In case you weren’t already aware, Fetlife has announced that to maintain their relationship with their credit card processor, they have to delete quite a bit of content. I hate that credit card companies get to police what we can talk about, but I can understand why the Fetlife team decided to keep the site running over fighting the good fight, losing the ability to take credit card payments, and not being able to process enough payments to keep the power on.
Because people are (rightfully) worried their pictures/writings/comments/etc will be deleted, they’ve been using the hell out of maymay’s exporter tool, which is really driving up his costs. He could use some help keeping that tool running if you’re inclined to donate.
Thanks for this. I got some email today confirming that people who are writing about this payment processor censorship issue are afraid to even mention on FetLife that this tool exists because they think saying that will get them banned from FetLife. Seems like the censorship issue is not one-sided, but that’s hardly a surprise to me.
Anyway, again, thanks for signal boosting this. For those interested, the best way to donate is through my “cyberbusking” page.
No member has been banned from FetLife for using a script! No member has been threatened with being banned. That is so absurd.
All we ask that these tools not be offered to the public. They can have serious consequences that are directly affecting our members.
Susan Wright
FetLife Community Manager
Susan,
I realize your new job is to do public relations for FetLife (BitLove, Inc.), but I’m going to assume good faith on your part and will respond under the assumption that you simply misread my comment, above. I suggest you re-read it.
I said:
You said:
You are not responding to the facts of the case, Susan. Whether you have banned or threatened to ban anyone is not the issue, because there are users who still fear being banned. This fear exists regardless of how you try to change the subject of discussion.
Fact: there are FetLife users concerned about being banned from FetLife merely for linking to a script that they want to use to make themselves feel safer about using FetLife. Read my comment and, again, note this is what I said. Moreover, I have been hearing these concerns in face-to-face conversations with FetLife users since October, 2012.
Let me try to be even more clear: Whether or not someone has been banned for using a script, it’s a fact that there are some in your user base who fear for their accounts if they try to protect themselves with tools your company publicly discouraged using.
It’s no secret your company has sent me several DMCA takedown notices that you de-facto admitted were frivolous because you chose to ignore my counter-notices. I remind you that knowingly sending frivolous DMCA takedown notices is a US federal offense. Users who are using the FetLife Exporter linked in the above post are doing so for any number of their own reasons, and I would be happy to offer FetLife, at no cost, code that would make it possible for users to keep backup archives of their own data.
What I find absurd is that you are refusing to offer your own users the ability to do something they have clearly expressed a desire to do for their own safety. This makes your invocation of community safety either completely absurd or patently disingenuous.
Maymay
FetLife Community Muckraker
Well, that’s quite the misleading little statement there.
No member has been banned for using a script… sure. That’s believable.
But that’s not the issue. The issue is *sharing* or *making a script available* or *informing people of the existence of a script* gets you threatened with a ban.
John Baku himself threatened me with a ban for a simple script I wrote restoring functions on my browser that he was pointlessly disabling (because there are about four slightly harder ways of doing things he was trying to “prevent”, as if he could actually prevent it).
I didn’t even talk about the script on Fetlife. He saw it on an entirely different site, posted under the same name I use everywhere, and threatened me with a ban.
He is not a nice person, and the site is not a nice place.
Fetlife hasn’t banned people from using this script….. merely deactivated their accounts until they run the delete tool. Holding an account hostage doesn’t count right?