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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 owns these servers and the web address and may do what they want with them.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Good thing that the definition of "evil" is sooooo malleable.
That is all.
I know there will be a lot of hue and cry over Google's evil censorship, but so what?
Porn is not some scarce resource. On Blogger it's probably mostly copyright infringement anyway.
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?
There are fewer pieces of more obvious Newspeak than so-called "adult" content. When did "this is adult content" become synonymous with "for juveniles only" ?
David Anderson
It seem incongrous to impose speech limitations in the US, which actually has the right to free speech as part of their constitution.
The US constitution limits powers of Congress, it does not regulate private entities. Your right to free speech does not depend on Google willing to host that speech on Blogger.
"The full quote is Voltaire's, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.""
To quote Google. "But I do not have to pay for you to say it."
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'm unimpressed by Google's position: in other countries they push back against restriction on free speech. It seem incongrous to impose speech limitations in the US, which actually has the right to free speech as part of their constitution.
No offense, but like most non-lawyers you fail to understand what "part of the constitution" really means in reality. Your right to free speech or for that matter anything is not infinite. SCOTUS judges Thomas and Scalia, both as conservative as they come, stated a few years ago in a 2nd amendment case that the 2nd amendment didn't mean that there could never be any restrictions on guns at all. Your right to free speech is not infinite either, with the classic example that you certainly don't have the right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire, cause a panic and maybe get some people killed, and then say that nothing can be done to you because you have a free speech right to do that.
Google is not the government. While the US government has rather severe restrictions on being able to limit your speech because of the constitution, private employers do not have the same restrictions. SCOTUS has ruled on many "free speech" cases and consistently found that employers, schools, etc. have a right to limit speech in a way that would be seen as a violation of the constitution if the government were to do it. I'm not a lawyer but I can tell you that the simple legal argument against your position is that Google is not stopping you from using other blogs which may have completely different policies and thus your rights are not being violated.
Google doesn't want to run a porn site. That makes them evil?
Actually, it's more like a few conservative flash mobs went and complained.
Remember when Apple was forced to remove all porn apps from the App Store? I'm sure it wasn't because they wanted to, but there's a group of dedicated social conservatives who do nothing but complain about anything even remotely explicit.
Think back to the superbowl "wardrobe malfunction" - it probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere if not for the group being vocal in their complaints. When the FCC decided to filter out mass complaints of their nature, well, they went after the next target - Apple.
And you can easily bet they're the ones flagging tons of videos off YouTube, and probably they discovered Blogger.
Hell, I won't be surprised if they discover Android next and start getting all the more explicity apps there removed. (Yes, you can sideload, but that cuts down your visibility tremendously, and sideloading these kind of apps is already sort of questionable, given they're very ripe vectors for getting malware on Android).
These sort of groups will stop at nothing to ensure society is clean and full of "pure Christian values".
No, it's not censorship. Censorship is the government controlling your actions by coercion, the threat of using force against you.
This may be a business taking a position that they know better than you what is good for their bottom line; in that case, it most likely represents a balance defined by the clients of the business, with the business betting that more clients will be pleased by this than displeased. Alternatively, it may simply be an artifact of someone powerful relative to the business's control who is imposing their morality upon all of the business's customers. In either case, the affected users can take their business elsewhere to a platform that does not impose moral restrictions upon them.
When the US government censors, it is almost impossible to stand against it effectively. Particularly as it often is finally determined by non-elected actors, such as the FCC and SCOTUS, both of whom have demonstrated outright contempt for the US constitution.
When a business imposes "mommying", for whatever reason, all you have to do is stop using their product and (a) you have done them a small, but real, bit of actual damage, and (b) you can return to operating as you please via no more effort than selecting a more open platform.
The bottom line is that there is a world of difference between a private entity insisting on bounds within a limited space, real or virtual, that they legitimately control, the maximum end result being that you don't get to use a space you didn't have any rights to in the first place if you insist on your position; and a government enforcing bounds everywhere using violence, where insisting on your position can lead to anything from a monetary fine to your rape and/or death within the prison system.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I doubt this one's the Feds. Google has consistently been a prudish company. Blogger is now under the same rules as YouTube. Google seems determined to make the internet as tame as American TV. No good will come of that (well, I'm sure Google knows where the money is, so some good will come to the stockholders).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.