denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
Denise ([staff profile] denise) wrote in [site community profile] dw_news2024-09-17 08:41 am

In which we update you about our lawsuits, and welcome a wave of new friends!

As usual, I looked around and realized that the news update I just wrote was actually months and months ago, so I thought I'd take a few moments and update you all on the progress we've been making recently with Netchoice in our fight against the wave of terrible and unconstitutional social media bills that have been sweeping the country. (And if you live in the US and you have a moment, please call your Representative and tell them to oppose KOSA, the "Kids' Online Safety Act": it passed the Senate, but there's still time to stop it in the House. It's the national version of all these state laws we've been fighting, and if you've been around for a while, you know why they're a problem, but if you're new, the EFF has a great short overview of why it's a problem.)

First, though, I'd like to offer a warm welcome to our new dwenizens from Cohost, which is sadly shutting down at the end of the month. You can check out our tips for new users that we posted when we had an influx of folks joining us from Reddit; to that, I'd add that you should check out the beta features. You can ignore the "Temporarily revert updated journal page components" beta (we have that lingering around to help people who were having trouble with some elements of the design updates) and the "Two-Factor Authentication" beta will let you add your 2FA provider but not actually issue 2FA tokens yet (we keep finding more and more legacy methods of "log in while you're doing a task" that we have to figure out the 2FA workflow on), but the New Create Entries beta and the New Inbox beta are both (we think) a much superior version of those pages. We'll be enabling them for all users sometime relatively soon (okay, 'soon' by our standards), so we want to hear your feedback now, especially if you use assistive technology! If you're coming to us from Cohost and are looking for other Cohosters, feel free to matchmake in the comments. If you're looking for new friends, the unofficial community [community profile] addme is a good start, and browsing [site community profile] dw_community_promo will let you find (or promote!) communities on all sorts of topics.

Anyway, since we last spoke, Dreamwidth has joined on to two more of Netchoice's lawsuits challenging unconstitutional deanonymization and mandated censorship bills. In addition to the two we've already let you know about, Netchoice, LLC v Bonta in California and Netchoice, LLC v Yost in Ohio, we've added Netchoice, LLC v. Fitch in Mississippi and NetChoice LLC v. Reyes in Utah. (That last one was originally filed before we became members, but Utah pulled a fast one where they pinky swore to the court right before the deadline that they were going to repeal and replace the law with a much improved version, and then the version they replaced it with actually made things worse and affected a lot more sites, so we were thrilled to join on the revised lawsuit.)

The July Supreme Court opinion in Netchoice v Moody (consolidated with Netchoice v Paxton) made it clear that sites' content moderation decisions are protected by the First Amendment, and there's an upcoming case this term (Free Speech Coalition v Paxton) that will tee up the constitutionality of "age verification" requirements. (The scarequotes there are because there's no conclusive way to "verify" the age of the person who's using an account at any given moment: at most you can approximate it at account creation.) Until then, remember: there's no way for a site to treat adults and minors differently unless they're able to conclusively identify who's an adult and who's a minor, and the only way for a site to conclusively do that is to deanonymize every single vistor and require you to upload your government ID in order to make an account. As I keep saying over and over in our declarations in support of these lawsuits: we don't want to ask you for that data, and we know you don't want to give it to us.

There's a whole heap of other issues with these bills, too: for instance, it's getting more and more common for states to throw in "parental consent" clauses, whereby a parent can write in to a site and demand access to or control of their under-18 kid's account to various degrees. That's also impossible for a site to establish: we have no way of telling who's the parent of one of our users at all, much less establishing whether they're the parent with legal decisionmaking authority, and there are dozens of scenarios where that ends incredibly badly. (I usually cover so many of them in my declarations that the outside lawyers Netchoice is working with have to politely ask me to pare them down a bit!) Most of these bills also include an obligation to restrict access to "content harmful to minors", and the definition of "harmful to minors" is always, always politicized: you probably all can sing along with the refrain by now because of how often I climb up on this soapbox, but there's well-established evidence that content by creators from historically marginalized groups, and especially content by queer creators, is judged "harmful to minors" at a much higher rate than functionally identical content by creators from groups that aren't historically marginalized. Each of the states that have included a "harmful to minors" clause has had a different range of what's considered "harmful to minors", but there's no doubt all of them sweep up a broad range of speech that can be helpful to at least some minors who would be denied access to that content.

