How The Яussians Finally Confiscated My LiveJournal

[penpusher]

During my time at LiveJournal I had quite a few unique accounts. In addition to my main "penpusher" account, there were a couple of accounts for an RPG I was a participant in, an account dedicated exclusively to writing, one for posting photographs, one for interviewing LJ users and even a couple of communities, one for TV trivia, another for a group I considered too young to be true Baby Boomers/too old to be Generation X.

But there was even another LJ I had where I would wax philosophical on media for the small screen. I wanted to get access to that journal and I couldn't because the email attached to it was deleted.

I made the mistake of asking the automatons of LJ if there was any way of resetting this and I made the bigger mistake of using my penpusher ID as the contact for the Inquiry. At least I got a confirmation email that they received my query.

I went to check on the status of my request. I attempted to log in as penpusher and it said my account was out of date and needed to be updated. Okay. Great. This is LJ Tech having a laugh. I requested an update sent to my email to reset my penpusher journal, too.

When it never came, I tried again, this time typing my email address into the box. When I sent that, I instantly got a message:

Error

You never used that email address with this account or it was never validated.

What?

The email address was ljpenpusher at gmail! It literally was the email attached to that account for NINETEEN years.

Essentially, I now have no access to ANY LJ I ever created.

Consider this a warning. They could do exactly the same thing to you, assuming you still hold or still care about an LJ account.

Comments

[adoptedwriter]

I would ditch LJ but as long as Gary still does LJ Idol games, I may need to keep it alive.

[kizzy]

I remember there was a period where they were purging what they considered to be abandoned accounts. Maybe the one you were attempting to access fell under that? I know a few of my DW-only friends found out similar re their LJ accounts so like you they migrated here and here they remain without a mirrored LJ.

One of the reasons why I remain active there besides Idol is so I won't lose my xokizzyxo account even though I'm mirroring it here.

[penpusher]

I really don't know what the Russians are doing, tbh. What is the point?

Purchasing LJ was, for them, a method of effectively quashing revolutionary concepts and rooting out information from their Russian and neighboring citizenry. Because SixApart tanked on what to do with the platform, they were only too happy to sell the whole thing to Russia. On this point alone, I might argue that we as freedom supporters from the West should have left the platform en masse, when we discovered it.

But who knows what else they are doing? We still haven't come to grips with that massive US Government hack we learned about at the end of trump's term. Clearly the US is being targeted by Russia in many ways. Why wouldn't they use every resource they have? Knowing what we know, of course they would.

The Russians will never sell LJ. It is a Russian asset, forever. This must be remembered.

[penpusher]

Gary's influence is almost un-American!

[kizzy]

Well, they successfully chased out the political protestors who used LJ as their platform back when they first acquired it. Most, if not all of them are now gone. It's a pity because they also swept up those who never whispered a political word. I used to follow a bunch of journal designers/artists and their work was magnificent. None of them are there now.

I think the overall feeling is "Why would they be interested in the ramblings of a veteran X year old LJer who has absolutely nothing to say that could be construed as opposition to the Powers That Be?" That's my basic mindset too. I think, too, that because there's little to no community here, what little community existing is still over there, so there's another reason to keep the LJ account active.

[penpusher]

Obviously, when the designers and artists realized the people running ZheZhe were "eliminating" "opposition," the people of that area left the platform.

To answer the question of "why would they, a government intent on knowing about and controlling their citizens, be interested in the ramblings of a veteran X year old LJer who has absolutely nothing to say that could be construed as opposition to the Powers That Be?"

You. Don't. Know. Why.

When gathering information about people, who knows what is trash or what is treasure? When looking to learn more about your rival, why not explore everything you have?

And they have LiveJournal.

While I understand that, from a logical standpoint, you have nothing to fear when it comes to a Russian government disrupting your little blog, logic does not factor into war. And, based on the actions Russia has used against the United States, we have been and continue to be a target for them.

I guess what I don't understand is how any American can know LJ chased away those people fighting for freedom in Russia and feel comfortable continuing to post there. Everyone keeps parroting the "nothing is going on here" line. But you have to remember, the active part of LJ is the Western part.

And they're not discontinuing the service.

And they're not saying anything.

And they're making everything appear as business as usual.

How do you trust an atmosphere like that? The Russians own your LJ. They want the community to continue there. It benefits them. Who knows what they're learning, or what they want to learn? Point being, they WANT western people to continue to use the service because that will keep the community they can monitor, alive.

It's like Coronavirus, in a way. If no one is there, no one can be affected. But if people are interacting, who knows what might happen?

Just on the point that you don't know a single name of a single person in charge of running LiveJournal, it's a sketchy place to be. The crucial entries I previously wrote on this topic are these:

The NEW LiveJournal TOS - https://penpusher.dreamwidth.org/745277.html

And

Frank The Goat Speaks Truth to Power - https://penpusher.dreamwidth.org/756075.html


The complacency is how a molehill becomes a mountain.

