First Think, THEN Ink.

Back when I was interviewing LJ users for my little project I called talk_show, one of my interviewees was a guy named Ryan Estrada. He had just started drawing his "Frank the Goat" comic at that time, which was gaining popularity. Frank the Goat, if you didn't know, was the long time mascot of LiveJournal so having a comic based on the character was both a natural fit and a boon to both the site and the artist.

When the site was bought outright by the Russians, in the wake of the SixApart debacle, Estrada discontinued his comic, and I presume, like many, left the site. But more recently he came back and posted a new comic speaking directly to the issues of freedom of speech, of rights for LGBTQ members and supporters and of why a so-called long form blogging site has rules in place that do not permit opinions of specific sorts.

Thanks to tamar for calling my attention to this, even though it occurred in July, so a full season ago. Still, it's a topical take on what's happening around here and is worthy of consideration as we continue to move forward on a platform that feels like a raft made of very thick cardboard on a very troubled sea.

The article about Ryan's action is posted HERE, but here's the comic.



For the record, the comic above is still available on the frankthecomic account.


And if you want to go more in depth about this, there's the website listed at the bottom of the comic:

https://gimletmedia.com/episode/100-friends-blasphemers/

That allows you the choice of listening to a podcast or just reading the transcript to delve more deeply into this topic. Just to give you an overview of what this podcast/transcript is: they go into more detail about how Russia was angry about the criticism of their government by their own citizenry and by some in the west and how they actively sought to shut down the criticism by buying LiveJournal. It's a fascinating report and one that will send you reeling if you didn't know the details.

Still, for my sense about it, the facts are pretty clear: there is no "western" division of LiveJournal. Previously, there was a board that worked in concert with the Russian element. That hasn't been true in years, as far as I can tell, possibly dating back as far as when other talk_show interviewee marta, who acted as a liaison between the Non Cyrillic and Cyrillic sides, left her position with LJ, about 2011 or 12.

That all leads us to the inevitable questions: "what does it mean?" and "what does it matter?"

For the first question, keep in mind, if the folks running the Russian servers of LJ are determined to disallow us from making certain kinds of statements, they can. We signed their ToS and they have every right to shut us down without any notice and without any recourse. You have to know and understand that when you're examining this situation. Will they shut us down? It's unlikely, because they have other things far more important than the blog entries of some westerners that probably have nothing to do with them. But we know that when it came to the dissidents within their homeland, they definitely cracked down on those posts and perhaps used LJ as a method of locating the people responsible to bring them to "justice." We don't know all the details because we never will.

This, to me, is why I feel unsafe remaining on LiveJournal. No western influence, Russian servers and a proven track record of abuse based on their standards. Will everything remain the same? It might, but we can't, with any kind of certainty, say yes.

To the second question, the most accurate answer I can muster is it depends on what you're willing to accept. We have a documented record of what has already taken place. To simply ignore that record and continue as if nothing has happened? That seems very shortsighted.

Based on what we know about the history of how Russia views LiveJournal, we know two things:

1. The Russians will never let LiveJournal out of their control.

They see LJ as a potential threat to their power and will not release it to some other entity at any time. They worked very hard to get LJ and to prevent people from using it as a platform to air their grievances against the Russian government. There is no price that would permit anyone from buying it back now. LiveJournal, now and forever, is a Russian entity.

2. The Russians could literally pull the plug on LJ at any moment.

Granted, it doesn't seem imminent, nor is it likely to be, but there is nothing that states that, just as they arbitrarily threw up that ToS for all of us westerners to sign ten months ago, they won't just shut down and destroy LiveJournal if some Russian government figure thinks that would be the best choice.

I'm trying to envision a scenario where it makes sense to remain on LiveJournal, knowing these facts. If you think of any, let me know.