*cross-posting to LJ and IJ*

Despite no official response from Livejournal about the outrage over the sneaky removal of Basic Accounts (despite the current TOS saying they still exist to new users) and the censoring of the interests list to hide such evils as girls, boys, bisexuality, depression and fanfic, SUP (the company that bought LJ from its previous owners at Six Apart) sure had time to give statements for a Mozilla article as well as an interview in Russian (SUP is based in Russia). Said interview has been translated by a Russian Speaking LJ member and posted here in entirety. For those who want highlights, here you go:

Users that are unhappy about the fact that the right to a base account is reserved only for bloggers that registered before the 12th of march, are calling for a boycott of your resource. How massive do you expect this boycott to be?

I don't know any of LJ posters familiar to me, those I have friended and commented, that would want to join said boycott. I honestly don't know any people that would seriously take up that initiative. So I am presuming such an idea to be marginal at best. Something like calling all the advertisers in the American section of livejournal and calling on them to cancel their ads

Have they actually called them?

Of course not. Where will you find such idiots that will call serious companies? It's one thing - to call a newspaper in hope that they will give you 15 minutes of fame on their page. But a proper firm? The first thing you'll get asked is "so who exactly are you trying to reach? What is this about and why the hell should we care?"

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NOTE: LJ Users DID Email Advertisers. In one case, when LJ refused to remove videos and pics in a comm for Neo-Nazi hatred inciting violence, users emailed Pepsi and Pepsi cancelled their ads with LJ. Hmm. Sounds like we do these things and get results, LJ.

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So you're sure there will be no boycott?

No, I didn't say that. Because any person can create several hundred fake LJ accounts, comment in them that on the 21st of march I will be silent in protest. Then you journalists can quote those fake users and list the names of those that were silent that day. And add a cute catchprase like "that's just the top of the iceberg"
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To quote Garbage, "I think I'm paranoid..."

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So you're saying your service is the last in the world that turns down charity?

Actually the charity was turned down, in effect, not by LJ but by its users. Over the last 2 years base account registrations cover about 10 percent of new users. And a good portion of those are virtual, created by already existing users for spamming, increasing search engine ratings, leaving comments that would get their account banned. So there is no real demand for base accounts, it's not a viable product. So we took it off the shelf. Users of existing accounts are still not forbidden to make their accounts base accounts (if they want to switch from driving a Mercedes to a Zaporozets [car shittier than a yugo -translator])


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So lemme get this straight: NO new users ever truly sign up for a Basic Account; you have somehow proven that the vast majority are long-term users trying to spam or make themselves look cool. Again, blasting Garbage's Version 2.0 comes to mind... Sure that happens a lot. Sure, a lot of people I know have multiple journals. But you can't tell me that every single new user chooses the Paid or Ad-Sponsored accounts. I call Bullshit.

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Why?

Let's say, I say to you, mr. Journalist, "I think you put an extra comma here". Your natural reaction is "Oh, you're right" or "Let's ask the editor". But if I come to you and say "Take away the comma or I will beat you" Will you really go checking your spelling after that?

In a situation where people are trying to scare and blackmail us, threatening to destroy our business, there are business reasons for not rewarding such behaviour. This is not just human psychology, which retaliates more the more it is pressed. Problem is that there's never been a successful company whose success was based on bowing to collective resistant forces. No decision - no matter how correct -should be based on pressure.

It would be more prudent to review this decision in the coming days. But smart corporate politics dictate that we must now wait for the boycott. Let it come. So that the subject of people's frustrations, threats and scares will be closed. And then we can discuss the problem in detail.

This is not the first challenge issued to LJ in the last few years

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Oooh! Awesome!! You know, when we were demanding just answers, they didn't respond. Had they, there wouldn't BE uproars. There wouldn't be planned content strikes. There wouldn't be a mass exodus. Hell, if they'd maintained their communication and TOLD US they were cancelling Basic Accounts, there would be 90% less fuss. The fact they hid it demonstrates they knew users would be pissed, and they set it up so when they did get pissed, they could brand us evil terrorists and dismiss our comments as unimportant hysteria. They changed the interests page to filter on March 6. They removed it March 17 after we blew up, and yet, I thought they didn't make decisions based on pressure. No announcement about the filter implementing OR the filter being a 'mistake' and removed, as the one lone LJ staffer who's bothered to respond (as herself, not an official rep statement) has suggested is going to be the official word.

So here's the deal: A content strike is being organized for Friday March 21. For 24 hours, no entries, no comments, no surfing the site and racking up ad views. Since our user content doesn't matter and since all they care about is ad views for revenue, we're going to depart for 24 hours and dent the statistics.

Details of the strike
Time Zone Conversions if you're lazy like me
Objectives

Note: Most of us who've been chattering for the last week agree that LJ is a business and Basic Accounts without ads don't provide revenue. They do, however, bring content that keeps paying customers around. Further, to publicly release a 100 Day Plan that states Basic Accounts and Plus Accounts (in other words, they're distinguishing between them and the ones with ads) will have more features soon and to also insist there will be better open communication with users, only to covertly prohibit new Basic Accounts and censor interests in a discriminatory way and not bother to address your users (but address the press) is what is infuriating. Most of those striking are long-term users, many Paid users - the customers you'd think SUP wouldn't want to piss off.

This post serves to be the 500 words scanned by advertisers and marketers.  It also informs them I will never use the products or services of anyone who uses LJ to advertise.  They have repeatedly been caught censoring/banning fandom and fanfiction, their largest group on the site, as well as censoring words like depression and bisexuality, along with sex.  Sex is natural.  Depressed people are deserving of compassion.  Livejournal and SUP engage in shady business practices and fail to properly inform users of major changes, changes that go against their publicly outlined 100 Day Plan.  Livejournal and SUP can no longer be trusted.  I will no longer renew my paid accounts until there are drastic remedies.  Feel free to let marketers know that this bisexual, bipolar, fandom-reading woman will not tolerate these practices.  Thanks!