The Great LiveJournal Buyout of 2007

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Still frame portrait of events.

Did you know
that... The takeover has probably been at least a year in the making?[1]?

Welcome to LiveJournal

An artist's rendition of what is going on in people's minds

LJ-land is not fooled by such pleasantries as this

On December 3, 2007, Interweb 2.0 moguls SixApart announced that they had sold their popular blogging site, LiveJournal, to a Russian media company called SUP Fabrik.

It begins...

Half of LiveJournal's users have freaked out due to fear of the gulag, while the other half have proclaimed that Russian laws would grant them all the free shota and music they wanted. Of course, since the servers will be staying in San Francisco, and the same people will be running things, nothing at all will actually change -- but LJ users aren't going to let a little thing like facts stop them from going into full drama mode.

User jayspec swung right into the fray with a totally reasonable list of concerns:

“	I'm sorry, I never post in these ridiculous wank-fest threads, but this could seriously be the worst thing that could ever happen to Live Journal. Freedom of Speech as we know it on Live Journal is over. And I don't mean fandom wank slash fiction freedom of speech, I mean real, political, "founders intentions" freedom of speech. Critics of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin have been imprisoned, gunned down by government thugs, and when they managed to escape the increasingly Czarist Russia, they've been poisoned by radiation while living abroad. This government doesn't abide criticism. And if you think it behaves any better to Russian companies it doesn't like, well, just ask what happened to Gazprom. I don't care what kind of commitment SUP has to LJ, or how separate a company under "American Laws" Live Journal, Inc. might be. If it's a decision between "have LJ, USA delete that post critical of Vladimir Putin" and "spend a year in the gulag", I think I know what anyone at SUP is going to choose.	„
—jayspec, who knows because of his geopolitical learnings

[edit] The Advisory Board

Knowing that most of the plebes would be placated if "one of their own" were part of the new regime, SUP in their finite wisdom has set up an "Advisory Board," otherwise known as I could do a better job than them.

“	The Advisory Board will also include two members from the LiveJournal community who will be elected by you (we've been inspired by the Wikipedia elections), the users.	„
—SUP

By taking a page from TOW, SUP is only going to replicate TOW-style admin drama on a scale that would make Jimbo piss himself. Few will object to the appointment of LJ founder Brad, but even fewer will be able to agree on any possible candidate for the other advisor position.