Once again: these are the ramifications of the LJ servers moving to Russia.

[numb3r_5ev3n]

Take a look at this post here: http://lynnenne.livejournal.com/285076.html 

I'm still on about this specifically because of the posts and comments I have seen which amount to "This is just a lot of Chicken Little squawking, I don't live in Russia, and I don't think LJ is about to go under or disappear, so none of this affects my journal or me personally." Actually, it still might. To quote the above linked post from lynnenne:

"On LJ migrating to Russian servers

I work for a tech company that deals with data residency issues all the time, so I'm sharing what I know about the legalities of LiveJournal moving its physical servers to Russia. (I don't know for certain that they have moved, but siderea has posted some evidence.) 

What I know: 

When a company offers a service to the public, the laws governing that service are determined by where the physical servers reside. For most of its life, LiveJournal servers lived in California, so LJ had to abide by California laws. Among other things, it meant that:

• LJ couldn't share your personal data with advertisers, researchers, or other third parties without your permission
• You maintained the copyright to any stories or essays you wrote
• Whatever speech you published was protected by the first amendment, so they needed a valid reason to take it down (e.g. It violated LJ's terms and conditions, it constituted criminal activity, etc)
• LJ could not turn over your personal data to law enforcement without a warrant

With the servers in Russia, none of that applies anymore. They can basically remove any posts that they don't like (political or otherwise) without giving you a reason. They can delete your entire journal without explanation or recourse. They can also translate your fiction and sell it as their own. And, since they have your credit card info, they can share that with their Russian mafia buddies and use it to steal your identity, hack your bank accounts, etc. 

Granted, LiveJournal has been owned by a Russian company for several years, so they might have been doing some of this stuff already. But last week, you could have sued them in a California court for doing it. From now on, you have no legal recourse."

The issue is not that LJ and all of the users' extant journals might suddenly vanish because LJ is in trouble, though that is a (possibly valid) concern which has been raised. No, most of the worry is due to the fact that many LJs of Cyrillic users have already been suspended or deleted due to the crackdown on pro-Ukraine, pro-LGBT political sentiments - and now that the LJs of users in other countries are under their jurisdiction, the pro-Putin government now gets to decide what material is objectionable and may be subject to deletion. That, and *your personal data* may not be protected the way it was when the servers resided in the US. This is just something to think about. 

HOW TO BACK UP YOUR LJ:

https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=127 (importing personal blogs)
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=230 (importing communities)

Comments

[siphraniax3.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I backed up our fan page to Dreamwidth right away!

[hamatokameko]

Oh geez, thanks for posting this, I didn't even know about the server migration. That's kind of terrifying; I've had this account so long I don't even remember what all is on here. D: I don't want to delete but I kinda do, too. Maybe delete all the old entries, like before this year, after I've backed up to Dreamwidth (which I just did).

I can't get my communities to back up properly though. I keep getting password verification failures. :(

[numb3r-5ev3n.livejournal.com]

I wish I could remember exactly what I did...because it took me several tries to get my community to come over. If you ever used any alts or bought a rename token, that could be what the issue is. I think I had to use the alt I made the comm under, even if I had made my main username moderator/maintainer since then.

[hamatokameko]

Shit, that's a problem, at least two of my groups, three I think, weren't created by me originally. D:

[numb3r-5ev3n.livejournal.com]

"To import a community, you must be a maintainer or owner (not a moderator) of the community on the other site, and an admin of the community (which must already exist) on Dreamwidth. Visit the Import Journal page, and select the community you want to import into in the "Work As" drop-down box. Then, enter the username and password of the maintainer account on the other site, and the username of the community on the other site you want to import from."

So, can you make yourself an owner? Are there any other owners or maintainers on those comms?

[hamatokameko]

I'm the maintainer on all of them and pretty sure I'm the only one with one possible exception. I'll have to check on the one. Hmm.