| [ |
mood |
| |
 determined |
] |
Considering the way LJ has recently treated its customers (i.e. the axing of creating new basic accounts and the censorship of fandom-related and non-mainstream interests on the public popular interests page), many users have decided to go on strike: That means no LJ-entries, no comments, no roleplaying, no posting in communities, no feeds, nothing. For 24 hours, March 21st (this Friday) from midnight GMT to midnight GMT. This is intended to cause a lack of user-generated content, the thing that keeps LJ running in the first place, and so demonstrate the power the userbase has. Anton Nosik, director of the blog division of SUP (the Russian Company that recently bought LJ) repeatedly belittled LJ users and their efforts, and titled users "unfriendly forces" or, according to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) russianswinga's translation, "collective resistant forces", for demanding to be heard and included in the decision-making process. Please read the complete article if you want to get an idea what's going on. Apparently there are three categories: Good users who don't say anything, users who provide concrit, and "there is the third category. They endlessly, during the entire existence of LJ promote lour initiatives, whose only purpouse is to bring harm to LJ, its founders, their goal is to criticize, destablilize and ruin our reputation." That's the people who aren't content with sucking up and sitting back if LJ screws up yet again, and quite likely the majority of users on this platform. Once again, LJ/SUP are showing an astounding lack of understanding for their userbase. LJ was sold not long after last June's wanksplosion. Did that honestly go unnoticed by the future owner? Did they honestly believe that we'd tolerate or not notice any future fuck-ups?
I am perfectly aware that LJ/SUP is a business with the intention to make money - but as users who are ridiculed and then harried into the decision of ADs or payment for a service that used to be available for free, I think we are entitled to take action. We are only unfriendly because the company keeps screwing their userbase over, keeps introducing changes behind their back, and keeps lying to us, and then expecting us to buy it (bad pun intended). The LJ Board of Advisors, which was created after Strikethrough, was not consulted on the decision to disable the creation of free accounts after March 12th; indeed their warnings and reactions were ignored. While quite capable of understanding the userbase, they are used as figureheads only, so it's the users who will need to take action. Things won't change if we keep sitting around.
The idea is already attracting attention from various media sites. SUP cannot help but listen to us if we do this. They know about it, and from the sound of the interview above, they are worried. The silence, when a great number of users goes through with it, will leave a permanent reminder in LJ's statistics, and quite likely make more headlines. beckyzoole, who came up with the original idea, has a number of related posts in her journal, and invites anyone to friend her for further updates and developments.
Please, anyone who feels comfortable doing this to participate in the strike. No posting or commenting in or with your own journals. No posting or commenting in any community, RP or anywhere else on LiveJournal. To multiply the impact, consider the following: If you are running or moderating a community, you may want to enable moderated posting for 24 hours, provided your members agree. thevelvetsun lists more reasons here.
LiveJournal Content Strike, Friday, March 21, midnight to midnight GMT.
No posts. No comments. No content.
Please feel free to grab the icon, spread the word, and encourage others to do so - the more people we reach, the better. Thanks.
|
hopeful
bouncy![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
blah
angry