In a public announcement, Barak Berkowitz, chairman and chief executive of LiveJournal owner SixApart, apologized for the mass deletion of journals and communities from LiveJournal in a move that the parent company deemed important for “protecting children.”
Journal and community owners were given no warning before the deletions happened and it is possible that a great deal of original work was lost. LiveJournal users responded with an uproar and complaints.
“We really screwed this one up… For reasons we are still trying to figure out what was supposed to be a well planned attempt to clean up a few journals that were violating LiveJournal’s policies that protect minors turned into a total mess. I can only say I’m sorry, explain what we did wrong and what we are doing to correct these problems and explain what we were trying to do but messed up so completely,” Berkowitz said in a statement.
Many deleted journals included those that are devoted to Harry Potter.