An Issue Of Freedom Of Speech

[poliphilo]

 Listen folks, this is not the time to quit LJ.

This article  explains what is going on.  LJ is the main platform for free speech in Russia, the hackers are trying to take it down. If we withdraw our custom we're doing exactly what the bad guys want.

Hang on in there. 

Comments

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Totally. The attacks make me feel all patriotic and defensive about my beloved LJ. Hanging on in here is political defiance! Also, rebellion against the tyranny of Twitter.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. LJ is special. We need to defend it.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Not that I'm posting a lot at the moment, but this isn't the time to up sticks and leave.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We must stand firm.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Solidarity, Comrades! I'm hoping we are helping to support democracy.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Non passeran!

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Yes. This.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

They shall not pass!

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

I must admit i was getting quite frustrated and almost considered moving to another blog site but i love LJ too much to really walk away. I hope that we now have uninterupted blogging.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's been annoying. I wrote a piece yesterday and had to wait till this morning to post it, but that's a small inconvenience considering what's at stake.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I was saying much the same thing at much the same time - but I've gone back and edited in your link. Thanks for that.

I wonder why it hasn't received press coverage in this country - it seems like a real story.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

LJ seems to fly below the radar of the western media- which is a shame.

[ron-broxted.livejournal.com]

I quasi-agree with you but this is the 2nd time. A blog site is for blogging not for spending hours trying to log on. I'd miss the regulars here but ponder on whether it is worth staying. I have private posts what if these are hacked?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The answer is to use other sites as back-up, I suppose. Dreamwidth for instance.

Is there any site that's entirely safe from hacking?

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Thank you Tony!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love LJ. I really don't want it to fail.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I find it bizarre to contemplate that the political upheaval in another country has a direct effect on whether I can afford to send my daughter to summer camp another week. :,

Nevertheless, it is plain to me that Dreamwidth isn't ready for the traffic LJ is accustomed to fielding, and I am not fond of platforms without threaded comments (as describes most blogging sites), so... here I remain.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Everything connects to everything else- that's what the Web is` all about, I guess.

LJ is special- not as popular as it once was (in the West anyway)- but special. I don't have a presence anywhere else. If LJ were to go down, I'd go down with it.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the explanation. I've been periodically exporting to Dreamwidth and I'm also crossposting from there right now. But I won't abandon LJ now that I understand what's behind all this.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Good. We don't know who the hackers are, but it's enough for me that they're trying to curb free speech; that makes them "the enemy".

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

One of the complaints I've seen have been that this sort of thing only started to happen once LJ was sold to a Russian company. Some folks still harbor bad feelings from that, and they feel this sort of thing just confirms their fears that the platform is going down as a result of the sale. Whatever loyalty they felt to LJ had been fading since then.

My tie to LJ is the interesting blogs that are still active here, like yours. I started blogging in my own domain when they originally had allowed sharing to other social networks even from protected posts; I was tired of privacy changes without my consent and decided to move to a blogging platform that was entirely under my own control. The sale to the Russian company left me feeling a bit uneasy, too, so I carefully backed up my LJ a long time ago. Once the LJs that interest me are gone, I will be, too.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

LJ was big in Russia before it passed into Russian hands. I suspect we'd be having this trouble even if the owners were still American. I like LJ for its unique blend of blogging and social networking. I don't use Facebook or Twitter; they just don't offer me anything I want.

[dadi.livejournal.com]

You are perfectly right. I was about to post something about this too. The article is from last time this happened, I have been following one of the main "targets" of these attacks on LJ since then: http://navalny.livejournal.com/ . google translator does a passable enough job to understand what he is writing about. I have commented also today on his entry that the attack on LJ is having the effect of making more people outside Russia aware of what is happening there.. even people who would not habitually follow politics. We will continue to support them, at least ideally!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's a very good point. Most of us would be completely unaware of navalny etc were it not for the hackers.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Yes. A million times...yes.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yup. The last DDoS attack was the first time I felt genuinely proud to be on LJ. And I feel that way again, too.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. We belong to something that someone considers worth attacking.

[algabal.livejournal.com]

The fact that LJ is still so popular in one major country also shows there's nothing wrong with its basic model or featureset.

The shifting tides of popularity have as much to do with fadishness as anything else.

Posts with custom privacy on FailBook? Wow! Amazing! Actually, I've had that on LJ for years. If only more people used it...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

LJ gives me exactly what I want from this sort of site. I've never bothered with any of the others.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Hanging in, Tony! Much as I like Face Book, they don't allow me enough space to write some of the longer posts I have entered in Live Journal in the past. Although I have hit a temporary writers block I fully expect to be writing in my journal again -- and it will be Live Journal when I do.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I back up my LJ entries by copying them out onto a flash drive. I do this every six months or so. The reason? About a dozen years ago I was host on a MyFamily.com page. We had great participation from all of my relatives close or distant who were on line. Suddenly the site went down, and so did our posts - and all the photos everyone had shared. I also save great posts from LJ friends on the flash drive. Every so often I boot up the flash drive and review my years on LJ. I treasure these posts, yours and mine, and would really hate to lose them.

[amritarosa.livejournal.com]

I'm still here because I do really still like it. A lot better than facebook and/or google+. and/or whatever the next social media site the masses will be flocking to next.

I like my high-quality, low-volume friends list here :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. There's very little silliness on LJ.