Change to B2MeM's community adult content setting

[independence1776]

In order to comply with the April 3, 2017 LiveJournal User Agreement that says users must mark material "estimated by Russian legislation as inappropriate for children (0-18) as 'adult material,'" we have marked this community as containing Explicit Adult Content. The vast majority of the entries are and will continue to be safe for minors to view; we are simply being cautious because we-the-mods cannot edit the adult content settings on individual posts.

If you are older than 18 and logged in, your experience will not change. If you are younger than 18 and logged in, you will not be allowed to join or view the community. If you are logged out, you will only be able to view the community’s content after confirming you are over 18 on an intermediate banner page (it’s a simple button click). We welcome anonymous comments if you want to participate.

We are both sorry and angry at the idea of excluding minors. B2MeM has always and will always welcome everyone's participation. Please, please use anonymous comments if you want to participate.

We do NOT agree with the new User Agreement. This was not a change we wanted to make, but given the circumstances, we felt it best to make this change to protect our members and the existence of this community. We do not know precisely what could be covered under this agreement and do not want to risk this community's deletion.

The mods are discussing how to keep B2MeM safe and what the future could look like. If you have questions or concerns, please comment or contact us at b2mem.mod@gmail.com.

Comments

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

That makes perfect sense to me that B2MeM as a community/public LJ, it must take such precautions to avoid stupid legal entanglements.

Most of the adult content on the internet is produced by its younger users. It's just another way for LJ to use to go after people they do not like for other reasons--and we all know what they are!

Too bad about that. I did not even see that is the agreement-because as an individual, I ignore adult warnings.

I'm not changing my settings as an individual. I friend-lock almost everything and don't really post adult material all that often, if ever. As a person I have one setting. And am a risk-taker. I will take a risk on dying in a Russian prison, given the rents in Brooklyn and how stressful it is around my house it would probably not be that bad of a deal for me.

[independence1776]

It's in large part for all the posts from years past; not everyone's around to contact. Nor do we have the time to check thousands of posts. And the worried part of me wonders if any LGBTQA+ content, no matter how low the actual rating, counts as adult under Russian law. I really hope not because it's 100% something I disagree with. But putting the warning up is the easiest thing to do to protect our participants and this community. :(

You won't see the click-through screen at all because you're older than eighteen. It's also not set right now in order to give minors a chance to see this note, though it's also on the profile. It'll be turned on on Monday.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I don't see that it will be worse than an inconvenience for most people. I am beyond considering it a principled question in this kind of a setting. I don't like censorship, but LJ is not a private space and not under our control. And this particular journal has a responsibility to its users who are very diverse, so an advisory note and explanation seems more than adequate here to me. (Not that I have any business having an opinion--laughing at myself--I am a bit of loose cannon! That's why I have never offered to be an SWG or B2MeM mod!)

[independence1776]

It'll definitely be an inconvience for those who read this community when they don't have accounts; not only is there an overall banner page, each entry is also hidden behind a "this content is only suitable for adults" cut.

If we didn't want to hear people's opinions, we wouldn't post things with comments enabled or give us a way to be contacted off LJ!

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[hhimring]

That's a pity but very understandable.

[independence1776]

It sucks. If we had detailed information about what requires the Adult warning, I'd be a lot happier.

[scarlet1061.livejournal.com]

First, it seems like simple good sense to add this in light of the new ToS.

I know I never post stories, and I haven't been around for ages, but maybe this change can be a trigger to start a migration to DW.

Just a thought.

[independence1776]

That is one of the options we're discussing, but it's not as simple as it sounds. For one, we don't have permission from people to archive their fanworks elsewhere and not everyone wants to be on DW.

[grey-wonderer.livejournal.com]

I posted in the wrong place before but just wanted to say, I think this is the wise thing to do. It's sad that others can force this but you have to do what you can to protect the posts.

[independence1776]

Yeah. :(

[mithrial.livejournal.com]

Better to be safe than sorry in this case.

Loved being part of B2MeM last month. A great friendly bunch of creative folk.

I quite understand the move.

[independence1776]

We're glad to hear you enjoyed participating last month!

Better safe than sorry indeed. :(

[ladybrooke]

This is...ugh. Just ugh.

I share the worry mentioned above that anything LBGTQ+ counts as adult under Russian law, regardless of content. The Sims 4 was given an 18+ rating there, apparently because of it, so I'm not sure fanfic is different.

[independence1776]

Ugh indeed.

…Okay, then. I wouldn't assume fanfic would be different at all. (Here's a BBC link about the The Sims 4 thing if anyone's interested: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27374539 )

[ladybrooke]

Thanks for adding a link about it! And yeah, I don't think fanfic would be different - and I don't know if this community is big enough to attract attention, but on the other hand, a couple of my stories hit the top 100 English posts like month...

I'll sit patiently while you all figure out what to do. If it makes even difference, while I'm not about to delete stories I've already posted, I'm extremely hesitant to post any future writing here (and I've got a couple stories done from last month's event, but...)

[independence1776]

There was a noticeable uptick in "you've reached the top 25 LJ entries" comments this March, ranging from fanworks with only a comment or two to over a dozen. LJ's small enough before this mess that B2MeM was popular; next year (assuming we run it here) would be even more so.

Yes, please have patience! We're moving fairly slowly on this for a number of reasons.

I suspect you're not the only person who feels that way, but we don't know that if people don't tell us, so thank you for doing so! Also, thank you for not deleting your fanworks; if we back-up the community to Dreamwidth, we want to preserve as much as we can.