Currently circulating:
War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength. Fakesters Are Bad.
Below the dashed line is a petition. You know what to do. So sign it and forwardster it to your friendsters/fraudsters/fakesters/etc.
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To Friendster: We the undersigned stand against the random censorship of certain creative choices made by the membership. Friendster should have an open policy which allows the internet to function unimpeded in its ability to be all things to all people. Friendster’s system is an ideal venue for creative expression on the web when not interfered with by the management’s subjective moral judgement. Strict legality should be Friendster’s only concern. Protection from costly lawsuits is obviously necessary to all of our ongoing enjoyment of Friendster. However, since the site is already closed to minors, and allows members to link only to what or whom they choose, there is no reason not to allow the pornographic and/or blasphemous to peacefully coexist with Friendster’s squeaky-clean social-networking/dating side. Please do not destroy Friendster’s creative potential.
I won’t include the email addresses here because some of them are real, but others are most likely not (such as all of the abrams@ ones)
I appreciate the spirit of what these folks are trying to do, they’ve obviously never sat in a meeting with a team of corporate lawyers, or they wouldn’t even put the phrases “pornography” and “strict legality” in the same paragraph. I am curious why they make this appeal to a capitalist concern? If Friendster was intended to be a free, community site for adults only, this would make sense. But it’s a money-making enterprise intending to appeal to the masses — and I can vouch for the fact that “adult walls” don’t work. People are going to put their perverted shit (and I mean this in the nicest of ways, I respect perverts) in the “squeaky-clean” dating area no matter what happens (whether they allow an adult area or not). However, the appearance of them endorsing this activity absolutely will NOT fly in the corporate world, end of story. Unless Friendster decides to court the adult market (which they’d be smart to make an “alternative” Friendster for that exact purpose, since it’s the only way they’ll really get rich), say goodbye to the “creative potential.”