LGBT Livejournal users were forced to abide the Russian ‘gay propaganda’ law. LiveJournal was once one of the internet’s main blogging platforms, and was home to a large LGBT blogging community in the early 2000s. The service was acquired by Russian media company SUP Media in 2007, but its servers remained in the United States until 2017. But all the company’s operations are transferred to Russia in full. LiveJournal users were forced to sign a user agreement that requires them to agree to abide by Russian laws. This states: “The User may not perform any other actions contradictory to the laws of the Russian Federation and/or any other applicable laws, including those applicable in the jurisdiction of User’s residence.” It also requires users to “mark Content estimated by Russian legislation as inappropriate for children (0 −18) as ‘adult material’ by using Service functions”. This has been interpreted by a number of bloggers as requiring them to abide by Russia’s 2014 ‘gay propaganda’ law, which outlaws “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” among minors.
