LiveJournal (LJ) recently made some changes to its Terms of Service, which has raised concerns in Russia and outside of that country’s borders, for users of this blogging platform. 

The new rules increase bloggers’ liability for both their own posts and others’ comments. 

From now on, the LiveJournal administration has the right to delete a blog if the blogger doesn’t access the system for more than six months. Though bloggers can download some of their posts, photos, and comments, it’s a rather laborious process.

The LJ User Agreement constantly reminds users that legislation requires it to keep user data and provide it “upon the lawful request of the competent authorities.” Users who violate the User Agreement will have their content deleted in whole or in part or their account suspended.

Posting advertising or “political solicitation materials” is prohibited unless specified in a separate agreement between the administration and the user.

The changes are due to the following factors: web hosting owner Alexander Mamut has moved LJ to the Russian company SUP Media. The platform previously operated as part of the American LiveJournal Inc.

Media researcher Samvel Martirosyan [also a Media.am contributing author] answered our questions about the possible consequences of these changes to LJ’s User Agreement. 

In your opinion, what is the purpose of SUP Media changing LiveJournal’s Terms of Service? Do you see an inclination to better control the hosting in terms of political considerations?

As a result of these changes, provisions that aren’t extraordinary and already exist in the Russian media sector were added. SUP Media’s changes simply made LJ’s Terms of Use in line with the legislation regulating information in the Russian Federation.

What’s extraordinary is the situation in Russia’s information space, not SUP Media.

What problems will this raise in terms of free speech and publishing posts on LiveJournal without censorship?

Problems will and do arise anyway. And the issue is not just with LJ. In Russia, people are held liable also for Facebook posts. For law enforcement authorities, it makes no difference on which platform the post is.

Bloggers hereinafter will be held liable for not only their posts, but also comments on their posts. How lawful or, the opposite, illogical or dangerous is this?

Liability for comments really becomes a serious problem. But this too is nothing new, and not only for Russia.

Moreover, there is a European Court of Human Rights decision, Delfi AS v. Estonia, that determined that a media outlet is responsible also for comments. And blogs in Russia are definitely considered media outlets if they have more than 3,000 readers.

What problems does this create for bloggers active in Russia and for authors living in other countries? Does this liability apply to them or can bloggers who are citizens of other countries avoid undue liability?

I don’t think that those outside of Russia will be subjected to liability. The case hasn’t yet reached such horrible extents. But LJ’s servers are in Russia, and specific blogs can be blocked in that country’s territory or in general.

I think that LJ is more inclined toward suspending [accounts] rather than subjecting to legal liability. And this is a problem for the entire Russian media. It doesn’t matter where you post, whether at LJ or Blogspot.

The LJ administration reserves the right to delete content and the blog if the user hasn’t accessed the account in six months. What problem is SUP Media trying to solve with this?

I think this is more so a technical decision, though the internet now is moving toward lifting such restrictions. At one time email used to operate according to this principle: if you didn’t access [your email account] in three months, they would block your access.

But this decision aims to minimize service maintenance expenses. I don’t see a political motive here. 

Posting advertising or political agitation is prohibited if it’s not previously agreed upon between the user and the administration. What can this lead to?

Actually, at one time LJ prohibited advertising. Then they tried to regulate it. [Prohibiting] political agitation, however, is an obvious sign of censorship. This is terrifying.

Everyone knows that LJ became very popular in Russia due to political posts. Before Russia entered the scene, it was more so a student, youth platform. 

The recent restrictions will lead to LJ simply dying. 

In the first decade of this century, LJ was one of the most used social [media] platforms in Armenia. Armenian bloggers had translated LJ into Armenian and affectionately called it Kendani Matyan (Live Journal or Book).

There’s always an alternative

Blogger Noni_no says at first it was unpleasant to be faced with the inevitability of accepting new terms every time you logged in to your account, not being able even to read or study them.

“My first wish was to simply close my account, erase it. The second, I assume they decided to suspend a blog if the user hasn’t accessed it in six months in order to force inactive bloggers to write something from time to time. But, in my opinion, they’ve done something absurd. Kendani Matyan didn’t manage to respond to the growth of more dynamic and user-friendly platforms, and now it’s too late,” he says.

The blogger doesn’t see other risks: if you don’t want to abide by the new terms, you can simply use another blogging platform or even Facebook. Especially since, in his words, there are no longer discussions on Armenian blogs, and there’s no problem of interaction.

While researching this story, we discovered that a number of writers who were once active on LiveJournal no longer use the platform, considering it already outdated. 

Gagik Aghbalyan