I don't want to talk your ears off about all of the problems in all of these laws, because we'd be here all day -- my declarations in Netchoice v Reyes and Netchoice v Fitch cover a lot of the problems, but there's even more I didn't have time to address. (And that's with my declaration in Netchoice v Fitch running 23 pages!) Fortunately, there's good news: judges, and even appellate courts, across the country have been agreeing with us that these bills are unconstitutional, and it's not even close. Here's our win record so far:


  • Netchoice, LLC v Bonta (5:22-cv-08861) N.D. California: Judge Beth Labson Freeman granted the preliminary injunction preventing the law from going into effect on 18 Sept 2023.
  • California appealed: NetChoice, LLC v. Bonta (23-2969), 9th Circuit. About a month ago, on 16 August 2024, the 9th Circuit affirmed the district court for the most part and kept the injunction in place. The case now returns to the district court for further development.
  • Netchoice, LLC v Yost (2:24-cv-00047) S.D. Ohio: Judge Algenon Marbley granted the preliminary injunction on 12 Feb 2024. To Ohio's (tiny bit of) credit, they didn't bother dragging out an appeal of the preliminary injunction: we have now moved on to the motions for summary judgement, in which both sides make their arguments to the judge on why the other side doesn't have a possible case, and are awaiting the judge's ruling on those.
  • Netchoice, LLC v. Fitch (1:24-cv-00170) S.D. Mississippi: Judge Halil Suleyman Ozerden granted the preliminary injunction preventing the law from going into effect on 1 July 2024. (This is good, because the law was passed on 30 Apr 2024 and set to take effect 1 July: I could not believe how fast Netchoice and their outside counsel got that turned around!)
  • Mississippi appealed: NetChoice v. Fitch (24-60341), 5th Circuit. We're still waiting for a ruling on that one, and the Fifth Circuit is known as the "Fifth Circus" for very good reason: I would not be surprised to see this one make it all the way up to the Supreme Court, too, because nobody trusts the Fifth Circus to be sensible. (Of course, nobody trusts the Supreme Court to be sensible, either, sigh.)
  • NetChoice LLC v. Reyes (2:23-cv-00911) D. Utah: This is the one that made me realize "oh, I haven't updated everyone on things in ages"! Judge Robert Shelby granted the preliminary injunction preventing the law from going into effect on 10 Sept 2024. (Check out page 31: our declarations have been cited in the other decisions, but this one devoted nearly an entire paragraph to judge-speak for "hey, uh, you claim this law is narrowly tailored, but Dreamwidth easily disproves that". This one is especially funny because Utah governor Spencer Cox spent a lot of time loudly yelling at first amendment attorneys on Twitter about how of course the court would agree with him! The court really, really did not agree with him.)


I always struggle with trying to figure out how much of an update on our advocacy work is significant enough to deserve a full [site community profile] dw_news post, because I know there are folks who want to stay informed, but having sitewide announcements for every little thing would quickly get annoying. To solve this problem, we've started [site community profile] dw_advocacy, an announcements community in which we'll post announcements of wins, announcements of new cases we're participating in, and (if I have time!) deep dives into the legal issues that show up frequently in these challenges and the cases that keep getting cited over and over again. Subscribe to the community for everything from my glee at getting to scratch another state off the "I helped sue you!" list to my "hopefully reasonably okay for a non-lawyer" explanations of landmark cases that show why the latest state to pull some shenanigans should already know why their shenanigans are unconstitutional!

