Like many early adopters of the Internet, I got my first blogging experience with Live Journal. When I decided to create a new blog to chronicle my experience building a news website called News Growl (along with some other AMAZING people) I thought I'd check in on LJ again and see if it still worked. A nostalgia trip, really.
It worked okay, pretty much. There were some nice features - posts were automatically posted to my Twitter feed, etc. There was some pesky advertising i could not turn off, but I could live with that. The only weird thing was the habit of the system to switch to Russian when I logged out. Wait, what? Yes, Live Journal had been acquired by Russian investors in 2006. Who knew? But it still contained a relatively large, relatively lively English-language community so I decided it was just something to ignore. Oh yeah, News Growl has published the occasional article that is critical of Russian president Vladimir Putin, and other people associated with his regime (including Leonid Slutsky, Oleg Deripaska, and the occupation of parts of Ukraine by Russian forces). Okay, looking back on it, News Growl has been highly critical of the Russian government on a regular basis, but not in an overtly partisan way. Just in the same way every other news site not owned by Russia has been for years. Would anyone at Live Journal care if I mentioned these articles on my Live Journal blog every once in a while (along with stuff about American politics and Australian Rules football)? The idea seemed preposterous. Until this morning. I got an alert via Google there was a problem with my blog. When I tried to log on I got this message: "Your journal has been suspended. All posts from your journal are not available for reading. If you have not received information regarding this suspension, please submit a request to Support Team." I had not received any information, of course. I filled out a ticket for the support team. So far no answer. And guess what I found in the Terms of Service? Blogs must comply with the laws of the Russian Federation. I don't know the laws of the Russian Federation very well, but I can imagine I've at least brushed up against a few. So, no more Live Journal blog. Welcome to my Weebly blog! I sure hope the folks at Weebly steer clear of Russian investors.
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AuthorSteve has many disparate and unconnected interests. This, he thinks, entitles him to claim the label "Renaissance Man." Archives
March 2019
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