LiveJournal was founded in 1999 by Brad Fitzpatrick as a personal journaling application to stay connected with his school friends, combining blogging and social networking features inspired by earlier platforms like the WELL.

Fitzpatrick transformed LiveJournal into a public platform by enabling users to publish entries, comment on posts, and create communities, fostering a unique blend of personal expression and social interaction.

LiveJournal distinguished itself from other blogging platforms by integrating tools like customizable privacy settings, friends lists, and community groups, which allowed users to curate their interactions and share content selectively.

These features created a dynamic environment for user engagement, making LiveJournal a precursor to modern social media platforms.

During its peak in the early 2000s, LiveJournal attracted a predominantly young user base, fostering vibrant communities centered on creative self-expression and niche interests.

However, LiveJournal’s decline began after 2005 due to competition from platforms like Facebook and MySpace, which offered more advanced tools and broader appeal.

Ownership changes, including its acquisition by Six Apart in 2005 and SUP Media in 2007, further alienated users, particularly in the English-speaking world, due to concerns over privacy and content moderation policies.

The platform also struggled to adapt to evolving digital trends, as newer competitors introduced features like real-time connectivity and multimedia content that LiveJournal lacked.

Despite its decline, LiveJournal’s legacy endures in its pioneering combination of blogging and social networking, which influenced the design of later platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

LiveJournal was founded in 1999 by Brad Fitzpatrick as a personal journaling application to stay connected with his school friends, combining blogging and social networking features inspired by earlier platforms like the WELL.

Title:

Content: Regulators Seem to Think That Facebook Is the Internet

That’s a problem.

In 1997, SixDegrees.com was the first real attempt at social networking, creating a space where users could upload their information and list their friends. The site peaked at approximately 3.5 million users before it shut down in 1999.

Since then, a series of social networking business models have emerged, each time offering more advanced tools for user interaction. LiveJournal, a site for keeping up with school friends, combined blogging and social networking features inspired by the WELL; Friendster was a social network that allowed for increased interaction and control by users; Myspace had open membership and gave users the freedom to customize their pages. In 2005, it—and its 25 million user base—was sold to News Corp. But within three years, Myspace had been surpassed by Facebook, which launched in 2004 for college students and opened to everyone in 2006.

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As that history shows, in the early days of the internet, disruption was profound and constant: New companies emerged in music, video, e-commerce, publishing, and telephony on an almost yearly basis. The internet appeared to be a space where competition could thrive.

Not anymore.

Today, disruption happens in much smaller ways. The examples are getting fewer because economies of scale have concentrated innovation in the hands of a few players.

More often, disruption comes from regulation—for better or, often, for worse. Current regulation attempts focus on the actions and behavior of some actors—chiefly Facebook—while creating unintended consequences for the internet, particularly fragmentation, or the splintering of the global internet into one that more closely hews territorial borders.

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It’s understandable that both the public and regulators might think that regulating “the internet” means focusing on the biggest players. Much of it has to do with the fact that users are often exposed to various types of illegal behavior and content through some of the most popular services that exist on the internet. Fix misinformation, or extremism, or ideological silos, or security on Facebook, the thinking goes, and you’ve fixed it on the internet as a whole.

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But this is an unhelpful and misguided narrative. First, the internet is not a monolith, so treating it as if it is simply will not work. Second, many of the issues regulators are trying to address are not internet problems; they are societal. Terrorism, child abuse, and mis- and disinformation are not an offspring of the internet; they existed before the internet, and they will continue to exist after it as they are ingrained in human societies. Yet, they are treated as if they are exclusively internet problems. Third, and most importantly, regulators should stop thinking of the internet as Facebook and treating it as such. In the internet regulatory landscape, there is a mixed bag of different issues, and Facebook’s involvement in all of them, direct or indirect, adds to the current complexity. Content moderation, privacy, intermediary liability, competition, encryption—these are all broader issues related to the internet, not just Facebook. Yet, the pattern that has emerged is to treat them as Facebook issues. What this means is that, instead of focusing on trying to address them in ways appropriate for the entire internet ecosystem, they are addressed through the Facebook lens. This has been quite accurately characterized as the “Facebook Derangement Syndrome.”

