I've seen one of the pics and it's definitely questionable. Potter definitely looked to be minor, not an "adult" as claimed. It was quite explicit. I'm not the slightest bit surprised that the author was banned; to me, it seemed consistent with what they had said they would do, which is to ban obscenity. However! This is a dangerous, dangerous slippery slope ... warning the artist would have been a lot more customer-friendly since there IS still some confusion on what is acceptable or not. Plus, both accounts that were deleted were apparently paid accounts and one was a lifetime account.

Having read around LJ and other journalling sites on the issue, I think I can say with confidence that SixApart just can't seem to do anything right in regards to placating fans and avoiding unnecessary conflict. Whether the art over which the journals in question were suspended was obscene or not, SixApart could have limited a good chunk of fan outrage and confusion by simply giving a warning or allowing the supposedly guilty LJ users to respond. Also, there is the question of their constantly fluctuating definition of 'obscene'. Both of the pictures that caused the suspensions were apparently depictions of male/male pairings. Before this happened, some fans submitted fanfics and fanart to the LJ Abuse team to see what would cross the line; I don't remember hearing any of them being told to leave, despite the fact that most of the stuff submitted also featured slash pairings and explicit material. Also notable is the fact that LJ has not yet gone after any depictions of male/female action. The most annoying thing about this whole issue is clearly illustrated by LJ's reluctance to come out and *say* anything or set clear boundaries. They're vague on what they find 'obscene'. They're vague on whether they'll give you a warning or outright suspend or ban you without even allowing you to see what you were banned *for*. They were vague during and after the Strikethrough debacle; they're being purposefully vague now with the all-too-obvious change they've made to how deleted journals are displayed. I wish they'd just come out and say they didn't want slash fans (or fans of anything, er, 'obscene') on LJ. I doubt they will, though, considering that fans, though not even near half the active userbase of LJ, are a pretty vocal, grudge-preserving minority of it. Think of all the pageviews they would lose; think of all the Google hits that would tie "SixApart" to awful accusations. It profits them to keep mum and hope no one raises too much of a stink. I really wonder if that'll work out.

I'm one of those over there on the news post. :p Anyway, I don't understand people who are saying that Harry "clearly" looks underage. Age is difficult to judge, but the majority of people agree that he doesn't look like a minor in the picture -- definitely not by UK law, and pretty definitely not by US law. Anyway, that's not even the thing that annoys most of it. It's LJ's policy of not giving a clear policy, LJ's refusal to communicate with us, LJ's rudeness when dealing with this issue. We're all wondering who LJ will speak to first: bets are on that it won't be us.

The main problem I have with their action isn`t even that they banned the artist because they couldn`t see any "artistical merit" in the picture in question. It`s Livejournal refusing to give clear guidelines and rules as to what they wont accept to host any longer, so that users can actually abide by that rules and therefor be resonably sure they wont get banned. Right now, no one knows just what Livejournal considers "obsence", since things that the users were told would not be a problem just got 2 of them banned.

Livejournal is acting in a manner that is unprofessional. To ban someone completely over a piece of questionable art is like shooting a fly with a canon. Intelligent people set up clear guidelines, and then when a problem is found, they instruct the offender to remove the item, not ban them and block their ISP. What kind of idiots do they have running that company? Sounds a lot like Tipper Gore meets Joseph McCarthy to me, and as a LJ subscriber, I can tell you that they will not get another nickel of my money until they shape up. Morons.

I'm also over on the news thread, and most people do think Harry looks overage. The age of consent in North America is usually 16 or younger. Harry DEFINITELY looks at least 17 or 18 in the picture, though certainly under 20. I also agree with shanaqui that that's not the whole point of this - LJ/6A's failure to communicate clear guidelines and give users an appeals process is also a huge bone of contention. Also, a correction for the article: the post you link to is the person who drew the Weasley twins (she lost the picture when LJ suspended her). This is the person who drew Harry and Snape : http://ponderosa121.greatestjournal.com/.

Ponderosa's style is very influenced by Japanese anime and manga, especially the genre of Yaoi and Boys Love. Adult males are often drawn in a style which exaggerates what many Americans consider "feminine" features. As a consequence (or feature) the young men often look underage even when they are not. Harry does not look obviously underage to me, as a long-time yaoi fan. I disagree with the first commenter. Even the courts have trouble clearly defining obscene materials, let alone a bunch of employees who aren't trained in the law. In addition, all the banning was the result of art posted in one community, and contained homosexual couples. Quite a coincidence. If LJ doesn't want sexually-oriented fan art on their site, that is their right, but they should do what fanfiction.net did years ago and just say so. The people who pay for their service deserve to know what they're paying for.

