Incoming!

[elf]

LJ's Russian overlords have changed the TOS - and the new official version is only in Russian. The short synopsis: They're making a lot of changes tied into Russian law about online content. Adult content ratings, liability for comments on your blog, etc. Oh, and they've hyped up the advertising.

Lots of people talking about backing up their journals and moving to DW; some are going to IJ. Many journal deletions and lockdowns.

So, new people... welcome? DW has been slow but it's very friendly, and it's run by fannish people who want us to enjoy our time here.

Comments

[franklanguage]

Russia has no freedom-of-speech nor privacy rights.

Oh, just like the US.

[elf]

Ok, unlike the US, Russian has no freedom-of-speech or privacy laws. Whether we get the rights allocated to us by law, depends on authoritative whim tempered by judicial reach.

The point is, we supposedly have a great many rights to speech in the US. We're technically, legally, allowed to say things the gov't doesn't like. We're allowed to say things that cost businesses money. We're allowed to openly advocate for changing laws, and we're allowed to insult other people as long as it doesn't cross the line into defamation. The US also has a very limited definition of "obscenity;" most things that most people would call "pornographic" are not legally obscene. Russia has very different laws about those areas.

[dantesspirit]

We do have Freedom of Speech. That's called the First Amendment.

What we do not have is freedom from the consequences of our speech.

Russia does not have even a modicum of *that*.

We also have more privacy than Russia. In most states, what you do in the privacy of your bedroom is your business. You legally cannot be discrimanated against, based on race, religion or sexual orientation- though a few states are trying really hard to make that legal. In Russia, your sexual orientation *has* to be male-female, or it's illegal. Period. No ifs, ands or buts. You can be arrested and thrown in prison if you are LGBTQ+ there.

Here, you also get to criticize our government. Heck, you can even make threats against a former president, hang him in effigy, and though it is technically agaisnt the law, you are allowed to do it.

In Russia, if you even post something the government believes is dissenting, you could be charged as a criminal. That's what so many Russian, Ukrainian, etc, bloggers liked LJ. It wasn't *in* Russia, they could speak their minds, they could speak out against Putin. Now, they cannot, for fear of being made to 'disappear'.

So yes, you do have more rights here than you would in Russia. Be thankful for that.