Yeah, I agree that the way they're handling it is rather bad, and they don't seem to be able to refrain from making basic mistakes like antagonizing customers needlessly. However, in that situation, that means that they really don't want you gone, and so the problem then is less free speech and 'they don't want me' and more 'LJ policies are inconsistent and their Public Relations are incompetent.' So, I still hold that LJ 'winning' is if they don't lose users through their bad PR. If people all stay, that actually means they haven't suffered any consequences, heh.

Seriously, I read a post by ex-LJ staff in which she said that she personally, considering the legal climate, would not have any art like that anywhere near her. If the LJ staff is that fearful of that kind of stuff, they should have told the userbase and that would have saved EVERYONE a lot of trouble. I think they just stay mum and don't clarify matters because they're afraid people will bolt. That's why they were previously bending backwards and going 'oh, we've never seen any fanfic that breaks the Miller Test.' So that's why I don't really believe they are trying to get rid of fans, because otherwise they wouldn't have tried all that reassuring stuff.

As for pro-ana, there haven't been any laws against it. When people start legislating, that'll be when LJ boots them. As for racial hate comms, that really makes me more angry than the pro-ana, but that has legal history behind it. Unless they threaten someone's life, it seems it's not illegal. Perhaps people can mount a campaign to get racial hate off of LJ, but it won't have anything to do with fandom.

Abuse has always lacked transparency, but it seems this is the first time a large group of people are challenging it.

Oh, don't you recall the Skyhawke archive controversy? On chan. It was all because someone was arrested for textual content in Australia, so they decided they had to form this council to vet everything for artistic merit.