(no subject)

[kuangning]

Original Request:
LJ Abuse,

I have received a comment
(snipped at poster's request)
from user (removed to protect the guilty) threatening to come to my home and/or shoot me. I
should also note that he lives in the same city as me, so it carries more
severity than a simple blind threat.

Everything spawned from the fact that I removed his girlfriend from my
friends list, due to the fact that I wasn't wanting to read certain posts
by her anymore that were annoying me, well within my rights. Then they've
been posting things about me in their journals (although not necessarily
in an abusive nature, up until this point), he has been messaging me
on AIM, and as well, posting comments in my journal. I, on the other hand,
have not been posting comments to his journal and have tried to stay away
from it, as I think this whole thing is childish.

Then, I posted a journal entry the other night
(snipped at poster's request) to
blow off some steam. I mentioned no names and gave no other information
which would be linked to specific parties. Then, today came his comment
with accusations against me which had no merit and were completely
baseless. As well, the threats to kill and show up at my door.

I regret having to bother you with such things, but I definitely think
he's gone too far at this point. I believe that this sort of behavior is
contrary to the acceptable use of this community.

Answer
Posted: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 07:43:20 GMT (2 hours ago), credit fix here
Dear LiveJournal User,

Thank you for the report. If you are concerned about your physical safety, please inform your local authorities.

Regards,
LiveJournal Abuse Team

Disillusionment is watching a friend who distrusts the system take his complaint to the abuse team anyway and get not even the appearance of caring. Anger is hearing him argue for awhile that you're not to speak up on his behalf because he's afraid of retaliation. Disgust is knowing that the same people who suspended an account for "abuse" for comments that named no names and that were made in a consenting user's journal about a non-user now apparently don't consider a statement of "you will find yourself put out with a bullet in your head" abuse. Even then, I said the LJ abuse team was wonderful in most cases. I have to say that I'm being forced to reconsider those words.

Comments

[charles.livejournal.com]

• Livejournal is an insanely cheap service. The kind of storage and bandwidth you get here would cost an order of magnitude more on a professional web-host. To do this, they must cut corners, and one such corner is having volunteers fill a great deal of the support roles. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.


• If they tried to deal with something as serious as a death threat themselves, Livejournal would be open to serious litigation. Contacting meatspace authorities is the only appropriate and correct response.

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

I have to seriously agree with that second point (it's what I was going to say). Anything they said beyond that could be used against them in a court of law. IANAL, TANL, NIAFL.

Re:

[kuangning]

• Those same volunteers suspend accounts for less on a regular basis.
  
  
• They weren't being asked to deal with the death threat. He had already contacted the authorities. They were being asked to take action against one user who is clearly harassing another, and apply the ToS fairly. As far as I'm concerned, they failed miserably. I have no faith left in the system any longer. And that took quite a bit of doing.

[charles.livejournal.com]

If you expect fairness and consistency, you should never have had faith in it in the first place. Any system where a bunch of poorly-defined rules are "enforced" by volunteers with minimal oversight and no appeals process is going to be inconsistent, unfair, and occasionally plain stupid.

Re:

[kuangning]

Apparently. :P

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

I think they could have sounded a little less like an automated message service, but yeah.

Death threats by someone who knows where you are?

WAAAAAAAAY beyond what they can cope with.

Still think they should have deleted the account...

[kuangning]

That's it exactly. Can they make him safer? No. But they can deal with what -is- within their scope. As it is, he gets to sit back and laugh, knowing that he can keep doing this because he won't even get his journal suspended. How's that for fair?

[lothie.livejournal.com]

Well, they should have been a little less terse...but what could they do?? They can't do anything to this person. Suspending his/her account isn't going to make your friend any safer. He really DOES need to contact the authorities.

*hugs* I hope it all gets straightened out. I'm VERY sympathetic to this kind of crap -- I'm being "held for ransom" in a similar (though not the same exact type) situation myself.

[kuangning]

Reiterating from my response to Charles...

Of course they can't make him safer. But that's not what they were being asked to do. He had already contacted the authorities and, I believe, blocked the other means of contact. What they were being asked to do was apply the ToS fairly, which was and is well within their power. They suspend accounts for harrassment on a regular basis, yet this time, with clear-cut evidence, since this man went into my friend's journal to leave a death threat, suddenly their hands are tied? I can't make myself believe that for a single second.

[lothie.livejournal.com]

Oh, OK, I misunderstood -- I thought that he was expecting them to handle the death threat angle, not (simply) suspend the account.

Which, I agree, they should have done, definitely, but I'm NOT surprised. I know of a very similar case, and it took death threats from the person toward SEVERAL people, and police action, befor LJ Abuse would do their thing.

Re:

[kuangning]

*wrysmile.* I was surprised, unfortunately. I've been a vocal supporter of our LJ support teams, and I really expected better from them. Past tense, because as of right now I have no confidence left in the LJ abuse team.

*hugs.* I hope your own situation works out better than this.

[lothie.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm just ignoring the person involved and things seem to have calmed down. I think someone must have told the person that threats are illegal.

Re:

[kuangning]

*nods.* Good. :)