LJ Abuse

From Encyclopedia Dramatica

Eldritch symbol of this mysterious society.

The LiveJournal Abuse Team is an unprofessional group of volunteers and employees who enforce the LJ Terms of Service. While the LJ TOS is fairly clear, the LiveJournal Abuse Team has been known to interpret them broadly — accusing LJ members of violating the DMCA, for example, when the policy document itself clearly states that the copyright holder must first complain before a violation can occur. On the other hand, it's probably easy to get a little testy when you have to deal with trolls, child porn, and Internet suicides all day long.

The often-maligned volunteers of the LiveJournal Abuse Team make decisions about alleged violations. Lacking any real world experience, the abuse team's decisions often seem arbitrary and capricious to users, and oftentimes are. The Abuse Team often refers to specific legal terms like "liability," "identity theft," "harassment" or "copyright violation" without ever having those terms explained by an attorney. The team is headed by rahaeli and markf, and is composed of volunteers (and Sandy, who holds a job due to nepotism).

A lot of attention has been paid to the now infamous (and no longer secret) secret policy document, which proposes guidelines for consequences of TOS infraction. It was leaked to the Internets with working feedback buttons, prompting LJ Abuse staffers to condemn the action. Many critics claimed this as proof that the Abuse Team clings to secret policies preventing LJ users from truly complying with the Terms of Service. Some staffers still treat the document as if it was a "trade secret" in outright denial that it is published on the LJ site.

After many major publicized user suspensions, and then reversal of the suspensions, the community abuse_lj_abuse was created.

The internet is such serious business there's also a Exposing LJ Abuse blog.

[edit] Bitter

Current scientific theories are that LJ Abuse volunteers are all such malignant internet tumours entirely because they are not allowed to use Viewall. Christians dispute this theory and instead claim that it is is due entirely to unintelligent hiring.