As always, our deepest gratitude to Netchoice for picking these fights and for inviting us along for them. We don't always agree with every lawsuit they choose to file, but that's precisely why Netchoice member companies don't have control over which fights Netchoice decides to pick, only which lawsuits we'll choose to give evidence for. Even when we disagree with them, the folks at the litigation center are extremely passionate about digital civil liberties, and they're a delight to work with. My main contact at the litigation center always tells me how heartening and inspiring he finds it to see how absolutely enthusiastic our users are about these issues and how much you all care that we're fighting (and winning!) these battles!

And one last announcement: if you didn't see our notice in [site community profile] dw_maintenance, we've switched our offsite downtime notification/status page away from Twitter (excuse me, "X") because of their sharp decline in Trust & Safety standards, the inability for people to see posts or timelines without being logged in to a site account, and the general ongoing instability of the service. Our new offsite downtime notification/status page can be found at dreamwidth.org on Bluesky. Please bookmark that page! In the event we can't reach [site community profile] dw_maintenance to let you know of any issues, we'll post there.

As always, thank you all for using and supporting Dreamwidth. We have the freedom to be so passionate about these fights for online civil liberties because we don't have to worry about keeping our advertisers or investors happy: the fact we're 100% user-supported gives us so much more leeway to give states the finger when they want us to compromise your privacy for the sake of "protecting the children" efforts that will do nothing to actually protect children online. (Isn't it so interesting that Senator Wyden's Invest In Child Safety Act, which would actually make a meaningful difference in protecting kids online, has gone nowhere? Why, it's almost like none of this is about protecting children at all.)

We remain committed to keeping Dreamwidth 100% free of advertising, venture capital, and outside investment, no matter what it takes. People ask us all the time whether we can raise the limits on some of our restrictions like image hosting and icons (two of the most expensive features we offer), and we would love to be able to, but our costs keep rising and inflation has outpaced the advances in disk space and transfer costs in the last few years. Your support is still covering our costs of operation, but the fact we've been in business for 15 years and our prices have remained the same has been nibbling away at the leeway we have. We aren't in any danger, but we've been starting to have the extremely difficult internal conversations about raising our prices that were first set in 2009 so they better reflect 2024 costs and the 2024 value of the dollar in order to make absolutely certain that remains true. Right now, we're still in the very early stages of that discussion (and we'd love to hear your thoughts!) and it's too soon to say what we'll end up deciding, but in the meantime, if you have a few dollars to spare, please consider buying some paid time, for your account, for a friend, or for a random active user. The financial support of those of you who choose to pay us is what allows us to keep offering the site for everybody, and we're incredibly grateful to those of you who keep offering that support!
caviling: (Default)

<3

[personal profile] caviling 2024-09-20 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
Dreamwidth is rare and valuable. I said so over on Bluesky too, but please count me among the folks who would be more than happy to see a price increase.
gimmighoulcoins: (I don't get tired,I get results!)

[personal profile] gimmighoulcoins 2024-09-20 03:48 pm (UTC)(link)
An increase in the current pricing would be more thsn understandable in my book! As much as news like that can feel like a bummer, when a site is so committed to not only staying ad-free but also to internet advocacy the way Dreamwidth is-- Yeah, that's plenty fair. Especially given that prices have been where they're at for so long.

Thanks for all that you guys are doing, both directly on dreamwidth and more broadly! I'm glad to hear about [site community profile] dw_advocacy, I'll be subscribing for certain - those updates have been very interesting and, truth be told, they've inspired hope on the topic for me!
Edited (html blunder!) 2024-09-20 15:48 (UTC)
witchofthebough: An animated spoon and cauldron make magic together with smiling, kawaii faces! (KawaiiNot: Let's Make Magic!)

[personal profile] witchofthebough 2024-09-20 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)
To me, Dreamwidth feels like one of the last places online that genuinely cares about their user base and the long-term impacts on its community. I would be more than happy to pay higher prices for premium to keep this space open and free for all. Thank you so much for all of your advocacy towards a safer and anonymous internet!

As recommended, I'll also contact my House Representative regarding KOSA. :)
Edited 2024-09-20 19:43 (UTC)
darjeeling: Mal | Firefly (TV | i aim to misbehave)

[personal profile] darjeeling 2024-09-20 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for keeping Dreamwidth a literal safe haven from the online madhouse that is the rest of the internet.

