... if it weren't so sad.

Flickr is doing the same stupid thing that LJ tried to pull a few weeks ago. They're restricting users from Germany, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore from watching photos which have been as "moderate" or "restricted" (by other Flickr users!).

This means that I, as an adult German citizen, cannot view any photos on Flickr that anyone has deemed inappropriate in one way or another. I'm an adult, for fucks sake! Gimme back my porn!

Seriously though, I know that there are laws in Germany that prohibit websites from letting minors access "adult material." Which is difficult to define, but that's besides the point here. The solution to this is not, however, to prohibit EVERY GERMAN CITIZEN (or, for that matter, all the Austrian and Swiss citizens caught up in the flames) from accessing the nekkid pictures.

Find a way to limit access to your site according to the arbitrary laws citing certain ages as a measure of maturity around the world. Or take a fucking stand for a change, and force all the countries around the world to acknowledge that the Internet is a worldwide phenomenon, and that local laws about the minimum age for viewing porn don't mean a thing in a world where teenagers know far more about technology than their guardians or the local authorities.

Won't somebody think of the PORN?!?!!?!

I've just finished backing up all of my LJ entries. If you haven't already, go do so now! You never know when LJ is going to decide your journal does not meet their TOS and has to be suspended or deleted all of a sudden. I'm just sayin' ...

To make a backup, go to this page: Export Journal. I've downloaded my entries as xml-files, because I can easily import them into a wordpress.com blog if need be.

Not that I have any suspicious interests listed right now, but who knows what the next witch hunt will be about? Maybe I should go remove "free speech" before it's too late. Or "sleeping in." Can't have those lazy motherfuckers hanging around on a good clean blogging platform like LJ.

There are people who think the internet is a bad thing because it makes people sit at home alone in front of their computers instead of interacting with other people in real life. I call bullshit on that.
( Here's why. )