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The global regulatory agenda is replete with such examples. In the United Kingdom, the Online Safety legislation wants to ban end-to-end encryption because of Facebook’s plan to introduce it as a default setting in its Messenger service. On the other side of the Commonwealth, Australia recently introduced a media bargaining code mainly targeting Facebook. Facebook famously “left” the country before renegotiating a new agreement. Similarly, in what seems to be a coordinated effort, Canada has vowed to work with Australia in an attempt to impose regulatory restrictions on Facebook.

And this trend is not limited to the Commonwealth.

India’s new intermediary guidelines aim at tightening a regulatory grip on Facebook and its partner company WhatsApp while Brazil’s fake news bill, which got approved by the Senate, is focusing on content moderation on Facebook and traceability on WhatsApp. In France, there have been conversations about the introduction of “new rules” for Facebook, while Germany’s Network Enforcement Law—NetzDG—was drafted with the primary focus of taming Facebook. Finally, in the United States, the Trump administration issued an unsuccessful executive order that aimed to regulate Facebook for bias.

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This approach of limiting regulation to Facebook is not entirely unusual. It reflects the principal-agent conundrum that, over the years, has allowed companies like Facebook to  propose policies and deploy tools that can have an impact on the way regulation gets to be enforced. The principal-agent problem is predominantly characterized by conflict of interest and moral hazards. Due to information asymmetries, the agent holds the bargaining power, and this creates a few unknowns: The principal is in no position to know the information the agent holds. Even when she does, she cannot be certain that the agent is acting to her best interest. So, the principal ends up focusing squarely on the agent, disregarding any peripheral issues that might be significant.

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The principal-agent problem may help explain why governments appear ready to introduce regulation targeting Facebook; however, it does not help explain why, in the process of doing so, the main loser is the internet and its users.

Over the past couple of years, Facebook has said, “We support regulation,” and “we want updated internet regulations to set clear guidelines for addressing today’s toughest challenges.” This statement would be significant if it did not come across as self-serving. At this stage, regulation is inescapable and Facebook knows it—as does the rest of big tech. In an effort to adapt to this new reality, companies often take advantage of their dominant position to drive regulatory processes, often at the expense of regulation itself.

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In this context, the question we should be asking is not whether regulation is appropriate, but what are the real implications of regulating in such a manner? There is already an argument that focusing on a few, big players has an impact on the health of innovation and the ability of newcomers to compete. And, then, there is the internet. The internet’s global reach is one of its main strengths. It is a feature, not a bug. Among other things, it allows the maintenance of supply chains all over the world; it allows people to communicate; it lowers costs; and it makes information sharing easier, all the while helping to address societal issues like poverty or climate change.

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To this end, the attempt to regulate based on one—or a handful—of companies can jeopardize this very important goal of the internet. It can create fragmentation, in the sense of not allowing data to flow across borders or networks to interconnect, and this can be very real and have a very big impact. It can impose limits on the way information and data gets to be shared and the way networks may interoperate. These are significant trade-offs, and they must be part of any regulation’s process.

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So where do we go from here?

For sure, the answer cannot be to stop regulating. We must accept, however, that the current approach often generates unintended consequences that only superficially affect those who must be regulated.

In this light, a possible way forward is to experiment with regulation. Experimental regulation is a relatively underused approach, yet it is flexible enough to accommodate dynamic markets, like the internet. Originally associated with the work of John Dewey, this idea is premised on the fact that, in policymaking, the way we approach theories and strategies of justice depends on “the experience of their pursuit; it is these changes that then allow us to consider how best to achieve our objectives.” The advantage of this thinking is that it considers unintended consequences as an opportunity to better define appropriate regulatory frameworks and how to achieve the desired goals.

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Internet regulation does not experiment enough, and when it does, it appears to have the wrong focus. In Australia, for instance, the effort to ensure robust journalism in an age of disinformation in social media platforms led to a “link tax” that undermines the architecture, history, and economics of the internet. This is partly due to the role big tech companies play in the regulatory process. One of the immediate things one can observe with internet regulation is the process some actors deploy: In the beginning, they operate in favor of sustaining existing policies and bureaucracies. The thinking is that longevity brings legitimacy, and as a result, the policy becomes its own cause. Once this strategy is embedded in process, these powerful forces move toward pushing their own regulatory agenda.

