CSO Projects
LiveJournal.com/SixApart
Original filing: February 2007
Everyone loves to potshot Myspace.com... the problem is though, Myspace tries. If you find a pedophile on Myspace and report him a few times, he'll get deleted. The Myspace TOS (due in part to media attention) has disallowed child predators and child-rape advocates from using their service. However, in all the Myspace-hubub, there's been no focus on other, nearly-as-large websites such as LiveJournal.com.
Look, we're not unrealistic. Every website, whether it's Myspace or LiveJournal or Xanga is going to have one or two pedophiles at the very least if you look hard enough. The purpose of our Corporate Sex Offender campaign isn't to target companies that have pedophiles using their services but to target companies which know about pedophiles using their services and ENCOURAGE such members to sign up. LiveJournal.com, unlike Myspace, doesn't care that they're host to dozens of child-rape advocates and quite a few organized pedophile blog-groups. They don't care that they have dozens of individuals promoting child-rape and child abuse on their services. That is a problem that must be addressed.
Perhaps the most insidious issue regarding LiveJournal is that it's just as popular with the teen-set as Myspace.com is. LiveJournal allows anyone 14 and above to register and anyone under 14 to have an account so long as they have parental permission. Our CSO volunteers went through and noted just a few of the dozens and dozens of active pedophile accounts on LiveJournal.com. Some of which have actually stated their intention to find kids on LJ.
As an example, check out the following...
From the following screenshot...
What's to say about me. I'm Slade. I'm a man's man, but I like girls more. Little girls that is. I'm an admin on a really great forum that everyone ought to visit whose location I have noted elsewhere, it's great if you're into that sort of content and probably really fun to ridicule if you're not so try us :D
I'm into lots and lots of other things, but I can't give away too much about myself here, I'd just look easy so feel free to ask.
I'm into lots and lots of other things, but I can't give away too much about myself here, I'd just look easy so feel free to ask.
His "LJ interests" are... children, little girls, lolicon, pedophiles, pedophilia. Could it be more clear?
That's just one of many. Here are a couple dozen links to screenshots of LiveJournal pedophiles and child-rape advocates. Each of these blogs, users and communities are known to LiveJournal... and LiveJournal does not care to remove their activities from their services.
- Alexia77 on Livejournal - "...very proud pedophile who likes everything involving little girls under 10"
- bester_lieber on Livejournal - Interests include "Childlove", "pedophilia", "secrets", "little girls", "lolita"...
- boysarebeauty on Livejournal - "I am a female into boylove wanting to chat"
- Child Love Community on Livejournal - "Never post hotlinks to anti-ped sites! None of them, especially PeeJ, should be made aware of this community's existence"
- clayboybl on Livejournal - "I am a boylover. Many would call me a pedophile, even I sometimes"
- clee918 on Livejournal - "I'm a very nice person. I'm also a pedophile"
- drago_reborn on Livejournal - "The pain of it all is incredible! At work there is a gorgeous 15yr old teen, soon to be 16 for those purists out there! She has the most amazing body that I've seen for a looong time... Arrgggghh the temptation is incredible, but that figure, those breasts..."
- Drakecammo on Livejournal - "I am filled with lust every time I see a cute little girl"
- eleven1twenty on Livejournal - His LJ interests include incest, goth girls, girls with braces, lolita, preteens, smart girls, nerdy girls, pedophilia
- evolvingdesire on Livejournal - "A little goth girl starts hitting on me, and though I'm not launching myself at her, I'm not in any way turning down the offer. We spent the night together, having a decent episode of lovemaking."
- fuckedupkink on Livejournal - "My ultimate fantasy is to find at least half a dozen hot preteen girls"
- hairless_15 on Livejournal - "male 48 years old married with 2 kids. I have liked little girls for as long as I can remember."
- hiddenlusts on Livejournal - LJ interests include child porn, child abuse, child prostitution, child rape, family sex, fingering young girls, incest, preteens... etc, etc, etc.
- holokittynx on Livejournal - "I've been invited to be one of the moderators on the new Butterfly Kisses forum"
- hopeimnotcaught on Livejournal - "If there's anything better than 69-ing with my son, I don't know what it is"
And on... and on... and on.