The problem here is the way 6A in managing the situation. Not even a person who paid for the service deserves a warning and an option to delete the "undesired content" before being permanently suspended? If the treat like that their costumers, I don't want to know how they treat people who have a basic account.

Someone explain me the reason, why a piece of fanart, where it looks very consensual and Harry looks at least like 16 is being banned. When they have promised us, that they wouldn't do the same mistake like they have done before and they would give the people a fair warning. So where is that warning? Where are their promises and our freedom of speech and art. The fanartist and fanfiction writers put up enough warnings, we warn the people of what is under a cut we don't force the people to read or look at it. Adding to that many people don't live in the USA and don't know their rules. LJ has handled in an unfair way and should finally give us rules with which we can work with. Otherwise they will lose a lot of people, not to forget that they already are.

That was a very unprofessional position take by LJ team. Ban someone only because they think the material have a underage it's outrageous. There wasn't a warning. And that's unacceptable! How can we, LJ users feel comfort to post in a place where the owners ban accounts on their will? There isn't any clear guidelines or rules about it and we all feel like running in the dark. I'm leaving LJ in respect for the banned ones. I think that art can't be censured in any way. It's ART! Or someone here will ban a community talking about Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita? It's underage, so let's ban it from the surface of earth! That's ridiculous. They have to learn how to be professional. Or close the LJ and come back when they know how to treat users

I'm a member of HP fandom and I have an LJ--this picture is not my cup of tea. It's not a pairing I like, and the level of explicitness is not something I would normally seek out. However, I find it absolutely ridiculous that the artist was permanently BANNED for drawing it. For putting pencil to paper (or stylus to wacom) and drawing something that exists only in her imagination! Whether 'Harry' (and would this have even happened if she'd labeled them 'Joe' and 'Steve' and called it original art instead of fanart?) looks underage is beside the point. He's NOT REAL. It's a drawing (and clearly a drawing, not a photorealistic piece where you wonder if it's real or not) of a fictional character. Real people other than the artist were never involved with the creation of the drawing. Of course, SixApart is a private business and can say what they do and do not want on their site. The problem so far is they've been frustratingly vague about what they want. I do find it interesting that they waited until AFTER they held their permanent account sale to start alienating HP fans again. They want our money, they just don't want our content.

I think what a lot of non-hp fans or book fans forget is that Harry is not the tallest or broadest build guy in the world. Considering how young Snape appears due to the style of the writing it is impossible to judge Harry's age. Apparently the pic was a commission for a fanfic where Harry is 18+ but why even discuss the age. It sucks to begin with to suspend someone for posting something like this, it sucks to ban people from posting their fannish drawings. I don't even like the pic, but I certainly would not label it obscene or say it has not enough artistic merit. It's a great piece of art, even though it is not my shoe. For now it's obviously just aimed at m/m, but one's lj has banned everything gay on the warrior's orders it is just a question of time till they come after the rest of the people who don't treat sex as the ultimate sin. One should think that the 21st century takes a step forward on accepting sex as something normal that comes as a new experience to any teen (if not by actual physical activity) then by dreams and fantasies and it is resonsiblity for everyone to encourge teens to learn about sex so they can protect themselves from the negative site effects, can deal with how they feel about the issue instead with how others deal about it and last but not least enjoy it without having some fundie asses tell them it's only good for producing babies, as if the human race was nothing more then a bunch of cows.

I've seen the image, and it's definitely not questionable. Moreover, the issue is obscenity laws, not child porn - although it could be argued that depictions of underage activity might be more likely to be ruled obscene, it doesn't mean that any depiction of underage activity is automatically illegal. This is irrelvant anyway - the characters in this image seemed no more underage than in any other entirely legal porn image where the participants are young adults. Yes, it was a graphic sexual image, but such images are _clearly_ not obscene in the US, as is obvious by simply noting that pornography is legal. LJ's standard of obscenity seems to be the one used by countries like Iran...

I don't mind six-apart creating a hard-and-fast line; What is extremely problematic is the draconian response; not only did they delete the offending images but they deleted every thing, including the user's personal diary-type blog. There is now a tattle-tale button at the bottom of every page. This means that every single blogger is at the mercy of the lowest common denominator. And as of yet, there is no medium for a user to respond to any accusations. A troll could have a lot of fun randomly pushing buttons on utterly innocuous posts, just sayin'...

