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In the past there was a news about Paypal banning Dreamwidth. Not sure if its related: "About six months after opening, PayPal -- our payment processor at the

In the past there was a news about Paypal banning Dreamwidth. Not sure if its related: "About six months after opening, PayPal -- our payment processor at the time -- demanded that we censor some of our users' content (mostly involving people talking about sex, usually fictionally, in explicit terms) that was legal and protected speech but that they felt violated their terms for using PayPal." HN discussion on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15099761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15099761

goatinaboat 6y ago
demanded that we censor some of our users' content (mostly involving people talking about sex, usually fictionally, in explicit terms Livejournal was a hotbed of dubious fanfic (shall we say) in which one or more characters was underage. Maybe such a thing is technically not illegal but even so, many left that platform once it started to develop a reputation for it. Then it went bust and was sold to a Russian company, it is still used for normal blogging in Russia.
- leereeves 6y ago
  > Dreamwidth [is] what's known as a "code fork" of LiveJournal: the software that runs LiveJournal was free and open source software, licensed under the GNU GPL, which meant anyone could copy it and improve it. Sounds like Dreamwidth is an entirely different site from Livejournal, it just uses the same open source code. How does dubious fanfic on Livejournal relate to the banning of Dreamwidth? If that fanfic migrated to Dreamwidth, why not just say there was dubious fanfic on Dreamwidth?
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Many users migrated wholesale.
    - jimhefferon 6y ago
      From Livejournal to Dreamwidth? Did they bring the dubious content with them?
      - dsr_ 6y ago
        Not CP.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
scarface74 6y ago
“Protected Speech” means that the government can’t censor it, not private corporations.
- peroporque 6y ago
  That's not the point. The point is: do you want to live in a world where a handful of authoritarian corporations decide, what you can publicly say and what not?
- Vinnl 6y ago
  The quote doesn't seem to dispute that?
- spacebear 6y ago
  In 2020, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Cloudflare are bigger gatekeepers of free speech than any government.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    any government? Tell that to people who live in China, N. Korea, or any country controlled by a theocracy. Even in the US some states ban doctors from talking about abortion and/or force doctors to give women seeking an abortion false information.
    - spacebear 6y ago
      Yes, any government when you account for overall reach. Just because some governments have censored more content to date, doesn’t mean they’re more powerful than the US tech monopolies. If a link can’t be shared on Facebook, Google, or Twitter, it may as well not exist in most of the world.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        Well those governments are “more powerful” because they can jail their citizens and kill them. The threat of death has an amazing ability to keep people quiet. Heck when you can literally close off entire markets, private corporations censor themselves.
auganov 6y ago
Seems like nowadays, to grow a user-driven content/social site you just have to be backed by a big player or grow extremely fast to be too big to censor. Or pick a category that somehow totally flies under the radar.

goatinaboat 6y ago

demanded that we censor some of our users' content (mostly involving people talking about sex, usually fictionally, in explicit terms Livejournal was a hotbed of dubious fanfic (shall we say) in which one or more characters was underage. Maybe such a thing is technically not illegal but even so, many left that platform once it started to develop a reputation for it. Then it went bust and was sold to a Russian company, it is still used for normal blogging in Russia.

leereeves 6y ago
> Dreamwidth [is] what's known as a "code fork" of LiveJournal: the software that runs LiveJournal was free and open source software, licensed under the GNU GPL, which meant anyone could copy it and improve it. Sounds like Dreamwidth is an entirely different site from Livejournal, it just uses the same open source code. How does dubious fanfic on Livejournal relate to the banning of Dreamwidth? If that fanfic migrated to Dreamwidth, why not just say there was dubious fanfic on Dreamwidth?
- pjc50 6y ago
  Many users migrated wholesale.
  - jimhefferon 6y ago
    From Livejournal to Dreamwidth? Did they bring the dubious content with them?
    - dsr_ 6y ago
      Not CP.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

scarface74 6y ago

“Protected Speech” means that the government can’t censor it, not private corporations.

peroporque 6y ago
That's not the point. The point is: do you want to live in a world where a handful of authoritarian corporations decide, what you can publicly say and what not?
Vinnl 6y ago
The quote doesn't seem to dispute that?
spacebear 6y ago
In 2020, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Cloudflare are bigger gatekeepers of free speech than any government.
- scarface74 6y ago
  any government? Tell that to people who live in China, N. Korea, or any country controlled by a theocracy. Even in the US some states ban doctors from talking about abortion and/or force doctors to give women seeking an abortion false information.
  - spacebear 6y ago
    Yes, any government when you account for overall reach. Just because some governments have censored more content to date, doesn’t mean they’re more powerful than the US tech monopolies. If a link can’t be shared on Facebook, Google, or Twitter, it may as well not exist in most of the world.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Well those governments are “more powerful” because they can jail their citizens and kill them. The threat of death has an amazing ability to keep people quiet. Heck when you can literally close off entire markets, private corporations censor themselves.

auganov 6y ago

Seems like nowadays, to grow a user-driven content/social site you just have to be backed by a big player or grow extremely fast to be too big to censor. Or pick a category that somehow totally flies under the radar.