From littlegirllover to lolilvr2004 to lovelylolikins to mattybear to nihil-aeturnius to nomanjournal to pedro4boys to philiaphile to propedo to rayathn to reverie2life to seven_solitudes to sexoffendersrus to silent-tortoise to smooot4 to torpaedo to tulsapervboy to youngerlover to zero_girllover.
And this is just the tip of the LiveJournal iceberg. Dozens upon dozens of LiveJournal pedophiles networking with LiveJournal users and hanging out daily in the LiveJournal userbase. Surely you think, however, that like MySpace... LiveJournal should at least care that these people are part of their community. But unlike Myspace, LiveJournal makes a ton of their money from people purchasing "plus" accounts. These plus accounts are a higher level of LiveJournal account that people pay for. Many of the pedophiles listed have "plus" accounts. Hence, LiveJournal doesn't want to delete anyone... especially those with plus accounts... even if they're predators and pedophiles.
We contacted LiveJournal with a request for comment in regards to this story. Both our request and their response can be seen at the following screenshot: Request for Contact. An email to their press department went unanswered as LiveJournal didn't wish to discuss this issue. Here is the response on the screenshot for those who can't load them...
Dear Mr. Von Erck,
LiveJournal has a strict zero tolerance policy regarding child pornography and/or direct solicitation of minors. We encourage all of our users to report such material to us as they discover it, and we take swift action to remove it when it is reported to us.
If you are aware of any such material, please immediately report it to us by going to http://www.livejournal.com/abuse/report.bml and following the procedure described in http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=105. In particular, we will need specific links to the items you believe to be in violation of the Terms of Service, rather than links to an entire journal or profile; we cannot search an entire journal for violations of the Terms of Service.
Theoretical, hypothetical, or sociological discussion of illegal activity is not in itself illegal. We can only take action against a user if he or she is posting illegal material, is actively encouraging others to commit illegal actions, or is soliciting or providing information on how to commit illegal activity.
Regards,
Helen
LiveJournal Abuse Team
LiveJournal has a strict zero tolerance policy regarding child pornography and/or direct solicitation of minors. We encourage all of our users to report such material to us as they discover it, and we take swift action to remove it when it is reported to us.
If you are aware of any such material, please immediately report it to us by going to http://www.livejournal.com/abuse/report.bml and following the procedure described in http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=105. In particular, we will need specific links to the items you believe to be in violation of the Terms of Service, rather than links to an entire journal or profile; we cannot search an entire journal for violations of the Terms of Service.
Theoretical, hypothetical, or sociological discussion of illegal activity is not in itself illegal. We can only take action against a user if he or she is posting illegal material, is actively encouraging others to commit illegal actions, or is soliciting or providing information on how to commit illegal activity.
Regards,
Helen
LiveJournal Abuse Team
Here's the problem with Helen's response. First, she states that LiveJournal is too lazy to look at a pedophile blog to see if there is a violation of their terms of service. However, it is impossible to link most pedophile blogs to LiveJournal's support team since the vast majority of them are "friend's only." Meaning that they are hiding what they're blogging about. Are they blogging about molesting a child? Are they blogging about soliciting a child in LiveJournal? Are they sharing links to child pornography? Well, nobody knows but their friends as LiveJournal isn't interested in doing any proactive reading of their own disturbing member base. The very suggestion to link them to individual examples is ludricrous and dismissive.
Of course, all of this is moot. Child rape advocacy IS a violation of their terms of service at base. From their legal page...
Overview
LiveJournal is dedicated to offering a stable and meaningful experience for members from all backgrounds and nations, so we have a few rules we've laid out to provide this. Our documents here contain reasonable terms and information regarding how we will do our best to serve you, and how we expect members to behave to us and others. LiveJournal works best when people follow these rules. Here are some important ones to remember:
* Do not harass, abuse, or threaten others.
* Do not harm minors in any way.
* Do not spam the site or any account on the site.
* Do not post copyrighted content without permission.
* Do not invade the privacy of others.
* Do not violate U.S. law or your local laws in any way.
LiveJournal is dedicated to offering a stable and meaningful experience for members from all backgrounds and nations, so we have a few rules we've laid out to provide this. Our documents here contain reasonable terms and information regarding how we will do our best to serve you, and how we expect members to behave to us and others. LiveJournal works best when people follow these rules. Here are some important ones to remember:
* Do not harass, abuse, or threaten others.
* Do not harm minors in any way.
* Do not spam the site or any account on the site.
