A few theories.

[spatch]

1. Warriors for Innocence is a very elaborate lj-dramaesque prank team and instead of collecting lists of who has a crush on whom this time around, this particular group of people found a way to start dropping the banhammer by spearheading a crusade to stamp out pedophiles (who could argue against that?) armed with only righteous indignation and a good sense of irony.

2. Warriors for Innocence is an actual group on a crusade to stamp out pedophiles (who could argue against that?) and they've got some nasty shit on someone at Six Apart or someone on Six Apart's legal counsel, which is why LJ caved faster than a Mexico City sinkhole on this one.

3. This along with CBS buying last.fm is, I believe, the Fifth and a Half Sign of the End Times.

4. POST 9/11 WORLD

5. This is stupid, you're stupid, I'm stupid, they're stupid, don't you see? Your stupid minds! Stupid, stupid!

6. I don't know. This is just depressing dumb.

Comments

[ungratefulninja.livejournal.com]

VIRAL MARKETING GONE INSANE

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

Performance art.

[pushupstairs.livejournal.com]

I am wholly unamused by the last.fm deal.

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Ecch.

[spatch]

Thirded. dot fm.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

7. Crazy Christians doing what crazy Christians always do.

[zhym.livejournal.com]

MY GOD WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?????

[littlegirltoast.livejournal.com]

Isn't this more like "My god, won't someone please stop thinking of the children (in that way)?????"

[scout1222.livejournal.com]

That's along the lines of what I was thinking. Thinking of the children is what started all of this!

[vanguardcdk.livejournal.com]

Actually I keep thinking of the line from Serenity about how the Operative is the worst they've fought..He's a 'believer'. One who truly believes in their cause, and that every and all actions are worthy in pursuit of it.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

Not you too!

Still fuming over last.fm so I offer nothing constructive.

[voivod.livejournal.com]

[jotasbrane.livejournal.com]

I don't know which from what, but I was inspired to just add "illegal interests" to my interests list. I may not be cool enough to be interested in actual illegal stuff, but I am interested in the idea of being interested in illegal stuff.

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

You know, I just checked out the Warriors website (a fucking BLOGSPOT blogger thinger).

Something about it is off. It creeps me out. I feel like I'm reading an anti-pedophelia website created and maintained by people obsessed with child porn.

We have a word for people obsessed with child porn.

That word is "pedophile."

See where I'm going with this?

[spatch]

Indeed.

"I have folders FULL of screenshots of these sicko websites! I'm collecting them! For, uh, evidence! To show how, uh, WRONG they all are! Pardon me while I go inspect the Internet for more evidence!"

There's even instructions on how to act like a child in chatrooms to "trap" their predatory targets. INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO ROLEPLAY A CHILD FLIRTING WITH ADULTS AND TALKING ABOUT SEX.

I can't remember if it was on the SA Forums or Metafilter, but someone commented that the most irrationally virulent crusaders against what they deem "deviant" or "wrong" are usually themselves in the same camp, and their attempts at justification just de-evolve into self-loathing and finally general loathing altogether. You know.

Etc etc etc. Nothing new there, really, but what I liked was the quote that came out of the comment: "It's obvious WFI's so far in the child porn closet that they've knocked the back drywall down and are building a new closet behind it."

[spatch]

Oh, also, if you've visited the WFI website, you may now want to scan your machine for spyware. While the only reports of browser hits I've heard have been from people using IE without any kind of protection, it never hurts to be safe.

If these guys are the "good guys" then how come they want to fuck my computer up?

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

I'm on a Mac. SUCK IT, WARRIORS!

[ron_newman]

what's so bad about blogspot?

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

I don't think any kind of legitimate law enforcement/child protection clearinghouse is likely to be running its operations off of a Blogspot account (or an LJ, for that matter).

[ron_newman]

but then there's BPDNews, which really is the Boston Police Department's (often-entertaining) blog. Or should be, except right now it says:

Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

At least they have their own domain.

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

This is interesting:

http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/830650.html

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I think it's worse than that:

http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/830650.html

"the party in question may in fact be among the scariest segment of dominionists--in with neo-Confederate, racist, "Christian Patriot" militia groups"

Cheers!

[ron_newman]

I read the link but don't really understand it. 'Dominionism' sounds like something vaguely Canadian. Who is this 'Joel' the page repeatedly refers to?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I confess this isn't anywhere near my personal area of expertise, but you can certainly read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionist for more information.

"Joel's Army" is included in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Now_theology

Hope that's helpful. Insert general wikipedia caveats here.

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

news.livejournal.com has a contrite post from the CEO. Apparently Brad's on vacation, and the CEO freaked out.

[spatch]

And Crack Legal Team joined in on the freaking out in five-part harmony.

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

They were on crack, yes.

[antiquated-tory.livejournal.com]

I think this was only in part a response to fear of WFI. I suspect that Barak B had probably wanted to purge pedophiles for a while but Brian kept telling him that this would be a bad idea. Barak wasn't convince, but the WFI episode and Brian going on holiday == excuse to do what he wanted to anyway, without a lot of arguments from the tech guy. Now I think he is starting to realize why this was a bad idea.
I say this because one of our Product Managers does shit like this all the time based on Sales team issues, right down to waiting for the senior concerned tech guy to go on holiday so he wouldn't have to argue with him. And then discovering that he's fucked things into a cocked hat, just like the senior tech guy told him he would.
In short, typical Management Suit behavior. BarakB is probably even sincere in his apology, and it might be 6 mos before his alpha maleness has him do something stupid again.
Though hopefully the next stupid thing he does will be at another company, because they should can his ass at this one.