Happy to support a price increase as needed, I buy points and then divvy them up to whichever of my RP journals I'm running for a given stretch.
enginesock: (Default)

[personal profile] enginesock 2024-09-21 11:26 pm (UTC)(link)
My concern about price increases/restructuring as a roleplayer would be mainly - would that 50/yr mean there's only the option to pay on a yearly basis? RPers seem to make up a pretty large portion of the market for paids, which we do to extend icon slots, but I only go month by month because one month I might not be active with character x and instead want to put a paid on character y and I know people who do the same.

I'm not wholly opposed to price increases, but it's hard to say without knowing how much that increase would be. I will say that the comparatively low price for a paid on dreamwidth compared to virtually anywhere else is a huge selling point for me, because it doesn't feel like a big deal and I know that I'll more or less always have 3 bucks to renew, so at any given time I usually have at least 2 or 3 paids going, which is pretty significant in terms of my spending patterns because I literally don't subscribe to any other monthly internet service/premium account/etc.

With RP icons usually the most important ones get uploaded first, so that means that once you upload a bunch of icons onto a paid, you can end up in a situation where in order to use the most core ones again you have to renew the paid because they are now locked (as they were chronologically uploaded earlier) - which isn't a big deal to me when it's a low cost thing like it is right now, but if it were like 10/mo or something, it would keep me from doing a paid at all because I wouldn't know if it was sustainable and wouldn't want to box myself in.
shrikesback: (Laptop)

[personal profile] shrikesback 2024-09-23 03:14 am (UTC)(link)
Too lazy to log out of an RP journal, but joining in with the choir that I'd be happy to pay more money for your services, up the prices as you need. Y'all are fantastic and provide so much joy.
dragonspine: (Default)

[personal profile] dragonspine 2024-09-23 05:09 am (UTC)(link)
I think a price raise is fine, but while discussing paid time - I was wondering if different increments of premium paid might eventually be added (at whatever increased price point you land on)? Currently you can only do 6 or 12 months, but in RP for short run games it would be nice to be able to purchase 1 month instead like you can with regular paid. I know there's the convert paid time to points feature which is how I normally handle the difference if I need an account active for less, but as long as the floor is open on paid stuff...
amber: (Default)

[personal profile] amber 2024-09-23 08:50 am (UTC)(link)
thanks for the updates, and the further info in various comment threads! sometimes I wish I could have a feed just of [staff profile] denise's comments around the site like a message board because they're often such great and informative reads.

anyway, I'm a seed account but I dropped some money into your box again anyway. and fully advocate for you raising prices! I've seen some of the rp community discussing this elsewhere and the feeling is generally very supportive too.
pilottttt: (Default)

[personal profile] pilottttt 2024-09-23 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Perhaps people should watch the movie "The People vs. Larry Flynt" more often.
pirateangelbaby: (Awkward wave)

[personal profile] pirateangelbaby 2024-09-23 02:26 pm (UTC)(link)
(Please excuse the RP account.) I've been on DW since 2010 and have supported at least two paid accounts that whole time, and I am joining the chorus of "increase prices!" The amount we pay already is pretty low; just increasing a bit to catch up to inflation is really no big deal, especially since you haven't changed it all since inception. There are very few social media sites I'm willing to pay to access, and DW is at the top of my list despite technically being accessible for free. There are very few places on the internet you can go these days that aren't thinly veiled excuses to throw ads at you. People like you who are focused on the actual user experience instead of obsessing over squeezing pennies from the general public are aces in my book, the other obvious example being AO3. I will always support sites that are sensibly run and care about providing a great environment for its users!
rtj: (kovacs.)

[personal profile] rtj 2024-09-23 07:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks for the meaty, informative post, first of all! It's a bit out of my wheelhouse, so I don't really have any insightful comments for the legal battles other than to give my thanks that y'all continue to do so. I deeply appreciate what DW is and I'm glad that you've been continuous advocates for not only it but for the open internet as a whole.

