forthwritten (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
forthwritten) wrote2009-05-03 10:17 pm
forthwritten) wrote2009-05-03 10:17 pm
Entry tags:
disability; advertising
Ads by anti gay marriage organisations have appeared on LiveJournal. There is more at this post in unfunnybusiness and fairestcat has more analysis of why you should care even if you don't personally see ads. And, of course, an alternative view of LJ's role in it. LJ is taking prompt action to get this ad off.
It was Blogging Against Disablism Day yesterday.trouble has two round-ups (set 1, set 2) and a and a post about disability in Torchwood. I also liked lindra's post about deafness and intersectionality and aedh's post about why "I don't think of you as disabled" means denying hir experience.
Going on about Dreamwidth/LiveJournal: this is a really detailed guide to LJ history and controversies and I likeliv's "why Dreamwidth?" post. Personally, I'll be reading my friendslist on LJ but I'd rather direct comments to my DW account so they're all in one place.
Anyway, yesterday was French Paul's French night, then a group of us went into town and ended up in Popworld. What happens in Popworld stays in Popworld, but why oh why have I not yet learnt that red wine and Corona is a horrible combination? Today I have been enthusiastically aided in procrastination by the chaplaincy and had some good conversations with people (I thought one of them was a nice boy; turns out he's heard of encyclopaedia dramatica) including reminiscing about the internet during dial-up. I have also been consuming epic amounts of caffeine and have a small fanclub in the chaplaincy because I can work the coffee machine (seriously people - water, filter, ground coffee, it's not hard but your adoration and blatant caffeine addiction is endearing).
Also, I have two Dreamwidth invites. I'll need an email address so I can send it; if you'd rather pm/email me with your email address that's cool. I'd rather give codes to people who'd like to use the service.
fairestcat has more analysis of why you should care even if you don't personally see ads. And, of course, an alternative view of LJ's role in it. LJ is taking prompt action to get this ad off.It was Blogging Against Disablism Day yesterday.
trouble has two round-ups (set 1, set 2) and a and a post about disability in Torchwood. I also liked lindra's post about deafness and intersectionality and aedh's post about why "I don't think of you as disabled" means denying hir experience.Going on about Dreamwidth/LiveJournal: this is a really detailed guide to LJ history and controversies and I like
liv's "why Dreamwidth?" post. Personally, I'll be reading my friendslist on LJ but I'd rather direct comments to my DW account so they're all in one place.Anyway, yesterday was French Paul's French night, then a group of us went into town and ended up in Popworld. What happens in Popworld stays in Popworld, but why oh why have I not yet learnt that red wine and Corona is a horrible combination? Today I have been enthusiastically aided in procrastination by the chaplaincy and had some good conversations with people (I thought one of them was a nice boy; turns out he's heard of encyclopaedia dramatica) including reminiscing about the internet during dial-up. I have also been consuming epic amounts of caffeine and have a small fanclub in the chaplaincy because I can work the coffee machine (seriously people - water, filter, ground coffee, it's not hard but your adoration and blatant caffeine addiction is endearing).
Also, I have two Dreamwidth invites. I'll need an email address so I can send it; if you'd rather pm/email me with your email address that's cool. I'd rather give codes to people who'd like to use the service.
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By the way, I'm sorry if I've come across as scathing about the Dreamwidth project; my permanent account shields me from this kind of nastiness on LJ, and I do honestly think that it is a brave and needed project to create a social networking site without evil ads like that. Dreamwidth doesn't answer any particular needs of mine, but that doesn't mean that I don't admire the project, nor you for being so engaged with it. x
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I have a permanent account on LJ too so I don't see ads either, but it makes me uncomfortable that a free or unregistered user could be seeing ads for things I could never condone associated with my content - if not on my journal itself, then on posts I make to communities, or on comments I make on free users' journals. My journal is a personal space and I feel differently about it than I do about email (I use gmail after all) which is a bit inconsistent. I just don't think that advertising in its current form works with social networking sites.
And I think you should stick with the site that best serves your needs, that's an entirely understandable and valid reason x
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I literally LOLed.
I've been sitting staring at this stuff about the lj ads for quite a while now, reading through the links, and trying to articulate why in the end I'm feeling like I can't ask any more of lj than that (as far as I can see) they're taking honest steps to get the ads down and that they don't want them there (I understand and actually on an abstract level agree with the argument that lj has the right to show those ads, I'm just also perfectly secure in my belief that I have the right to tell them to go fuck themselves with whatever means are within my power if they do). Why I was satisfied with the explanation that lj were only indirectly responsible, the fact that they've made their opinions clear on the subject and the fact that they seem to have been pretty sharpish about responding to the complaints.
I read your comments here, and the comments on fairestcat's posts, and things from darkrose and telesilla on the unfunnybusiness post about how unfair and problematic it is that the site is consistently associating user content with things that they didn't ask for and may very definitely Do Not Want - and it was really eye-opening. I'd never thought about it from that perspective before; I'd never really thought about the potential problems with ads at all before, tbh. I think it's probably because I don't think of my journal as a personal space, not really (I think that's also one of the reasons that while I respect dreamwidth's circle policy, it doesn't really strike any chords or bring about any epiphanies in me; I've never thought of my journal as anything other than a meeting place, really). But this whole thing has given me a lot of food for thought that tbh, is only tangentially related to my initial distaste with the ad (because fuck, it's a particularly vile and insidious one, ugh - but that's kind of a no-brainer, really), and that really, I'm too utterly knackered to be able to think or talk clearly about right now.
I do sort of wish my fandom was heading dreamwidth-wards. But it's not, and what good's a social networking site if your social network's not on it? The fact that I'm therefore drawn towards sticking with lj makes me reflect on how many compromises I end up making on things like this, how often, and what that says about the nature of the moment I'm living in and the structures it's made up of.
If any of this makes sense when I read it over tomorrow morning it will be a miracle. I have been awake since 5am, sob.
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I think that, if you're letting a third party look after your advertising, incidents like this are *going* to happen. There's no good way to filter content - they use keywords, so a post with the keywords "gay marriage" will get matched to adverts keyed with "gay marriage". There's not really a good way to match stances or target ads further.
I am pleased with LJ's response, but while they've stopped this particular ad being shown, there's still the potential for "hot asian chix" ads being shown on posts talking about being Asian (yep, this happened) or ladyboy ads being shown on posts discussing transgender issues (yep, this also happened). This sort of thing is implicit in the advertising model - they can respond to it promptly and appropriately, but the potential for it happening again exists.
I'm not sure how I perceive my journal - partly a meeting place, partly a series of essays, partly a place to facilitate discussions. It's personal in the sense that I set the boundaries of behaviour I'm willing to tolerate there. While ads aren't shown on my journal, they would be shown if I comment on a free/plus journal or community, and in some of those cases I think there's an issue - for example, if a community promotes itself as a safe space for LGBT people then has adverts associated with aimed-at-straight-men lesbian and/or transgender porn I think that undermines what the community's trying to achieve.
So yes, I'm unhappy with advertising and I'd rather support something that isn't funded by advertising. I do understand the nature of social networking sites though, and the compromises you have to make (did I miss out because I refuse to engage with myspace? possibly on music, given how much it's used to publicise and disseminate new music).
Sorry to hear about the crappy sleeping, we'll meet up this week and do fun stuff okay? Also sorry for not responding before, I sent a draft chapter off to my supervisor yesterday and...yeah.
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