Perfect timing?

Not too long ago, Dreamwidth decided to pass out a whole bunch of extra invite codes. Since I not only have soc_puppet over there, but hooked_on_anime as well, and I hadn't even used up all of the invites from the previous dump on my first account, I ended up with a shitload of invites.

"Boy," I thought, "This would be the perfect time for LJ to do something stupid again!"

Hahahahahahaha. Yes. So funny. Hilarious, even. Except, yanno, not, in the worst-case-scenario extrapolated in the link. It's bad for accessibility, too.

The news post is 66 71 96 pages and going strong; at least 95% of those comments are complaints about the "new feature" (barf), and the remaining five percent are complaints about backslashes no longer working in tags, the new header, or requests for the free August birthday gift (with a few trolls who are uninterested in understanding why this is a security problem). There's plenty of intersectionality, too.

There's a couple of ways to turn things off for -you-, if you're using Firefox: this add-on here allows you to block the site and links to it, and this Greasemonkey script seems to work as well (though that one's only on comments at the moment). Another Firefox hide-just-for-you method can be found here.

If you're using Chrome or Safari, there's info on how to use the Greasemonkey method over here.

As of now, there is no way to turn this off for other people visiting your journal. Even with locked posts, you are potentially leaving your fate in their hands.

For anyone looking for an alternative, I've got a good seventeen Dreamwidth invites that aren't doing anything else at the moment, and I can always request more. They make it nice and easy to move over, they actually care about their user base, and their latest news post was specifically addressing how they can make DW more accessible. If you're interested, drop a comment here and I'll set you up :3b

Edit: Tweeting of comments to a locked post has now been tested. Relevant quote: "Not only does that work, but you include the text of the comment -- posted in a LOCKED post -- as well as a link to the post."

Later in the thread: "According to the original news announcement, screened comments are also cross-postable."

Ick. On so many levels. Ick ick ick.

Edit 2: Details on how LJ is violating its own TOS/abuse policy can be found here.

Edit 3: Brad Cortland(?) tests out the FB interface. "When I logged in to LJ using this sock account, I got the standard, scary-as-hell FB interface message, telling me that this "application" (LJ) now has access to my profile and anything I post publicly on my FB account.

The intrusion goes both ways, folks. Not only can your private posts be cross-posted to Facebook, but if you link your accounts, LJ can access any information you have stored with FB."

Edit 4: More details of testing. Pretty much the only thing useful there is: "For Facebook, it will post the first paragraph (about) of what you wrote in a protected entry [or comment] up on your facebook page. This means that if you quoted text from the entry, it's suddenly public. [...] For Twitter, it posts the first sentence and also links back."

I'm going to assume we all already know that you can't actually see the whole entry unless you're on that filter, but even the first sentence/paragraph can be badly compromising.

Edit 5: Updating from parents' house, so not my home computer. Should've gotten this up sooner anyway, but I wasn't aware it was this bad; foolishly, I hadn't done the research.

LJ's reinstated pingback feature will pingback if someone links to your entry in a FLocked post - and will include the relevant text of the post in the pingback.

There's data collected on that part of the mess over this way.

Edit 6: Back at home! Some people in the news post are being beautifully imaginative, so I thought I might share a few ;)

* Seuss Parody
* "Interestingly, people often indicate that interpreting sarcasm is difficult on the internet. I look forward to finding out whether that is indeed the case."
* I know that my mother will be fascinated by the latest titillating installment of my super-powered vampire's torrid romance with the zombie princess next door, because who doesn't want to spread fandom squee with their mom?
* Personally, I think they're all huddling right inside the door, looking out at the hordes with the burning tar and torches, all nudging each other...
* Remember, Frank promised not to tell our secret birthday wishes!
* Dearest darlingest John Livejournal
* For people who need it spelled out

Edit 7: There's a link to some legal precedence for us over in this comment. "See Las Vegas vs Dunder Mifflin and understand that even if we aren't all privacified and locked down like Fort Knox, it doesn't necessarily mean we want everyone in the world--pretty much literally--tracking us down on LJ because somebody hit a button by accident."

Edit 8: LJ steps up the epic creepy: I just went to reply to a comment on this post, and the little 'connect with Facebook' button had the text by it, 'we will figure out who you are.' Includes screencap.

Edit 9: Update on the original news post: "Update: Thank you for taking the time to offer your honest feedback. We understand and appreciate your desire for privacy. We share your concerns. Most of us would not want to publish our LiveJournal usernames or FO comments to Facebook or Twitter either (to the extent we even use them). Please give us a little time to address your concerns. We are listening, and we'll do our best to respond.

LJ staffer comments to the same effect here, and points to a relevant poll. It only took 91 pages for them to get there (though I managed to find a link to the comment in question on page 56).

Edit 10 Long after I burnt out on sifting through comments (page 58 ^^a), darknightrain kept going; she's got more links rounded up over here, including a (very conditional) way to turn off the TwitFace (love it XD) feature on paid/permanent/plus accounts for people other than you. Go take a look.

L-lurker Day??

Ahahaha, wow! Between my real life sucking, LJ's latest epic fuck-up, and working on help_pakistan stuff, I completely forgot that LURKER DAY was coming up! Whoops ¦Da

I have really nothing prepared. Well, except for one of my Help_Pakistan projects is finished, so I could post pictures and the pattern of that tomorrow. And there's more amigurumi pics I've been sitting on that I could share. I could probably push the whole "Move to Dreamwidth!" thing some more, as well. I probably won't be doing much else, though.

In the mean time, I've got family dinner tonight, and I'm only on page thirty-nine of the (currently) seventy-three page LJ news post, so it looks like things are going to be a bit busy for a while. I'll see how I feel about writing "Happy Lurking!" tomorrow, in light of the LJ bullshittery.

FAIR WARNING: I'm currently planning to continue crossposting my entries to LJ, but I may be shutting down comments on LJ posts in the near future. Or at least the majority of them. Just FYI.

LJ Fail Update: A wild LJ Staffer appears!

LJ's most recent news post (you know, the one that announced the epic privacy fail?) has recently been updated to include the following:

Facebook and Twitter Connect

Update: Thank you for taking the time to offer your honest feedback. We understand and appreciate your desire for privacy. We share your concerns. Most of us would not want to publish our LiveJournal usernames or FO comments to Facebook or Twitter either (to the extent we even use them). Please give us a little time to address your concerns. We are listening, and we'll do our best to respond.

LJ staffer bluemeringue has also appeared in the comments here, saying the following:

We are in the process of compiling your thousands of comments so we can provide detailed feedback in order to implement necessary changes. This has been keeping us very busy (and quiet). We understand and appreciate your wish for privacy. Most of us would not want our LiveJournal usernames, FO comments, etc., published on Facebook or Twitter either (to the extent we even use them). We hear you. We are doing our very best to respond.

In the meantime, we would love for you to vote on this poll posted by surrey_sucks.

Thank you, again, for taking the time to give us honest feedback.

The poll includes two questions: How we feel about the potential for abuse by the FB/Twitter tie-in (great idea/awful idea/what's the big deal?) and whether we are concerned about our [personal] privacy (yes/no).

With over a thousand people having voted for them respectively, responses are pretty overwhelmingly "AWFUL idea" and "Yes, I'm concerned about my privacy". Feel free to boost the numbers on those, though.