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It is for this reason that there is a certain appeal toward flexible regulatory systems that allow different units to experiment with different approaches and make room for assessments that separate the relevant from the nonrelevant and preexisting rules. Although experimentation neither offers a drastic approach nor aims to replace traditional routes of regulation, it can limit the risks of politicization, as politics become more context focused.

One of the first things we need is an internet impact assessment that looks at the different parts of the internet’s infrastructure and the effect that regulation may have. It is no longer just about regulating a few actors. It is about protecting the global infrastructure that we all depend on daily.

The internet has a Facebook problem, but the internet is not Facebook.

This article represents the views of the author and not those of his employer, the Internet Society. Facebook is an organization member of the Internet Society.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

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Fitzpatrick transformed LiveJournal into a public platform by enabling users to publish entries, comment on posts, and create communities, fostering a unique blend of personal expression and social interaction.

Title:

Content: LiveJournal is back in Kazakhstan
519
Anna VLADIMIROVA
Access to the "Live Journal" was restored after the administration of the LiveJournal blog platform executed the decisions of the judicial authorities of Kazakhstan on the removal of illegal materials posted on the resource.
Representatives of LiveJournal reported on the removal from the blogging platform of materials containing signs of propaganda of terrorism and religious extremism, public calls to commit acts of terrorism and the manufacture of explosive devices.
Earlier, the Saryarka court of Astana issued a decision to close access to the “Live Journal ” from August 20, 2011 due to the distribution of these materials.
As a result, the Committee of Communications, Informatization and Information of the Ministry of Investment and Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan decided to resume access to the resource on the territory of Kazakhstan from November 11 this year.
LiveJournal also plans to open a representative office in Kazakhstan and develop the Kazakhstan segment of the blogging platform.
For reference: “Live Journal ” is a blogging platform for keeping online diaries (blogs).
Provides the ability to publish your own and comment on other people ’ s records, conduct collective blogs (“communities ”), add other users to friends and follow their records in the“ friends feed ”.
Popular
All
More than 2,000 killed in Morocco earthquake
Kazakhstan - Northern Ireland: live broadcast of the match can be viewed at EXPO
Unfavorable weather conditions are expected in two cities of Kazakhstan
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev congratulated Kazakhstanis on Family Day
Morocco declares three days of mourning for earthquake victims
Kazakhstan chess players made their way to the semifinals of the World Cup 2023
A powerful causative agent of tumor growth was vitamin C
The Ministry of Emergency Situations told the details of the fire in the bath complex in Almaty
In the south-east of Turkey fell meteorite
Cristiano Ronaldo's New World Record
Kazakhstan became the champion of tennis tournament in Prague
Shootout in a cafe in Almaty: the state of the victims told in the city health
Two visitors of the cafe were injured in a shootout in Almaty
Three people were burned in a fire in Astana
It was a drought, and now it rains.
A benevolent atom
A number of tasks were set for the new akim of Aktobe region
The archive that filmmakers have been waiting for
Heavy rains flooded Las Vegas
Tokayev appointed the head of the new Ministry of Industry and Construction
Shandong is the third trade regional partner of Kazakhstan in China
Creativity is now at a price.
Impostor Trash
Tens of thousands of people are stuck at the festival in the United States because of the rains
Typhoon Haikui is approaching Taiwan
Businessmen want to pay for water as pensioners
Fair within Days of Culture of Tajikistan in Kazakhstan to be held in Astana
Minister of Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan spoke about wearing the hijab in schools
Kazakhstanis will be able to transfer license plates to the new owner online
Muza Kayuma Mukhamedkhanova
"Golden mine" in the vicinity of Maralda
How to learn a language and make friends
Presidents Tokayev and Rahmon visited the Main Mosque of Astana
Dinmukhamed Kunaev: I believe in my people, their future is bright
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A foreigner who was on the run for 15 years was detained in Astana
The fire at the mine "Kazakhstan": what kind of help will the affected miners receive
Rescuers found a tourist missing in the mountains of Kok-Zhailau
Behind the wheel of a service car and without a license removed a relative of a police chief in Shymkent
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Tajik citizens arrested in Almaty for robbery
In Semey, the memory of the victims of nuclear tests was honored
Dead girl found mushroom pickers in Kostanay region
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A military driver saved a teenage girl from suicide in Astana
Read also
Pricing in life
I swear I will burn my tongue!
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Icebreaker
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Archive
• [[year]]
• [[month.label]]
• [[day]]

LiveJournal distinguished itself from other blogging platforms by integrating tools like customizable privacy settings, friends lists, and community groups, which allowed users to curate their interactions and share content selectively.