* Do not post copyrighted content without permission.
* Do not invade the privacy of others.
* Do not violate U.S. law or your local laws in any way.
The advocacy of child-rape and pedophilia does harm minors in "any way." Allowing pedophiles to blog about raping their children or to let them blog about how they wish to rape children is a harm to minors. LiveJournal Abuse Team Member Helen states that only illegal material is removed, however LiveJOurnal's own FAQ repudiates this. Their overview doesn't just say "Do not break any laws" but lists extra-legal activities which can necessitate removal. Apparently LiveJournal has posted these as a public relations move, as they have shown that they will not live up to their own words. To be even more explicit about their ability to delete the blogs of child-rape advocates...
You agree that LiveJournal, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, journal, or account, and remove and discard any content within the Service, for any reason, including and without limitation, the lack of use, or if LiveJournal believes that you have violated or acted inconsistently with the letter or spirit of the TOS.
Gee. Is a pedophile advocating pedophilia, writing about it, encouraging child-rape... acting in the spirit of the TOS? No, of course not. At the end of the day, what LiveJournal is really saying is this: "We do not care that we profit off of pedophiles, predators and child-rape advocates, we don't care that we allow minors to use our service and allow pedophiles to use our service. We don't care that we are, by this fact, endangering those minors that do use the service."
As well, under member conduct under "You agree to NOT use the Service to:"...
Upload, post or otherwise transmit any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive to another's privacy (up to, but not excluding any address, email, phone number, or any other contact information without the written consent of the owner of such information), hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
Harm minors in any way;
Oh, but it gets more overt. LiveJournal does have one great policy (who knows if they enforce it though) regarding "promotion."
or promote any act of cruelty to animals.
That's a very good policy. You cannot promote any act of cruelty towards animals. We think that's a great policy. So if you're a Beastial or an animal-abuser, you can't use their service according to their TOS. No, you don't have to break the law, just promote cruelty towards animals... yet if you're a pedophile advocating child-rape... you're... okay? Call us crazy, but members having the interest of "child abuse" seem to be promoting cruelty towards children. Members talking about how they wish to have sex with children seem to be promoting cruelty towards children. I guess you can promote cruelty to children but not to animals. Strange policy over at LiveJournal, we'd say.
So what do we know? We know pedophiles have infested LiveJournal and the corporation is "copping out" when it comes to their corporate responsibility to rid these pests from their servers. We know that hundreds of thousands of minors, perhaps millions, use LiveJournal. We know people such as Helen from LiveJournal don't give a damn regarding these two facts. So, we know that LiveJournal has qualified to being listed as a Corporate Sex Offender. We've already seen the futility in contacting LiveJournal themselves, so let's concentrate on those who own the operation.
LiveJournal is owned by a company called "SixApart." The company was founded by Ben and Mena G. Trott and is operated by Barak Berkowitz.
If you'd like to ask SixApart why their LiveJournal operation allows pedophiles to mingle with minors freely, contact the following...
Six Apart Press inquiry contacts:
Jane Anderson
Jane@sixapart.com
Phone: 415.344.0056 x107
Cell: 650-854-3883
Kimberly Conley
kimberly@sixapart.com
Phone: 415.344.0056 x170
Cell: 415.359.7946
That's nice and all, but who owns SixApart, the owners of LiveJournal? That would be August Capital and Neotony Co., Ltd.
August Capital contacts:
David Hornik, partner of August Capital
hornik@augustcap.com
His assistant: mkral@augustcap.com
Dave Marquardt, Co-founder of August Capital
His assistant: lparrott@augustcap.com
Neotony Co. Ltd contacts:
Joichi Ito, Chief Executive Officer and Founder
jito@livejournal.com
http://joi.ito.com
joi_ito@mac.com
YIM: jito23
If you would like to ask one of the main coders and "brains" behind LiveJournal why his company doesn't follow their own TOS and why they support child rape advocates, use your LiveJournal account to do so at the following link: Brad Fitzpatrick's personal LiveJournal or if he's busy, ask his fiancee, Dina: Dina (soon to be) Fitzpatrick's LiveJournal
Or if you're so inclined, ask LiveJournal's major advertisers why they support a company that supports child-rape advocates. They might be interested to know about this.
