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Strikethrough '07: A long and sordid affair on Livejournal that involved representatives of Six Apart being complete idiots on one hand and Harry Potter fandom trying to stand up for its porn on the other. Pedophiles may have been involved, somewhere, in some capacity, although the criteria for "pedophile" seemed to cover, at various points, everything from "people who like to discuss the novel Lolita" to "people who draw fictional characters who may or may not be of age doing it."
Strikethrough I
Nutshell version: Journals with "incest" or "child porn" listed as an interest in some permutation were suspended. Unfortunately, they're more like guidelines keywords, so communities discussing Lolita or Japanese Lolita fashion were hit, as were people writing about surviving incest and child abuse. Fan fiction and art were targeted as well. Fandom flipped its shit. After a great deal of sturm und drang, many journals were reinstated. The name "Strikethrough" comes from the fact that a journal's username appears in strikethrough font if the journal has been deleted or suspended. At least... it used to.
Strikethrough II: Electric Boldfontaloo
Nutshell version: Two Harry Potter fan artists were suspended for artwork that may or may not have qualified as "child" porn. Livejournal/Six Apart insisted on keeping their obscenity parameters vague, to the frustration of many (my personal theory was that they were keeping it vague so as not to even suggest to their advertisers that one might find this or that fan-drawn copyright-infringing sexual act on their service; someone else pointed out that as long as LJ kept its standards fuzzy, it didn't actually have particulars to police, which would be better for fandom in the long run). Clearly, however, removing the strikethrough font and replacing it with a simple bold would make it harder to notice who had been suspended LJ users happy, though? Right? Also, a Livejournal employee mocked users in an open community. Trolling and cat macros were had by all.
The fallout
People began to debate which journaling service they should immigrate to en masse. Insanejournal was the eventual consensus, I think, but I was gifted with a permanent LJ account, so I'm not going anywhere.
See also
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