Did you know Livejournal is a Russian-owned company?

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Just a little background. Although LJ was created in America, it was sold to a Russian media company in 2007 and in 2016-2017 migrated to servers located in Russia. The LJ Terms of Service are in line with Russian law, which caused some previous LJ users to migrate to other social media platforms. It all hit home for me last year when I had to pay for my own persomal paid account in rubles.

For years, our mods and members looked for better sites that still allowed for the depth of posts/comments/discussion offered by LJ. The trend now is in more fast-paced, short posts that can be reblogged, rather than longer posts that can be created by and commented on by ALL members of a community. And convincing everyone to go create a login and move to another side would be impossible. So, we've stayed with LJ.

With the recent invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army, I felt the need to tell you all this. Politics have never been allowed on sounis (except for the politics of the little peninsula!) and so I'm not going to comment more, except to state my sympathy for and solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

Over the past few years, LJ has censored the content of some journals and limited free expression. In case LJ might see fit to change or delete American-based blogs, I've been doing an occasional backup of the sounis site to Dreamwidth. I refreshed the backup today, so it's all there on https://queensthief.dreamwidth.org/

Unless someone has a better idea, we'll continue to use sounis as is, and thank you to those who have reached out to me about LJ and being dilligent about backups. Feel free to chime in and comment about any of this!

Comments

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

It's a complex issue and I don't know how to discuss it in more depth without bringing politics into it, so I will simply say that I'm willing to make the move to Dreamwidth if ever Sounis decides to migrate there, for Reasons. (Seems it's the closest mirror of the format we enjoy here.) And thank you Checkers for your dedication to keeping a backup for us! <3

[qwentoozla]

I was concerned about this comm and am relieved to hear that there is a DW backup if need be.

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to pop in to add that if anyone wants to donate to help Ukraine refuges, go to Rescue.org (https://www.rescue.org/) to make a one-time or monthly donation.

[eachase.livejournal.com]

Without bringing real-world politics into it too much, perhaps it is fair to say that we sympathize with the plight of countries facing challenges like those of experienced by the countries of the Little Peninsula.

And, perhaps, a MOD would be willing to create an email list of those of us who would wish to be informed of a move, should it come to that? (Or those of us willing to do so could exchange real-world email addresses in case we need to communicate outside of this platform.)

[readsintrees.livejournal.com]

I will migrate if that's the will of the Sounisians. I'm less concerned with the politics of LJ being Russia (not wanting to punish every Russian for the crimes of the people in charge), but more concerned with government censorship. I've heard that social media over there is already being limited....so if that spread to LJ, it would be concerning.

Anyway, I think an email list of members would be a good idea if the group moves.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I will work on an email list. Good idea.

Email list

[empmai2.livejournal.com]

I would be interested in being added to the email list too
-EmpMai

thank you!

[sgwordy.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for doing this! I'm 99.9% lurking these days but I will definitely want to lurk at Dreamwidth should the need arise.

[mander-lee.livejournal.com]

I've actually been dreading LJ's demise for a few years now. I am quite surprised that it has managed to hang on for so long (probably because it is still being actively used elsewhere in the world), since so many of its contemporary social media platforms have gone under.

Thanks so much for creating a backup Dreamwidth, checkers! I don't have a Dreamwidth account, but if it's a more active/stable place, I'll probably go ahead and do so.

I'd also be interested in a mailing list! I've recently discovered how nice mailing lists are. I signed up for a few of my favourite author's and it's like getting a postcard in the mail, haha. It's one of those things I actually get excited about seeing in my mailbox.

There's also Pillowfort.io, which looks a lot like Tumblr, but has the same communities and discussion features that LJ has. Cost of entry is a bit high though, as it's entirely user funded. I think you have to pay $5 now to sign-up, or be given an invitation by an existing user. (If anyone wants to try it out though, I do have invitations, so let me know.)