Slashdot Mirror
Google Knocks Explicit Adult Content On Blogger From Public View
Ellie K writes As of 23 March 2015, Google will remove blogs on its Blogger platform that don't conform to its new anti-adult policies. This is an abrupt reversal of policy. Until today, Google allowed "images or videos that contain nudity or sexual activity," and stated that "Censoring this content is contrary to a service that bases itself on freedom of expression." The linked article quotes the message which has been sent to Blogger users thus: (...) In the coming weeks, we'll no longer allow blogs that contain sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video. We'll still allow nudity presented in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts, or presented where there are other substantial benefits to the public from not taking action on the content.
The new policy will go into effect on the 23rd of March 2015. After this policy goes into effect, Google will restrict access to any blog identified as being in violation of our revised policy. No content will be deleted, but only blog authors and those with whom they have expressly shared the blog will be able to see the content we've made private.
Google's usual spin to try to sound equitable and egalitarian. They're anything but. Remember the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill? Remember when Google took payments from BP to redirect search queries to results that pointed to pro BP (PR agency) websites and religated real journalism and articles about public concern to the back pages of search results that rarely, if ever get seen? Isn't that efectively censorship that's against the public interest?
You mean when BP bought ads on Google based on Deepwater Horizon-related search terms? The same ads that anybody could have purchased, and that were clearly marked as ads? Nobody was being "redirected," unless you think that the law firms that buy ads on "mesothelioma" looking for clients for asbestos lawsuits are somehow "redirecting" searchers from the mesothelioma web page?
Remember when Google took payments from BP to redirect search queries to results that pointed to pro BP (PR agency) websites and religated real journalism and articles about public concern to the back pages of search results that rarely, if ever get seen?
No, because it didn't happen. BP bought some adwords, the same as anyone else can, and they were displayed in the same way as anyone else's. There was no redirection. It didn't knock news articles off the front page because adwords don't work like that. They don't alter search results, just display a clearly marked advert along side those results.
Google doesn't want porn on its blogging service. Fair enough, they don't owe you anything, run your porn site on your own dime.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The full quote is, apparently, not Voltaire's but rather his biogropher's (Evelyn Beatrice Hall).
The Feds have been effectively censoring/destroying entire industries by getting banks to withhold services via Operation Choke Point.
Make you wonder what the Feds may have to hold over Google's head.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Hello? Where have you been the last couple of years? Google is already censoring and self-censoring, as in taking down content with no external prompt to do so. They are most definitely censoring their search engine as well.
... whatever
No, it's not censorship. Censorship is the government controlling your actions by coercion, the threat of using force against you.
Untrue. "Government censorship" is not redundant. Government censorship is the kind backed with force, sure, but anyone with a communications platform can be a censor. And it's no more appealing when a big player like Google indulges in censorship than when the government does.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich to be precise.