specialodad's Blog

This will only be part one, as the tale is long.

 I have a daughter who is 13 but is mentally 6 or 7. She is a wonderful child and a gift from God but she does have her problems. The one thing she really likes to do is write stories based upon her favorite characters. (This is called "Fanfiction.") My wife and I encourage her to write and our elder daughter made her an account on a site called fanfiction.net where people can share their fanfiction. We are always with her when she is online and I have to upload the the stories for her. I have had no problems with fanfiction.net.

About a month ago, we received an email from someone with foul language telling us how "great" it was that my daughter's story had been listed on "fanficrants." I googled "fanficrants" and was brought to LiveJournal, a site I now wish I had never found.

 LiveJournal is a blog community owned by Six Apart. They don't seem to care what goes on their servers because when I did some reading on LiveJournal, I learned from www.perverted-justice.com (a pedophilia watchdog group) that LiveJournal does not delete or chooses to ignore reported pedophiles.

 Anyway, I found the post about my daughter and I was disgusted. People were referring to her as a retard, using all sorts of foul language and just in general using the service to post "defamatory and vulgar" comments. What caused me such anger was not that they were posting bad comments about her writing--but about her!

 I immediately sent LiveJournal an Abuse Request. This is exactly what I sent them:

MY EMAIL TO LIVEJOURNAL 

My daughter is 13 years old but is developmentally disabled. One of the things she enjoys doing is writing stories about her favorite things (sometimes called "fanfiction") Her stories may not be great, but it is one of the few things that she can enjoy given her mental capacity. My wife and I encourage it.

A few days ago, someone posted this entry to your "fanficrants" community:

http://community.livejournal.com/fanficrants/4774528.h
tml

My daughter nor I did not give these people permission to link to her story nor call her retard nor do any of the other hateful things they have done. Some of these individuals have taken to sending her hate messages via the linked website, referencing her appearance in "fanficrants."

I attempted to contact the "moderators" for "fanficrants" in an effort to have the hateful post removed but they do not take email. Obviously, they really have no interest in dealing with problems that arise from their "community."

Regardless, I feel this "community" has violated my daughter and myself by opening her up to harassment from these people. I also question whether it is legal for them to link without permission to another's written work, fanfiction or otherwise. And finally, I wonder if "fanficrants" itself violates your terms of service because it encourages its members to harass others.

(I should say that her age on the other website is listed wrong because my elder child originally created the account and we cannot change it. The daughter in question is 13, with a mental age of about 7)

Please assist me in dealing with this matter. It is bad enough my daughter is subject to ridicule in her real life. It is even worse that people are using your service to call her a "retard" and insult one of the few things she dervives pleasure from.

LIVEJOURNAL'S REPLY

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: LiveJournal.com Support
Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 19:09:53 UT
Subject: Re: (188) parent re: H in fanficrants
To: specialodad@gmail.com

Below is an answer to your support question regarding "(188) parent re: H in fanficrants"
(http://www.livejournal.com/support/see_request.bml?id
=746477&auth=6ykj).

==============================

==================
======================

Dear Stephen,

Thank you for following up with the Abuse Team. I understand that this is a difficult situation for you and your family, and I appreciate your patience in this matter. Unfortunately, after reviewing your original request and the post that you have linked to, we cannot take any action to assist you.

The material in the entry you have linked to is not a violation of LiveJournal's Terms of Service (http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos.bml). I understand that the material is incredibly upsetting, but LiveJournal is committed to the ideal of free speech provided that it is executed within the bounds of our Terms of Service. In order to be in violation of the Terms of Service, the people who have participated in the entry must have done one of two things:

1) They must be inciting harassment against your daughter. Criticism, insults, and other "mean" language does not violate the Terms of Service, but blatantly instructing others to email your daughter, or to go to her story and leave comments would.

2) They must provide personal information in such a way that an unconnected third party could identify your daughter in real life. Examples of this type of information would be a full name, a phone number, or a social security number.

Although the people who have participated in this entry are being needlessly cruel and hateful, at this time their posts have not met either of the criteria that would be necessary before we can take action. If you would like more information regarding the types of material that are permitted on LiveJournal, you may wish to review the FAQ located at http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid
=107.

I regret that it is not possible to have this material removed by filing a report of copyright infringement. This is because the material is not being reproduced on our servers; rather, it is being linked to. The Abuse Team is not able to take action against links to copyrighted material.

Again, I encourage you to attempt to work with the community's maintainers to resolve this matter. If you feel that you are unable to contact them via the entry that is linked to in the community's userinfo, you may wish to try contacting them through their email addresses. If the maintainers' accounts are paid, you can contact them through their livejournal.com email addresses. Instructions for how to do this can be found in the FAQ located at http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid
=113 . You may also wish to check their individual userinfo pages for alternate contact information.

I apologize that we are unable to assist you further in this matter. If you have any further questions, or if you feel that there are violations of the Terms of Service present that fit the criteria I have described above, I encourage you to write in again. If you wish, you may mark any future requests as "attn: Zoe" and I will assist you as soon as I am able.

Regards,
Zoe
LiveJournal Abuse Team

END QUOTED TEXT 

I have now contacted Six Apart, their owner and complained again that the are not enforcing their Terms of Service. It is unbelievable to think that such material is appropriate. I have asked politely for them to remove it and they refuse to do so. The information I learned about their track record with pedophiles is only the icing on the cake to see how unscrupulous Six Apart and LiveJournal are. Clearly these guys are just out to make money--they are currently selling 'permanent' accounts for $150!

Does anyone have any idea how I can fight this? I want the entry with my daugther removed and I want the company to take some responsibility for what their members do on their service.