Marketing Pilgrim

LiveJournal faced a user backlash, when it deleted hundreds of communities, as part of its efforts to clean up pedophilia-related discussions.

Apparently, the company’s noble efforts included the removal of many fantasy communities where users share sexually-explicit fictional stories.

The mass reinstatement means that the deleted science fiction and fantasy “fandom” groups–many of which boast sexually explicit fiction written by fans about characters such as those from the Harry Potter or Buffy the Vampire Slayer universes–began reappearing Thursday.

The community retaliated and LiveJournal apologized and is in the process of reinstating the accounts that don’t violate its policy. It’s a tough decision for LiveJournal. The sites are not breaking any laws, but do violate LiveJournal’s terms of service which ban “objectionable” content.

I think we’re going to see more of this in the coming months. With state attorneys general ramping up their efforts to protect minors from internet predators, I think we’ll see a lot more social network users complaining that they’ve been the victim of overreaction or mislabeling.

Social Media Monitoring in Just 60-Seconds. Guaranteed!

Share this post