InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "pie!"

cynesthesia (cynesthesia) wrote,
@ 2008-03-19 15:40:00

Current mood:	rushed
Entry tags:	lj

one day boycott of LJ
UPDATED 2: "darkrosetiger" at LJ has a rough translation from Russian of an interview with Sup's Anton Nosik. She also links to a less inflammatory translation here. Even with the difference, and a quick read, I find Nosik to be more than a little dismissive.

UPDATED: With link to original boycott post.

Crossposted as is from LJ and a hat tip to "dargie" at LJ for letting me know about this.

On Friday, March 21, from midnight to midnight GMT, there's a one day LJ boycott. Which for me works out to 5 p.m. Thursday to 5 p.m. Friday allowing for PDT.

I don't know that even if LJ takes note they would care and I'm a little skeptical if one day will make a difference or how the effectiveness will be measured. Not posting isn't going to work if people still reply to comments, etc. A page click is still going to be site traffic.

That said, I'm still going to honor the boycott and anything of pith I might think of to say will be posted at InsaneJournal, Some Velvet Morning where I'm pretty much crossposting everything these days anyway and pouting because I don't see many people there.

Also, "stewardess" at InsaneJournal has been noting some interesting omissions/removals in what LiveJournal was listing as top interests and did a bit of digging via caches. E.g. at one point "fanfiction" was disappeared as a top interest but "slash" remained, probably because they didn't know wtf it meant. Check out her timeline post. As of Monday, March 17, the top interests appeared to be back to what they had been previously. There's been lots of not so tinfoil-y speculation in the past about LJ's wish to have a clean shiny market to present to advertisers, so this tinkering could be related to that.

(Post a new comment)

dkmnow
2008-03-19 11:52 pm UTC (link)

Every little bit helps. It may not change things at VileJournal, but it's a pretty simple matter for people to stop rewarding that kind of corporate behavior. And that DOES make a difference, however small, in the world at large. In this case, people have to realize that it's not enough to stop generating content for them. Every time someone posts a link here to some VJ content, it generates more advertising revenue for the scumbags.

As for me, I deleted the last of my accounts three months ago, and I can scarcely bring myself to read ANY blog entry there, even from people who I value very highly (and there are a lot of them). It's been a tough ongoing choice to spurn VileJournal altogether, but just like refusing to shop at Mal-Wart, it's one more tiny way among countless others in which I can do my part.

Now, as far as this "strike" goes, I'd expect to see thousands of posts and comments that amount to "Hey, everybody, look at meeeee 'On Srike'! Seeee, this is me not posting! Watch me now ... see? SEEEEE? Ain't I kewl and edgy and all activismist like! YAAAY!"

For those who take it somewhat seriously, it will take an Herculean act of will NOT to (foolishly) log in just to post comments mocking the stupid for missing the point ...

:-p

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	dkmnow 2008-03-20 12:01 am UTC (link)
	Errrm ... I didn't realize you were posting links back to VJ. My line about linking was NOT intended as a hidden/drive-by cheap-shot. I despise that kind of passive aggressive crap. Sorry. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

cynesthesia
2008-03-20 12:32 am UTC (link)

That's fine. I didn't take it that way at all. And it's a reminder to me how much I'm still enmeshed with the place. There's another site (unrelated to LJ) I've been trying to avoid giving any site traffic and I get peeved when people link there without telling me and I end up doing the same thing here. Damn.

I don't want to reward them either and I think the cold turkey date is looming for me. It can take me a few false starts, but there are companies I've been avoiding for years and it gets easier as time goes on. Just wish I could persuade some friends who actually have IJ accounts to use them instead of LJ being the path of least resistance.

Only a prolonged hit to site traffic would have any hope of budging LJ/Sup and by that time everyone would have gone elsewhere anyway.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

dkmnow
2008-03-20 02:05 am UTC (link)

I understand. It took a solid year for LJ to finally piss me all the way off. And I had already gone through something similar with MySpace.

Actually, that was quite a bit more abrupt and unambiguous in the way it happened. MySpace sold out to Rupert Murdoch, and like ripping off a band-aid, it was instantly clear to me that I could not, with any shred of conscience, generate a single fraction of a cent more for that sonofabitch ... and yet, it still took me several months to finally commit to pulling the plug. Suckage. :-(

(Reply to this) (Parent)