I too am reading the thousands of comments from the news and biz threads at LJ. The problem with this is that this isn't just about the Harry Potter fandom; it's about the shady business promises versus practices that the bigwigs at Six Apart have pulled on its customers. First, Barak Berkowitz (CEO of 6A) promised people after Strikethrough '07 (a massive misstep that was initiated by LJ after a right-wing racist, white supremecist group contacted them with a Hit List of "pedophiles" that they were reporting) that fandom journals would be restored and that fanfic and fanart wasn't the real target of their ire. When, not too longer after Strikethrough, LJ announced their lovely permanent account sale, everybody was (very rightfully) wary of LJ's intentions; they wanted to know that their fanfic/art was safe and that another Strikethrough wouldn't happen if they were convinced into buying permanent accounts at a whopping $150.00. LJ was pretty quiet about the issue but they STILL assured us that fandom would be safe--so the sale went on as planned, as people trusted LJ again despite the lack of clarification of their guidelines to determine what was appropriate/what was not. And lo and behold, not but a blink later, Barak and Abe came back to post the about how LJ/6A is going to go about deeming what is okay and what is not okay by applying the (idiotic and HIGHLY questionable) Miller Test. Now YOU tell ME that this is just about the Harry Potter fandom.

I just want LJ to actually make a clear policy, because then everyone can make their final decision and decide to stay or go. I think the final decision is what they're worried about, so they're keeping users influx.

They haven't officially responded because they're too busy making fun of the situation here: http://community.livejournal.com/efw/117416.html

What offends me most is that 6A seems to think they can not only keep us in the dark for so long, but that they are able to quite bluntly make fun of the situation -- and us. I want a clear policy of what we can and cannot do, and I want them to be HONEST. I hope burr86 is fired for this unprofessional attitude - and provides a public apology. Soon.

The fact that they mock the people who PAY them is fairly sickening. That, and the fact that at least one of the deleted accounts was a paid permanent account. I shall mock and laugh at anyone who pays them anything in the future.

You might want to check you facts since the artist you linked to, while one of the artists banned for 'inappropriate' material, was not the one who depicted Harry Potter and Severus Snape in a sexual situation.

Six Apart may certainly decide not to host certain material. It's their site, after all. I will note that their first gaffe was to take umbrage at icons featuring women breastfeeding. They handled that badly, and they handled the Great Strikethrough badly, and they are, once again, handling this latest incident badly. Potential investors and customers, taken note. Should any business school need a case study, Six Apart continues to provide a wonderful example of corporate irresponsibility and poor customer service.

I agree with 6A banning users who post images which are legally questionable. It is a private website and, as such, they are under no obligation to let anyone use it. What is funny is that certain users, Bookshop in particular, have been protesting loudly how unfair it is. At least nobody is stalking them online and harassing them nonstop, right Bookshop? Karma must suck.

http://community.livejournal.com/efw/117416.html They have been mocking us instead of responding to us. This is NOT professionalism. They make their rules unclear, then mock us when we ask for a real explanation. It is their site, I understand that, and they can ban who they want, but they haven't given us clear rules that we can follow. I've seen ponderosa's picture. It was obvious to me that there was no children in it, and it held artistic merit by how lovingly and artfully it was made. It held so much detail and you could see the connection between the two ADULTS, that was more than just sex.

Just an FYI, but the post containing the mockery of LJ customers has been deleted.

I've seen the picture. Slash isn't my cup of tea. I also think that Harry doesn't look underaged there. I'm very annoyed with LJ for several reasons. 1. http://violet-quill.livejournal.com/326507.html?thread=4215403#t4215403 - burr86 attempts to clarify things but given his and LJs recent actions, well I think it speaks for itself. 2. LJ didn't follow it's own policies. The TOS hasn't been changed since 2006. They said they would give warnings. They did not. 3. They have absolutely no concept of good customer service. You do not mock your customers where they can see/hear/read what you say. I'd like it if LJ came out with clear, concise guidelines for what they will allow and what they will not. I would also like it if they stuck to that. 4. There are rating communities on LJ where teenaged girls post very provocative pictures. That's okay but two male adults is not? Honestly? As someone who just dabbles a little bit in the Harry Potter fandom (I've written some PG fic, made some icons, RP), it kind of seems like LJ is possible just going after slash. Has anyone been banned for "under-aged" girls having sex? What about an adult with a teenager? LJ is very dissapointing.

As mentioned in the related entry mentioning LJ's new policy forbidding underage art and fiction, the timing of these current suspensions is also suspicious. A large number of HP fans (including a great many well-known fanartists) are away for the weekend without internet access at a Harry Potter conference in Toronto, Canada.

I don't mind LJ disallowing smut or child-smut or pictures of elephants. My biggest problem with LJ is how they refuse to state exactly WHAT is allowed.

Everyone is completely silent on the issue of the PENIS being more objectionable or obscene than breasts or labia. The only works being purged and users being punished have shown male genitals. No one is mentioning this or addressing it directly, but it's true. This obscenity rule is only being applied due to some kind of penis-fear - way to discriminate, 6Apart!

