy an art book from Malaysia. idk. It's impossible to do business online without some level of risk.
However, I'm glad I have a journal mirror at DW. I'll still crosspost everything, and in all likelihood any new communities/journals I create from here on out will be DW-only, if only because of the added exodus from LJ and increased probability that LJ as a company, at least the English-language side of it, is tottering along on its last legs.
More information: here, here, here, and here.
(Though obviously if anyone wants to present an alternate POV in the comments that I'm not taking into account, feel free. Like I said, I don't mind other people doing it; I'm just not really feeling the need to, myself. Plausibly, as far as "bad things that are now more likely to happen," I think the most likely one is that LJ is now one step closer to the end of its internet-site life cycle and is just going to stop existing someday. So backing up is a good idea.)
btw, if I've friended you on LJ but haven't given you access on DW, just say something; it's not intentional, it's just that I never bothered strictly duplicating my circle/flist in the two places, and I don't have notifications of new friendings/circle-addings turned on, so I'll never notice if someone added me in the other place.
I'm not planning on doing so; as far as I can tall, all the likely worst-case scenarios that I've seen discussed (an increased likelihood of credit card theft, having your personal information sold, theft/duplication of copyrighted material, etc) are already risks anywhere you have an online presence. I don't think people pulling up stakes and moving elsewhere are wrong to do so, especially if they're not using the site anyway; I just don't feel like I need to. The only thing I'm thinking about is maybe not renewing my paid account when it lapses so a) I don't have my credit card info on there, and b) am not financially supporting a business that is known to actively delete/suppress accounts on political grounds. Even so, though ... at least as far as the credit-card risk is concerned ... I've known people who had their credit card info stolen and used by thieves because of info leaks from Bank of America and Walmart, and I just tonight gave my billing info to an online site I've never heard of to buy an art book from Malaysia. idk. It's impossible to do business online without some level of risk.
However, I'm glad I have a journal mirror at DW. I'll still crosspost everything, and in all likelihood any new communities/journals I create from here on out will be DW-only, if only because of the added exodus from LJ and increased probability that LJ as a company, at least the English-language side of it, is tottering along on its last legs.
More information: here, here, here, and here.
(Though obviously if anyone wants to present an alternate POV in the comments that I'm not taking into account, feel free. Like I said, I don't mind other people doing it; I'm just not really feeling the need to, myself. Plausibly, as far as "bad things that are now more likely to happen," I think the most likely one is that LJ is now one step closer to the end of its internet-site life cycle and is just going to stop existing someday. So backing up is a good idea.)
btw, if I've friended you on LJ but haven't given you access on DW, just say something; it's not intentional, it's just that I never bothered strictly duplicating my circle/flist in the two places, and I don't have notifications of new friendings/circle-addings turned on, so I'll never notice if someone added me in the other place.