Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Finally deleted my LiveJournal

Mon, 18 Mar 2019 16:54:19 GMT

I have deleted my LiveJournal, finally. No actual information should be lost: I told it not to delete my comments on other people's journals, or my community entries. (I should probably go back and delete the "redbird's test" account as well.)

I've been meaning to do this for months; finally doing it was prompted, oddly, by the news that Myspace has "lost" all data from before 2016. And that led me to thinking, briefly, about the solidity or otherwise of websites, and reminded me that I didn't want my entries over there, (Also, I don't trust the current owners of LJ enough to trust them as backup for this online version of my life.)

ETA: Now I am feeling accomplished, because I checked that off my to-do list, and saw two other things I have done that were still on there. That file is labeled "call this a to-do list" but it's not really serving as one, apparently,

comments

LJ automatic payment reversed

Mon, 24 Apr 2017 18:21:30 GMT

tl;dr They seem to have done the right thing.

I posted a couple of days ago about an automatic payment for another year of LiveJournal, which I had made numerous attempts to cancel right after they changed the terms of service.

This morning I got an email saying:

Since your scheduled payment has just happened, I was able to refund it for you as you've requested. Please note that it may take up to 10 business days for your bank to process the refund on their end. This process also removes your account from automatic payments.

They said it might take up to ten business days, so I will be paying close attention to my next two credit card statements, but they have done exactly what I asked them to do, rather than clinging to my fifteen dollars.

(cross-posting this because I cross-posted the previous, and narrative continuity is useful.)

comments

donation to the Russian LGBT network

Fri, 14 Apr 2017 23:31:49 GMT

As denise suggested at the beginning of this Dreamwidth news post, I have donated to the Russian LGBT Network, to help gay men who are being detained and tortured in Chechnya. That link is for donations from inside Russia; those of us in the rest of the world can donate via All Out.

Specifically, this is what I have done with the $20 that I won't be spending for another year of paid LiveJournal time; I had already decided it should go to some LGBT cause, and this one seemed particularly appropriate.

Yes, I am cross-posting this entry to LJ. Right now, posts on LGBT and other political topics are most likely to be cross-posted, along with DW and LJ meta. If that gets this account removed, so be it.

comments

Hello, LJ friends

Wed, 05 Apr 2017 12:32:09 GMT

If we know each other from LiveJournal, please comment here so I can find you. If you have a different username here, something like "I was exampleusername on LJ" would be helpful. If you know me from (for example) theladiesloos, or from a mutual friend's comment section, that bit of context would be useful.

ETA:

I stopped cross-posting to LJ sometime in the last few months, and just realized (on 19 November 2017) I hadn't said so here or there. If you're still there and would like me to re-add your LJ account to my access list, please say so.\

Memo to self, take a look at my filters and who should be in which.

comments

This may be my goodbye to Livejournal

Tue, 04 Apr 2017 20:48:50 GMT

The owners of LJ have changed their terms of service again, and from what I can see I am not happy (the things I can see include that there is no official/binding version of the TOS in a language I can read, only in Russian), and that users aren't supposed to post anything that would count as either political or pornographic by Russian law.

I suspect that my user bio on LJ, let alone some of my entries, qualifies as one or the other, since I'm openly bisexual.

They're also changing where they put advertising, and I think claiming greater rights to republish material. (I've been sort-of reading about this along with dealing with other things, including calling the governor's office about a bill that I think Putin would dislike.)

I'm not deleting anything immediately, in part because I assume SUP already have it all backed up on a server in Russia, but this may be the last cross-posted entry; in any case, anything friends-only/filtered is likely to be Dreamwidth-only from now on.

If you're on my friendslist on LJ, please tell me your DW username so I can add you here.

ETA: The cross-post failed, and my current attempt to make a similar post directly over there, and update my profile, failed; the status page says LJ is undergoing "planned" maintenance right now.

comments

LJ, DW, etc.

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 15:32:55 GMT

I hadn't realized the Dreamwidth importer would import comments on existing entries; I have just asked it to do that, and will try to remember to do so at least once a month.

My current plan is to keep cross-posting a lot of things from DW to Livejournal, but probably not all the friends-locked/filtered posts. This is an attempt to balance between wanting to keep up with my friends who are only on LJ, and having something vaguely resembling information security.

comments

If you're posting on LJ, they must keep records for the Russian government

Thu, 08 May 2014 23:21:10 GMT

Under a new law, any large Russian blogging platform must keep records in Russia of everything published for the last six months. I would assume that this includes deleted posts or comments.

LiveJournal is definitely large enough to be covered by this, and I suspect it was written specifically with LJ in mind.

The law also bans bloggers from being anonymous; I don't know where that leaves people who haven't given LJ wallet names, traceable email addresses, etc.

If you aren't in or planning to visit Russia, this probably won't make much difference to you; I assume that the NSA, the British government, and so on can already get their hands on most of this if they want it.

comments

LJ bugs/security stuff

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 01:34:16 GMT

LJ staff are claiming to have fixed the bug in their new release that was showing some users other people's locked entries.

However, they are referring to the problem has having lasted 3 minutes, when reports were for at least 24 hours, and saying it was not a security problem. This is not most users' idea of "not a security problem"; at best, it's a less serious problem than if people had also been able to edit or delete random other people's entries. (People also seem unhappy about some of the things that this new release is doing by design.)

comments