Well, my LJ friends: it's time to switch platforms or lose your accounts!

[thewayne]

[PLEASE post on your LJ account(s) and communities, if you have such, so as many people as possible know about this!]

It looks like the Putin government is getting ready to lock their social media sites in to Russian posters only and to require social media credits. Dream Width is doing what they can to smooth transferring LJ users over, and there are other sites that are LJ clones, but I can't name them. I think Insane Journal was one, I have no idea if they're still around. I moved to DW nine years ago this January and have no particular problems with it, and I would expect that Europeans would have no issues with payment.

This Bluesky post explains what's going on, and comments dig deeper and discuss alternative archive methods.
https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3mbebi2xfxc25

This LJ post explains things - in Russian. Google Translate should handle switching it into the language of your choice.
https://ru-news.livejournal.com/80899.html

I do hope you switch to DW. I know some of you are Facebookers, and if you decide to go there, I wish you well. I do not and will not use Meta properties.

Happy new year indeed.

When a date is announced for this lockout to go live, I will be deleting my account. My DW account is under this name, TheWayne.

Comments

[armiphlage]

I've posted information on my LJ account for my LJ friends.

[silveradept]

Social controls are nobody's friends, but definitely spreading the word.

[starwatcher]

I'm confused, and think I'm missing something.

As far as I can tell -- I read the translation, but of course it's in pseudo-corporatese -- it's a split between users with the "Cyrillic package" and users without. Which is infuriating if one has Russian or Russian-adjacent friends. But if we don't, will we notice a difference? I mean, I made a post on LJ this morning without any difficulty.

[kathmandu]

The thing they are doing right now is a split between in-Russia and outside-Russia users, yes.

But someone who used to work for LJ and has observed the whole LJ-ownership saga thinks this is a step toward selling off the outside-Russia part...or shutting it down. (The BlueSky thread Wayne linked to has more details.)

If it gets sold or shut down, people's LJs may be lost without warning.

So you probably won't notice an immediate difference, but it would be a good idea to download or back up your journal, so you'll be covered if LJ later suffers a sudden existence failure.

[starwatcher]

Thank you for the explanation.

I transferred my LJ to DW soon after DW went live. For a couple of years I cross-posted, but the past few years, my LJ posts have simply been links to my DW posts. IOW, I have nothing to lose. But I'll add this info to a post I make on the LJ side, to warn whoever has me friended.

[disneydream06]

I am going to steal this and post it on my LJland...
Hugs, Jon