FY to the I: Changed my username from lottelita to tacky_tramp. Just so you're not confused when I'm in ur comment threads.

Well, seeing as I don't post here anymore because of the way LJ treats adult content, I guess I could still post here about the way LJ treats adult content. Or something.

LJ adds ability to flag posts, journals, communities as "Explicit," which prevents minors from accessing that content.

Except it doesn't. At all.

Let's say a bunch of people flag, say, a post on sextips, and the Abuse team agrees that the post is inappropriate for minors to view. They status the post as Explicit. If you are logged in and, according to the date of birth you provided when you created your account, 18 or over, you will see the entry as posted. If you are logged in and, according to the date of birth you provided when you created your account, under 18, you will see an LJ cut and will not be able to access the post. If you are not logged in, you will see an LJ cut and when you click it, you will be asked to verify your age.

So let's say porn-hungry 15-year-old Lotte clicks a link she finds on del.icio.us, a link whose description promises hot, steamy smut, posted on someone's LJ. But alas! It has been flagged as Explicit. She sees only an LJ-cut with no content behind it.

And then she logs out of LJ, hits F5, clicks the cut, says she's 18, and reads the goddamn porn. Or she creates an additional account where she says she's 18 when she registers.

This feature does not prevent minors from viewing adult content. If it is an attempt at censorship, it is a very poor attempt.

Which is why it's quite clear that it's not an attempt at censorship. It's marketing. SixApart is trying to brand LJ as a journaling and social networking service for tweens and teens. Tweens and teens spend money online through their parents. Most parents want to believe their kids are "protected" from porn. A cursory examination of the flagging feature will give parents the impression that it provides the desired "protection." When of course is does nothing of the sort.

The extra brilliance of this move -- and really, I have to applaud 6A for this -- is that it will encourage the creation of more journals. Sockpuppet journals don't represent additional eyes, but advertisers don't necessarily know that. Neither do investors. When little Lotte makes her legal-Lotte account, whether she makes that a paid/plus account or not, 6A makes more money.

So please, fellow porn lovers, sex educators, and general promoters of open (and sometimes "NC-17-rated") discussion of sex, don't despair. This isn't actually going to keep any determined teen away from pornish_pixies or sextips. It's just going to make SixApart's board richer.

Since I assume my Nondenominational Winter Celebration Fic Exchange author will pop by, here's my Dear Writer letter.

( Dear Yuletide writer ... )