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On Tuesday, May 29, 2007, LJers – users of the then-popular blogging site Livejournal – woke up to find that their Friends lists were showing a large number of names that had been crossed out, or strikethrough ‘ed.
It turned out that LiveJournal had permanently suspended over 500 journals based on the users’ interest lists. Interests that were likely to get a journal banned included but were not limited to: child pornography, incest, pedophilia, rape, domestic violence, BDSM, prostitution. Journals that listed things like murder, crime, drugs, cocaine, theft, tax evasion or election fraud among their creators’ interests were not banned: interests related to sexual crime were the targets.
Among the deleted ljs were RPG journals, book discussion groups [1], rape survivor blogs[2], and fannish groups, including the large and popular Harry Potter fanfiction community Pornish Pixies, which was an age-restricted community for adult HP fanfiction.
Please read about strikethrough and boldthrough if you are not already familiar with them.
These mass-censorship events destroyed whole fanfiction and rp communities, and were the major motivating events behind the creation of Archive of Our Own and Dreamwidth.
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