It's rather safe to assume that LJ has just lost a sizable portion of their paying users, if the complaint threads I've observed are any indication. It's regrettable that LJ may not be able to live this down, no matter what policies are "put into effect." They already promised us fair treatment once, and this latest wankfest is a clear indication that they can and will lie to us again. Regardless of a hundred apologies and compensations, they've lost their customers' TRUST. And in the end, that is all that matters. I will take my business to my private domain or pay another company a little more for a service that I can DEPEND on to honor and protect me as a patron.

I'm very disappointed. In the previous purge two of my RPG journals were suspended but I contacted Barak Berkowitz and I got them back within days once it was determined that there isn't actually illegal there. What they have done to Ponderosa and the other artist was to delete not just the offending post or the offending journal but every single journal registered to that email address. I'm now frankly afraid to register more than one journal to any email address because there are no clear guidelines in place and since I run an RPG which has 296 journals in it, about 100 of which are my NPCs, I am risking the fun of 20 other people should even one post in one of my journals offend someone! One thing I haven't seen mentioned in the comments above is that there may be a DMCA complaint mixed up in this. I have heard that there was one about the Harry/Snape art piece which nobody thinks looks underage that I know of.

Honestly as much as I disagree with LJ's handling of this I wish people would stop arguing over whether Harry was underage or not which to me is not the issue at all. My major objection to this is the lack of a clear TOS and the poor customer service. I'm afraid that people in their rage are creating a high negative profile for anything related to fandom by not taking a moment to think before speaking and perhaps consider what such a picture might look like through the eyes of those not used to the HP fandom or its norms.

I'm with those whose main concern is not the content of the images but the fact that LJ a) has not made its rules clear and has been relying on vague ideas about "obscenity" and "artistic merit;" b) did not issue warning or have initiated any kind of communication toward the users before applying the most serious punishment available; c) handled the situation in an even worse way than the previous ones, demonstrating a lack of sense and tact (mostly on burr86's part) and an incredibly poor customer service. I don't care what they allow or don't allow on their site, they can ban cat macros for all I care, but this is ridiculous and pathetic at the same time. I know I'll never give any money to LJ again, and I'll never recommend their services to anyone.

What gets to me is that those entries that the journals were deleted for were indeed friends locked. I don't understand how can something "harm the children" when it was clearly hidden so that only adults could see. That's what gets to me, they can delete private entries and not give a fuck about it.

I wonder why LJ can't produce an example of an honest-to-god pedophile who they banned as part of this crusade. I'm willing to be a little more tolerant if it's a matter of innocent people being caught up in a sweep that is catching real criminals (given that the innocent people are "only" losing their LJ accounts and not being imprisoned or executed, that is. And even given that the penalty is not particularly dire, I don't think it's too much to ask that the innocent people in question have some way to appeal the decision). As of now, it certainly looks like they're catching *only* innocent people, which is far less acceptable.

To help with some of the facts in your article as well as the comments, the journal you linked to where the artist has stated the characters depicted were adults was not me, nor was the image I was banned for a commission for a piece of fanfiction where Harry is stated to be 18+. I am however, the artist who was banned for the Snape/Harry picture. (The other artist drew, I believe, a Fred/George). This piece of Snape/Harry artwork was posted without "friend's lock" in a community intended for adults, and similarly in my journal, which is also intended for adults. It was under a "cut" in both places and provided content warning. Unless linked to by a third party elsewhere, in the places where I posted it, a user would need to click on a cut beneath a label with the adult rating (pornish_pixies) or on a cut duplicating the adult rating as listed in the subject line (my personal journal) to view it. The person who commissioned the artwork from me asked for Snape/Harry, explicit but loving, and left all the details to me. I did not state their age, and make no statement now. I had no age in mind when drawing other than the recipient had previously asked me for a commission (which fell through due to timing) of Harry as a young man and not a teen. I would like it clear that I make no statement as to whether or not Harry is a minor in this image, and though I question the criteria for my suspension by Six Apart, I accept it without any admission of guilt. My intent was not to draw Harry at a specific age and as he doesn't exist other than as I rendered him, I cannot ask him if he is 16, 17, 18, 19, or 201 for that matter. I will say, however, that any reference for which I used in the creation of his pose is of a female above the age of 18. Any further statements of mine on the matter can be found on a temporary journal over at greatestjournal under the username ponderosa121, and my website www.ponderosa121.com contains the extent of my protest to Six Apart at this time.

LJ for the EPIC LOSE.

The thing I find odd about this, this being pr0nz in general? We're spazzing over the human body, something natural, something completely simple on the outside appearance. :l Though I suppose it's depiction has people worried.

Ugh, again? Epic Lawlz at spamming LJ News with cat macros. Stroke of genius. =D