Pro-anorexia communities: good for kids!

[lederhosen]

Via nicked_metal, reasons why LJ desperately needs to hire a competent PR person. Responding to a complaint against proanorexia, LJ support tells us:

Our experience thus far has been that communities such as these, dedicated to discussing destructive behaviour... actually do far more good than harm. They allow open and meaningful communication among people suffering from various eating disorders, and allow users to provide support for one another in their recovery.

Which is not quite how MDs treating anorexia see it. Some examples of the 'help' this community gives are listed here. And don't miss the first paragraph of said community's info page (emphasis sic):

Special Note: For those who haven't yet set up their LJ account, Live Journal says if your date of birth says you are under 13, they will require parental approval to activate your LJ account. They just go by whatever date you put down.

Isn't that helpful of them?

Seriously, I'm sure most LJ staff mean well, and it's not an easy job navigating between badly-written and ambiguous content laws, principles of free speech, and sometimes-touchy users. But stuff like this just makes me cringe. This suggestion of adding mandatory ratings to all LJ posts also looks like a fertile source of future drama...

Comments

[karjack.livejournal.com]

Wow. They are really fucking up one issue after another. o.O

[dilph.livejournal.com]

Sweet mother of all christ. Words have failed me...

How can such idiocy live? I can only assume the LJ staff have never watched a loved one wither away to a walking skeleton...

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

The nicest explanation I can think of is that they confused "pro-ana" with "anorexia support group", although the links provided in the complaint should have made it painfully obvious that it's about validating self-harm.

[dilph.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's about the most positive possible option, and it's still gross stupidity...

[cheshire-bitten.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I agree with them, sure some of the pro-ana groups are creepy, but then sometime you need to vent, you need to talk about how you are currently feeling, not how someone else thinks it would be better for you to feel.

For example I suspect that some of the talk which goes on in pro ana groups is similar to the very black humor which you here around depressive support groups, and when I was thinking about going of my anti-psychotics so I could drink more because the drugs were not working but drinking was, I sure my doctor would have been very angry about the responses I got from crazy_academics on Lj, but that advice got me thought, precisely because it was dark, it wasn't sugar coated, and it was given to me by people who knew how bad this shit it when it is bad.

Just my thoughts.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

sometime you need to vent, you need to talk about how you are currently feeling, not how someone else thinks it would be better for you to feel.

I understand that, and I wouldn't have a problem with that sort of thing. But a lot of the posts on this particular community aren't just venting; they're people looking for encouragement in self-harm, and getting it. Stuff like this, for instance; several more links from here.

It's the difference between "I want to be thinner" and "help me fast".

[cheshire-bitten.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm...

I'm not going to say that ever post in every community is helpful, but banning them? Pushing them underground, I'm not sure that will help, and it is easy to look at the worst of them, and end up banning the suport/recovery communities again.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I'm undecided on whether banning is the right approach; I'm a fairly strong believer in free speech, and we've had plenty of examples lately of why LJ shouldn't be trigger-happy. I was concentrating on LJ's arguments there, not their conclusions.

That said, if LJ were capable of handling these things intelligently, it should be possible to get rid of some of the bathwater without losing the baby too. If the community mods were willing to delete posts that clearly encouraged self-harm - "help me fast" isn't exactly part of the curative process - and removed the part of the community info that specifically encourages pre-teens to lie about their age in order to circumvent LJ's child-protection policies, they would be in a much stronger position.

Contrariwise, if they continue to be that blatant about encouraging violation of LJ's child-protection policies, I don't have a lot of sympathy for them - and I suspect any competent legal department would want that alone to be a bannable offence for any community, regardless of content.

[cheshire-bitten.livejournal.com]

Yes.

That's a very close to how I feel about it, sorry if it sounded like I was jumping at you, I just get very scared when people talk about banning people talking as a way of protecting "the children"

Also, the lying about your age thing is just weird, I would be really supprised if your average 13 year old couldn't work that out for themselves, but yes suggesting breaking of Lj's TOS on your usepage, ummm bad.