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.
For my first post, I am using this blog to warn other parents of two very dangerous "networking" websites. I'm sure you know about MySpace, but two others that I have discovered while keeping an eye on my children online are:
www.livejournal.com There are many users on this site who list questionable things as their "interests" and there are communities where child-stalkers gather. The Abuse Team (which is a joke) allows just about anything content wise as long as it is listed as "fiction." So, if you'd like to write a pornographic story about a man and little girl, just say it's fiction and you're fine...no matter that it is attracting other deviants!
I have recently written to Livejournal about the harassment of my special needs daughter. We will see what they do about that...though, judging from the content they allow on their site (which is in violation of their own Terms of Service) I doubt nothing will happen.
www.journalfen.net This place is worse than Livejournal. My eldest daughter told me "if it gets kicked off LJ it goes there, Daddy." Journalfen, unlike Livejournal, does not publicize their corporate information so there is really no way to get in touch with the people there. In viewing their site I have seen some disgusting and un-Godly images and text. Journalfen claims on their Terms of Service that "anything goes because you have to be 18 to be here."
Another word of advice to parents:
If you see your child looking for "chan" that means stories and art about a children having sex. I have seen it used most often in the Harry Potter "fandom." The two net-filtering services we have did not automatically block it.
Please let me know if you find this information helpful. I have been compiling information on internet safety for sometime now and I will supply more if asked.