Amp'd Mobile, Inc.
http://get.ampd.com/
http://kb.ampd.cust-serv.com/AmpdKB/...UMER/email.asp
http://get.ampd.com/About/Management/index.php
http://get.ampd.com/About/TeamRiders/index.php
Inquiries: email pr@ampdmobile.com.
Nissan
http://community.livejournal.com/7daysinasentra/
http://www.nissanusa.com/
Nissan Consumer Affairs
P.O. Box 685003
Franklin TN 37068-5003
(800) NISSAN-1 (or 800-647-7261)
8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Eastern / Central Time / Pacific Time
Monday through Friday
Science of Sleep movie (Time Warner)
http://community.livejournal.com/scienceofsleep/
Headquarters
Time Warner Inc.
One Time Warner Center
New York, NY10019-8016
212.484.8000
Press Contacts
Edward Adler
Executive Vice President
Corporate Communications
Time Warner Inc.
One Time Warner Center
New York, NY 10019-8016
Susan Duffy
Vice President
Corporate Communications
Time Warner Inc.
One Time Warner Center
New York, NY 10019-8016
Spreadshirt
http://community.livejournal.com/spreadshirt/
http://www.spreadshirt.com/
USA:
Spreadshirt Inc.
911 South Main Street
Greensburg, PA 15601-4140
service@spreadshirt.com
info@spreadshirt.com
Phone:
+1 (800) 381 0815 Toll Free customer service
Fax:
+1 (877) 202-0251 Toll Free
American Apparel Inc.
http://www.americanapparel.net/
747 Warehouse St.
Los Angeles, CA 90021
United States
Tel. (213) 488-0226
Fax. (213) 488-0334
Press Contacts
Global Media Inquiries
Cynthia Semon
Communications Director
Tel. (818) 788-4468
Fax. (818) 788-4168
E-mail: cynthia@americanapparel.net
Mattel, Inc.
http://barbie.everythinggirl.com/
Mattel, Inc.
333 Continental Boulevard
El Segundo, CA 90245-5012
310-252-2000 tel
http://www.mattel.com/about_us/Corp_Governance/bios.asp
Just a snippet from http://www.mattel.com/about_us/Comm_Involvement/default.asp?f=true
Mattel Children's Foundation
We believe it is our responsibility, as the largest toy manufacturer in the world, to
lead the way in making a difference in the lives of children. We do that through our safe and reliable products as well as by giving back to our communities through our philanthropic programs.
We believe it is our responsibility, as the largest toy manufacturer in the world, to
lead the way in making a difference in the lives of children. We do that through our safe and reliable products as well as by giving back to our communities through our philanthropic programs.
At the end of the day, we just want to know why LiveJournal won't enforce their own Terms of Service against the dangerous predators and pedophiles they choose to let use their services, why they issue oddly worded statements when asked about it and why they feel that allowing pedophiles and children to mix on their service is a good idea. Few people would disagree that these are fair and simple questions. Please help us in asking these questions in a very loud manner both here and in our forums where we will be finding more individuals to contact in order to find an acceptable solution to this problem.
Conditions for Removal from this category: LiveJournal needs to remove each pedophile from their service, as they advocate criminal conduct which violates their terms of service agreement. To not remove them despite this illustrates advanced support for the community of organized pedophiles which have taken hold on their services. Without a clear and unambiguous stance against child-rape advocates, we cannot remove LiveJournal from this category.
Update: June 2007
In May of 2007, LiveJournal received pressure from another group called "Warriors for Innocence." LiveJournal, likely tired of hearing of this issue, decided to take action, only...
They went and deleted all sorts of garbage other than pedophile blogs. They deleted Harry Potter fan communities, weird fanfiction communities... things that quite frankly, aren't online pedophile activists (whether or not they're creepy in general is a debate for others, we go after pedophiles). At the end of the day, LiveJournal users rose up and denigrated the moderators and administrators of LiveJournal for being utterly stupid.
We have to say, we agree with people who say the administrators of LiveJournal are utterly stupid. So far, they've shown only incompetence.
Still, to this day, some of the pedophiles we identified and reported back in February 2007 are on LiveJournal with active blogs. Other pedophiles are still on LiveJournal.com as well. While LiveJournal did take out a few of the more in-your-face communities, they have not taken a clear and unambiguous stance against allowing their service to be used by those promoting pedophilia activism. Until they do, we have to list them as an aggressive corporate sex offender.
[return to mainpage]