[kizzy]

I remembered both those links after rereading them. Does that count for anything, LOL?

OK, so...

I've heard the ""you just don't know" argument from others before, and you're correct -- NOBODY knows except them. Ordinarily this is where I'd don my tin foil hat. I don't, though. I'm one of many who are exhausted from conspiracy theories involving them, our previous administration, LJ Idol, etc. We just want to post where people are more apt to read/respond and that isn't, and never has been DW. Disclaimer: I'm now seeing a tad more action here than there but it's not the same depth/breadth as it was even when LJ started shrinking. Plus long form blogging is definitely now out of vogue.

A ton of people came here because of the TOS. I remember finding a link to a translation of it, quaking a bit at the "we now own you" part, but agreeing to it anyway because I didn't want to lose LJ nor lose touch with the friends who have no other social media outlet. I have at least four, maybe five LJ friends who only post there still. They have no interest in mirroring here nor do Facebook or such. Say what you may about online friendships but these are people I've known since I started my LJ so they know most of my personal history and such. It's difficult to walk away from that.

And guess that's it, also -- we Westerners as a whole tend not to look into the political/social aspect of LJ ownership because we're already too invested in the personal aspect. Maybe that's considered a Russian asset? I have no idea. If it is, to what end? Again, I personally never think about that because there's NOTHING THERE to misconstrue myself. If that makes me complacent, then I'm as guilty as everyone else in my position.

Maybe in the greater scheme maybe LJ isn't as important to me as it once was so whatever I still post there holds little to no consequence other than a journal/diary. The fact that I mirror it here gives me a layer of protection in case LJ goes kablooey. I don't even think about the implications most of the time. I post here with a crosspost to there and that's it. Then I'll go over there to see what the LJ-only friends are doing.

[penpusher]

Many years ago, there was a movie called "The Poseidon Adventure." A New Year's cruise on a luxury ocean liner becomes a disaster when a tsunami flips the ship with its all-star cast.

About midway through the film, the characters we have been following encounter a second group. The people in this new group are determined to get to the main deck. The members of our group tell them, the ship is upside down and where they're going is underwater. But they insist that's where they need to go to be rescued.

That's how I feel discussing this with you.

As I stated in my entry LJ Idol X - Week [14] - L et's J ust D eal W ith... and this time I'll quote the pertinent part so you don't have to go to the post:

I have an idea. We could make Dreamwidth work. But it would take a drastic step. Here's the plan.

We have to make a pact.

We'd have to agree to go, to leave LiveJournal and we'd have to never look back because that's really the only way we could make it work. We'd have to drink this Kool-Aid together, all of us, or it won't happen.

If we all don't go, it will collapse, because we know that people stayed behind in the old place and the temptation to return would be too great. And once a few people started going back, then everyone would. And it would be over.

Doing this will not be easy. It's going to feel a little bit like killing a parent. After all, we all grew up with El Jay. It's like a constant, always there for us, ready to accept us as we were, to listen to what we had to say, to share our stories with people who cared about them. Now, we're talking about turning our back on it completely? This is a harsh choice.

But LiveJournal isn't that blog service any more. It's LiveJekyll and it feels like it's time to Hyde. Think about it. If you won't go now, with all that has happened already, what would it take to make you leave?

Yes, it's possible that everything will remain as it has. But when they migrated the servers to Russia, we were told that the "western" side of LiveJournal would remain its own entity, and we now know that is no longer true, as we all had to sign that Russian TOS to retain our journals. Who can say what other "adjustments" are on the way?

Okay. I mixed up a batch of Dreamwidth Drank. Here it is.

http://www.dreamwidth.org/

But, and I'm completely serious about this, we ALL have to drink it, and drink it freely, because we think it's the right choice to make. This isn't an ultimatum. You can still say no and ignore it all. Remain on LiveJournal until Vladimir gets tired of allowing it to exist.

But if you want to retain a blog community on a platform like LiveJournal and be free of whatever Russian influence is about to happen, think seriously about where we're going.

Here's where I have a different outlook about it now than I did four years ago. The Russians aren't going to shut LiveJournal down as I was suggesting. The benefit to them is having as many users continue on the platform as possible. Any info they can learn about the west is material they can use against us. Whether they're collecting passwords, monitoring the things we think are unpleasant in our lives, the media we consume, our political stances, any of that, all of that, everything you post is grist for that mill.

And you know they can see everything.

I'm not talking about using Dreamwidth as a lifeboat if something goes wrong with LiveJournal. No. That ship has sailed. We know what LiveJournal is, now. We're overdue to migrate to DW. AND anyone that doesn't completely exit that platform is only benefiting Putin and his henchmen.

THE END.

Hellloooooo.

[(Anonymous)]

I have no idea if you'll ever see this, but how do I get in touch with you? Can you send me your email address or your number, so I can text you? I thought of you the other day and decided to look you up, but do you know how many people with your name there are in this world? A lot. Anyway! I am mail (at) danie (dot!) nyc.

-D!