These features created a dynamic environment for user engagement, making LiveJournal a precursor to modern social media platforms.

During its peak in the early 2000s, LiveJournal attracted a predominantly young user base, fostering vibrant communities centered on creative self-expression and niche interests.

Title:

Content: My channel
* Drag categories can be customized sorting
Recover Default OK
Setup
Alert
Cover Story / Tian Haojiang Writes Opera Life
More than 20 foreign intelligence chiefs met at the "incense party" side of the secret meeting, all in the United States.
Reboot the world is not enough professional live broadcast 7 days only bring 360,000 "original target of 3 million"
In May of this year, Song Zheng, former executive editor of Tianya Community, joined some former employees and enthusiastic netizens to launch the "Reboot Tianya" project, intending to raise 3 million yuan (about 423,000 US dollars) through seven days and seven nights of live streaming. The community is back to its normal state of access.
Video source: YouTube
Red Star Capital Bureau reported that the live broadcast of seven days and seven nights ended, but as of 6: 00 pm on June 3, the turnover of the live broadcast room was 6,451 orders, the total sales of about 361,000 yuan, the estimated profit of 84,300 yuan, plus the reward income of 65,600 yuan, a total of 149,900 yuan, only a small amount of raised.
"(away from the goal) is still a lot worse." Reboot Tianya team members said, "We are all volunteers, piecing together, it is really not professional, the anchor is not professional, do not know how to bring goods."
The report pointed out that there was no sound, the machine burned down, the anchor feared the camera, introduced to a certain product but did not have a link, the wrong link... the whole live broadcast was full of unprofessional and chaotic atmosphere.
Almost all of the members of the team are part-time, "This is a hellish challenge, just a dozen of us, three shifts can not fall, and everyone is very tired." 」
It is reported that at its peak, the Tianya community had more than 130 million registered users, and it is now so difficult to raise even 3 million yuan, which may be related to the user portrait of the Tianya community. The age of users in the Tianya community is now mainly concentrated in the 33-63 age range.
The main group of people watching live broadcasts on short video platforms is composed of users under the age of 40. It is obvious that the mainstream users of the Tianya community are less matched with the main group of people watching live broadcasts.
On the other hand, it is related to the selection of the Reboot Team.
According to the report, members of the reboot team said that more than 60% of the people who watch the live broadcast are men, and the age is concentrated in 30-40 years old. "This part of the user has its own consumption characteristics."
The enthusiastic netizens of the past (now engaged in the e-commerce live broadcast industry, with their own company) intervened to help restore the disk and found that the live broadcast "did not have fan pictures before, and the time for finding goods was very rushed, which directly led to the low matching of people and goods (see live).
As of 17: 00 on June 3, there were 201 items in the reopened window, the highest volume of which was garbage bags from different supply chains.
Profit in the supply chain
The last one.
Second-hand HOS registration surges to a 12-year high in May
The next one.
Daughter hacked to death by mentally ill mother, Hong Kong government's support is insufficient
Extended reading
Super-popular
More >

However, LiveJournal’s decline began after 2005 due to competition from platforms like Facebook and MySpace, which offered more advanced tools and broader appeal.

Ownership changes, including its acquisition by Six Apart in 2005 and SUP Media in 2007, further alienated users, particularly in the English-speaking world, due to concerns over privacy and content moderation policies.

