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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-08-10 07:25 am (UTC)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.