For my actual feedback, I just wanted to chime in and add that I'm also happy to support a price increase to better support the site as a whole. I'm a RPer, so I usually have a few accounts active at once and have always been appreciative of the service of being able to have my many silly little icons. A price increase for that service wouldn't be off-putting to me at all, personally, since the prices you've laid out still seem very reasonable imo

Also in general, as one of the users that's been here since (one of) the great LJ exodus, truly, thank you for all you do! This is my little home on the internet and I'm deeply grateful for it.
ironjill: ([ Marvel ] ‑ J.Drew ‑ Pose)

[personal profile] ironjill 2024-09-24 03:04 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks so much for everything you and everyone else does at DW, from keeping this little site chuggin' along to the advocacy work you all do! I love getting the policy updates, and being a bit of a policy wonk in a different field, I always appreciate the in-depth information you're sharing either here or on bluesky! It's always great to see where we're at, and what y'all are doing for both us here at DW but also for the internet in general!

I've been here since LJ days, and I remember when you all were willing to drop the registration codes and welcome us LJ RPers back in the day, and you all have really always been so wonderful and welcoming. We all have a home here!!

And of course, of relevance, I'd always be willing to shill money your way, so raising prices is welcome on my end! I want to make sure you guys have everything you need to keep Dreamwidth going!
hoardings: (Default)

[personal profile] hoardings 2024-09-24 09:43 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks for the activism as always! It's really an important cause, so I'm sure we're all grateful for the work you put in.

On the paid note, like (I'd assume most) users here, I think it's a great idea. If it means supporting the site, I'm happy to put a little more money in from month to month, and appreciate the heads-up.

I saw your earlier comments about how paid services couldn't be split further than they are right now, which totally makes sense, but as a user who has a totally awful conversion rate into USD, I may not be able to afford splurging on premium paids as often. While I'm totally fine going without! I'm unsure where the profit margin lies and was curious if it would be sustainable to consider creating another tier for premiums for 3-month intervals as well as 6 to go with the potential price raise. Even if the value rate is a worse conversion, $20-ish can be much easier to slip into a tight budget than $40-ish haha
zweihander: (but i think you've given in)

[personal profile] zweihander 2024-09-24 06:35 pm (UTC)(link)
thank you so much for your political activism, for keeping us updated on the guts of the website, and in general just the massive amount of transparency you show as a social media administration team. it's almost impossible to imagine this sort of frankness and honesty about price structures and code bases and everything else from any website in the modern era—but that you take the time to explain all these things and actually open yourselves up to discussion with all your users (and not just the ones who drop, say, $8/mo) comes with a very early internet vibe.

dreamwidth is a piece of modern social media that's managed to retain the feeling of a niche fansite, and i'm so happy that it's built that way. i don't typically have a lot of money to kick around, but buffing one of my menagerie of roleplay accounts is one of the first things i typically splurge for. i'd have no problem paying more to help out a website that feels as comfortable as this one does.

[personal profile] swaldman 2024-09-24 10:19 pm (UTC)(link)
My 2p is hell yes, raise prices. The ethos of DW has always been that for the service to be for the users, then it was necessary for (some) users to pay. It is entirely consistent with that to raise prices in line with the costs of operating the service (which includes the costs of yourselves and any employees).

Obviously there will always - at *any* price point - be some people who struggle to pay. I would be entirely on board with the idea of doing things to help those people, if such things are practical. Off the top of my head I'm not sure what those things might be, but it seems (to me) very much in the ethos of DW to ask those who can to pay a little more to subsidise those who can't - if some way of doing that can be thought of that is non-trivial to exploit and also feasible to administer.
ngtskynebula: (lass/elesis (fundo azul))

πŸ™‡πŸ½β€β™€οΈπŸ™‡πŸ½β€β™€οΈπŸ™‡πŸ½β€β™€οΈ

[personal profile] ngtskynebula 2024-09-26 12:12 am (UTC)(link)
I will pay for a premium dw functionality as soon as possible. Dreamwidth's a spetacular project, if I were a rich mf I'd invest in it like the old europeans did to the artists back in the day 😭

Is there anyway to donate without paying for a functionality or goodie?
lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)

[personal profile] lannamichaels 2024-09-27 07:50 pm (UTC)(link)
People ask us all the time whether we can raise the limits on some of our restrictions like image hosting and icons (two of the most expensive features we offer), and we would love to be able to, but our costs keep rising and inflation has outpaced the advances in disk space and transfer costs in the last few years.