Title:

Content: "One Apple News Network" reported a large number of layoffs, employees leaving 3 plans, the Ministry of Labor: did not receive the plan
Photo Credit: Critic Network / Li Bingfang
What we want you to know is
For employees leaving, "One Apple" provides three types of solutions, respectively, for agreed departure, transfer and dismissal.
Employees who wish to leave will sign an agreement to terminate the contract, and the top 50 signed colleagues will provide a one-time severance payment, including the amount of statutory severance pay, and the maximum amount of unemployment compensation that employees can receive under the adjustment by the Labor Insurance Bureau.
More than four months after the founding of Next Apple News, it has been reported that it can not improve the situation of continuous losses, and will lay off more than 50 employees, and provide three kinds of plans for voluntary departure, transfer and dismissal.
However, according to the provisions of the Law on the Protection of a Large Number of Fired Workers, if the company wants to lay off so many workers, it must report the dismissal plan to the competent authority before 60 days, but the Ministry of Labor has not yet obtained it.
Taiwan's "Apple News" ceased operations on August 31, 2022, laid off all employees, and was acquired by 17LIVE founder and Singaporean entrepreneur Pan Jie Xian to re-establish "One Apple", of which more than 200, more than 90% of employees also joined the new team.
However, only more than three months after the restart of operations, it was reported that "Next Apple News Network" will lay off a large number of employees, the number of more than 50 people.
According to the internal letter obtained by the "Sanli News Network", the situation of "One Apple" 's continued loss has not improved, and it is now difficult to load, so the company's management team has to adjust the organizational structure and the nature of the business, cut some personnel, and give priority to counseling suitable colleagues to transform to the business department or special service center.
For employees leaving, "One Apple" provides three types of solutions, respectively, for agreed departure, transfer and dismissal.
Employees who wish to leave will sign an agreement to terminate the contract, and the top 50 signed colleagues will provide a one-time severance payment, including the amount of statutory severance pay, and the maximum amount of unemployment compensation that employees can receive under the adjustment by the Labor Insurance Bureau.
If you are transferred, you should submit your resume before 17 days. If the transfer is successful, you will not be eligible for severance pay and severance pay.
If the employee chooses to be dismissed, the statutory severance payment and other related benefits payable under the Labor Standards Law will be paid.
However, the "Large Number of Dismissed Workers Protection Law" states that if the same business unit employs more than 200 workers and less than 500 people, if they want to dismiss 1 / 4 workers within 60 days, or dismiss more than 50 workers in a single day, they must notify the competent authority and relevant units or personnel before 60 days.
However, according to the newspaper, the Taipei City Labor Bureau has not received a large number of layoffs from the company.
The Central News Agency reported that Wang Houwei, the labor relations chief of the Ministry of Labor, said in an interview with the media that at present, because there are no plans for a large number of dismissals and no labor complaints, it is not sure how many people will actually be affected.
According to the data, a total of 201 people were insured by the end of October last year. The Ministry of Labor is in contact with the local labor bureau to ensure that workers receive severance pay, and the other parts are dealt with in accordance with the law.
News sources
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You can also leave comments with authors, journalists, and editors to discuss the content of the article.
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Editor-in-Charge: Li Xin
Editor-in-chief: Yang Shifan

The platform also struggled to adapt to evolving digital trends, as newer competitors introduced features like real-time connectivity and multimedia content that LiveJournal lacked.

Title:

Content: (Bloomberg) -- Since Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter Inc., there’s no shortage of users threatening to quit and go elsewhere. Concerns range from the billionaire’s stance on moderation and free speech, to his plan to let people pay for verification check marks.

But once a user closes their Twitter account, where can they go to attain some level of social media satisfaction?

“If you were following Kylie Jenner’s tweets and she left Twitter, don’t you just follow her on Instagram or TikTok instead?” said Sarah Simon, a senior media analyst at Berenberg.

Not necessarily. Here are some popular options:

Mastodon

The social network is often spoken of as an open-source alternative to Twitter. Users register their accounts on different “servers,” each of which are run independently with their own content rules, similar to Reddit’s community-controlled groups.

Instead of joining a single platform that blends everyone’s contributions, Mastodon’s servers are themed by interests, such as hobbies, countries or activism. This gives users an immediate community, but they are still allowed to follow users on other servers. Posts are called “toots” and can include text and images. Mastodon says it will only promote servers that “are consistently committed to moderation against racism, sexism and transphobia.”

Mastodon was founded in 2016 and has more than a million active monthly users. About half a million signed up since Musk took over Twitter on Oct. 27, according to founder Eugen Rochko.

