I have decided to go Friends Only again. After all Livejournal's bullshit I don't want any of their advertisers or prospective investors or whoever else up in my shit. If anyone wishes to read my entries without being on my flist, I have the same name on Insanejournal.

Awesome. Livejournal cocked everything up again. I've spent the whole weekend trying to catch up on the fallout and am just now up to speed. It's completely ridiculous.

Deleting journals, with no warning, for breaking rules that were NEVER SET and the "offenders" had no way of knowing about, is absolutely despicable. Not to mention that the artwork in question is not illegal under United States law, and to get around that, LJ claims it will be basing bans on work that has "no artistic merit." Meaning they're going to just delete things they don't like or approve of, whether or not it breaks any laws.

And in four days, they have not made one statement to the LJ community. Nothing at all. People are upset, angry, worried, and they refuse to speak to their customers - the ones who pay their salaries!

"I am not personally affected by the current situation, yet I still feel increasingly unhappy and unwelcome here. Although I don't have any interests that could be considered dodgy or engage in anything that might cause my journal to be shut down, I fundamentally disagree with the current and past actions of the 6A/LJ management.

It's not just this latest mess, it's a combination of everything that's happened since Six Apart took over - the gradual creeping introduction of ads; the false jokiness in official posts combined with an apparent disregard and contempt for the users; a fundamental misunderstanding of what LJ is; the way the breastfeeders and Russian users were treated; the utter mess of Strikethrough, the apparent inability to learn from their mistakes and the constant corporate doublespeak and backtracking.

It all just leaves an increasingly bad taste in my mouth.

I want to journal somewhere where the management is competent, approachable, accountable and consistent. Six Apart is none of these things and I no longer believe that they ever will be."

- fragiletender, because I agree with every word she says here.

I'm speaking out about this not as a member of fandom. I don't consume, create, or participate in fanfiction or fanart in any way. I discuss my favorite things, but only in terms of canon. I am just a regular person who uses her journal for regular everyday life and I'm disgusted with how LJ has been treating their customer base.

I know most of my friends here won't be leaving, mostly because they're not affected, but also because they're used to it, and (at least for now) it's the only place where you can have a free account without seeing ads. Some of you I know in real life, but some of you I only connect with through this place. And since most of the communities I go to won't be affected by this, I'm pretty much stuck.

But I'm never giving these people another dime of my money. I wish I could downgrade my account right now, but there's no way to do it. When my paid time is up, that's it. I will downgrade to Basic and leave it there. I'll be going back to Insane Journal and start a second blogging life there and see what kind of communities they've got going. For now I'll cross-post my entries, but I can see a point coming where my entries will consist of a link to my InsaneJournal.

I'm so angry I can't even see straight.