I completely understand the restrictions on images but I'm wondering if there's similar technical/bandwidth restrictions on tracked posts or communities, or if that number could ever be expanded?
dannydevidaloca: (Default)

[personal profile] dannydevidaloca 2024-09-28 11:13 pm (UTC)(link)
... I'm confused why that law is controversial?
sugaronthecream: (pic#17091052)

[personal profile] sugaronthecream 2024-10-07 01:05 am (UTC)(link)
Every time I check in on what you all here in DW headquarters are up to, I feel more and more proud that my LJ exodus led me here. It's been incredible to have y'all embrace our silly little RPer comm and I am glad that tossing around money for paid accounts for silly digital barbie-kissing time can help keep things rolling.

I absolutely advocate for the price gradually increasing. $50 a year for a paid and bumping up the premium paid is a good idea and I will still budget to support and to get the icon slots, the thread tracking, etc. I am extremely happy to have my money going here.

Proud of you all for fighting so hard for freedom of expression and against these bullshit Christo-fascist censorship bills constantly being forced into the pipe.
duskpeterson: The lowercased letters D and P, joined together (Default)

[personal profile] duskpeterson 2024-10-09 12:50 pm (UTC)(link)

Thank you so much for keeping us up to date on this and for your testimonies. I think the creation of [site community profile] dw_advocacy is a great idea.

(reply from suspended user) (Show 0 comments)
mixiethebunny: (Default)

Its up to parents

[personal profile] mixiethebunny 2024-11-04 06:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Ik AO3 posted about this same thing, and like said in here, theres no way of knowing if a child is behind the screen. At this point, it's up to the parents to decide to give their child a phone/tablet/laptop/computer/anything with a web browser in it such as the nintendo 3ds/wii u/nintendo switch
(if that child knows how to use the switch browser, the switch is a safe thing for a child to have, just dont let them have youtube on there, they will find out that there is a web browser on it, only certain websites work (unfortunate to me))

I've been on the internet since 2019, i had a tablet, but my mother took it from me in 2021, i've been using school laptop(s)/computers, ps4 web browser/wii u, nintendo switch web browsers ever since. It really is up to the parents to decide if they want their kids to discover things such as wattpad AO3, more underground websites like dreamwidth, one day i would like to create my own website (written in ruby like ao3 if its for a spesific fandom/ship AND my own fanfic website where you can write whatever u want :))

sorry 4 long comment
Edited 2024-11-06 12:33 (UTC)
nostalgia: (Default)

[personal profile] nostalgia 2024-11-05 02:29 pm (UTC)(link)
um is there any way to hide this post from my homepage, i already read it and it's longgggg
no offence, just i don't know how to avoid scrolling it every time, so if someone could tell me how that'd be neat thanks x
ngtskynebula: (dilraba dilmurat (hazy and fantastic))

πŸ˜“πŸ˜“πŸ˜“

[personal profile] ngtskynebula 2024-11-18 07:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Hi, admin! Sooo... since The One Who Shan't Be Named will sit on the throne yet again next year, what will become of Dreamwidth as a safe space to express oneself? I heard pretty unsavory things about Project 2025 😣

Will you move Dreamwidth to another country? Some americans on socmed said the Project will make sites like AO3 and Dreamwidth illegal...
vaa: (Default)

[personal profile] vaa 2024-11-21 07:31 pm (UTC)(link)
the max year here is 2037. will this date ever get updated? it starts at 1970. did you ever have problems with the millenium bug?

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