Read more: Mastodon Struggles to Keep Up With Flood of Twitter Defectors

Tumblr

Tumblr is angling to regain its erstwhile popularity amid the chaos of Twitter’s Muskification. In a Twitter thread, it played up to that platform’s defectors with promises of an ability to remove algorithm-suggested content, free edit features, a “ridiculously huge character limit.” and “GIFs. A lot of GIFs. So many GIFs.”

After a $1.1 billion purchase by Yahoo! Inc. in 2013, the site failed to compete effectively with newer mobile-first platforms like Instagram. Traffic numbers faced further challenges in 2018 when the platform said it would ban sexual content. However, last week Tumblr announced that nudity would now be permitted, and in the past seven days, downloads on Apple’s App Store are up 58%, according to a tweet by Matt Mullenweg, whose company Automattic now owns the site.

While Tumblr’s focus on allowing lengthy blog posts and streams of multimedia used to starkly contrast with Twitter’s short-and-to-the-point text-only model, the latter’s expansion of character limits and support for threads and videos brought the two platforms closer from a product standpoint. It might make it a suitable new home for Twitter escapees as a result.

Parler

Parler is among a growing group of so-called alt-media sites that aim to give conservatives a forum to share views they feel are silenced on mainstream outlets. It was set up in 2018 as a place users would be “uncancellable,” with its name -- which means “to speak,” in French -- a nod to its ethos.

It had a surge of user registrations in 2020, with high-profile US conservatives like Ted Cruz opening accounts, and last month, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, agreed to buy the app. It’s still small, however, with an estimated 40,000 daily active users according to download tracker Apptopia, while Twitter had an average of 238 million daily active users in the second quarter of this year.

The app has been clouded with controversy for the past few years, and was banned from both the Apple and Google app stores last year after violating policies following the Jan. 6, 2021 US Capitol riot. It returned to Apple devices in May 2021, and Google’s in September this year.

Read more: Kanye Buys His Own Little Piece of Free Speech: Parmy Olson

Truth Social

Another high-profile competitor to Twitter is one created by Donald Trump. After being forced off Twitter, Facebook and YouTube following the US Capitol insurrection, the former US president promised Truth Social would offer a free-speech service. It looks strikingly similar to Twitter, with timelines of short messages, but similar to Parler its modest audience is also largely one formed of American conservatives.

The app has about 513,000 daily active users according to Apptopia -- more than ten times the total it estimates for Parler -- with Trump’s widely-publicized eviction from mainstream social media platforms helping promote his latest media enterprise. Trump has just over 4 million followers on Truth Social.

WT.Social

WikiTribune Social, or WT.Social, has had a “strong rise in users leaving Twitter due to Elon Musk’s new ownership and policies,” founder Jimmy Wales said by email. Wales, who also founded Wikipedia, said the website will fund itself by selling memberships, not through advertising, which he says gives users voting rights over content.

Billing itself as the “non-toxic social network,” WT.Social wants to establish authenticity by prioritizing content based on the truthfulness of content, as judged by what the most trusted people on the site think. This is in contrast to the engagement-based algorithms of other social media sites, where controversial content is often surfaced first.

In a version of the site coming in the next few months, users will be awarded with different “status levels” depending on how trusted their posts are deemed to be by other users. In essence, it blends the approval-by-committee model of Wikipedia with the anything-goes appeal of a service like Twitter.

Tribel

The site came out of beta testing three months ago, which was “pretty fortuitous” timing given Musk’s purchase of Twitter, said founder Omar Rivero in a phone call. Two months ago, the site had 250,000 registered users but now has 500,000, he said. “Pretty much every time Elon Musk makes fun of people in his tweets we get an uptick,” he added.

The text and picture-based site looks somewhat like the news feeds of Facebook or Twitter, but posts can be sent to selective audiences. Users can also search for posts in specific categories, meaning that a user’s first post can trend without having any followers, said Rivero, who also founded the partisan Occupy Democrats news site. Tribel doesn’t promote a specific political ideology, he said.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Despite its decline, LiveJournal’s legacy endures in its pioneering combination of blogging and social networking, which influenced the design of later platforms like Facebook and Twitter.