Google-owned blogging platform Blogger will no longer allow its users to post sexually explicit content, the company confirmed today. In a statement sent via email to selected Blogger users, Google said it would no longer allow blogs to feature "graphic nude images or video" from March 23rd. Any blogs that continued to show explicit images would be made private after that date — while graphic images and videos would remain, Google says they would only be visible to the blog owner, admins, and other people with whom the owner shared it. (The Verve)I guess it IS better to host your own, like your own Wordpress blog than use a host like Blogger, at least for some. Doesn't effect 99% of us, but for the few it does, it's gonna be a huge PITA.
And this right after Zak S pulled the upcoming revamp of I Hit it With My Axe from The Escapist over the views of a newly hired staff member.
You're right, Eric. It does not affect 99% of us. Google has the right to put what they want on their property (or exclude what they want, in this case.)
ReplyDeleteI happen to agree with Zak S, on his stand against The Escapist. Well, Brandon Morse, anyway. It's not that hard to not be a douche.
When I was an outcast in early high school, gaming didn't turn me away. When 'weird' kids came into West Michigan Sportscard Connection, the "gaming family" found a way to include them. Gaming is an inclusive event. Not exclusive.
DeleteGaming is supposed to be a way to explore, safely, and without judgement. Let's not let one (or 1000) assholes destroy th
I wonder what Google exactly means by "graphic nude images"? To me that seems pretty broad. I have noticed that some sites that I have followed have gotten the Google affirmation link which didn't have anything at all close to this so called 'graphic nude images or videos" but got slapped with the (permanent) link anyway. I wonder how that applies to illustrations and art? I've always thought it was a pretty lame policy. Google has been pissing me off lately so maybe I'll just ditch the all their 'products'.
ReplyDeleteThere are easier ways to find porn that searching blogspot. If putting up explicit images is your gig, buy yourself a cheap website and post away.
ReplyDeleteThere are easier ways to find porn that searching blogspot. If putting up explicit images is your gig, buy yourself a cheap website and post away.
ReplyDeleteI received email notification of this policy because I tagged my blog as containing mature content (creepy roleplaying stuff rather than nudity).
ReplyDeleteI am interested in seeing how Google is going to manage this. I am certain Google is not paying people to actually check what the content is. They will either blanket ban all media content on "mature" blogs or they will rely on readers flagging material.
Let's hope it is the latter.
DeleteIs there any kind of concerted action being taken on this? If, as I tend to think it is, the OSR is a 'community', are there any discussions about how we can react collectively?
ReplyDeleteSome things that spring to mind are, that we all register our bligs as 'mature' whether they contain mature content or not, or that we all decide to set up wordpress accounts instead and migrate our content over there en masse, leaving messages (better still, the same message) on our current blogs, saying that as of March 23rd, new content can be found at the new address and the old blogs will be archived and not added to, in protest at google's decision.
That is, if we want to make a protest.
I don't have any 'graphic nude images' on my blog. But I'm not sure I agree that I will never have any 'graphic nude images' (or anything else that google may diagree with, even though the majority of these images would come up on a google search...) - should I decide that they're appropriate.
if there is any concerted action, I haven't heard of it.
DeletePotentially shutting down the OSR Blog Community for a protest that Google won't even acknowledge seems more like tilting windmills.
Raggi seems to have pulled his blog, but if that was in reaction to Googles upcoming moves, I don't know. He's been neglecting the blog for the longest in any case.
There are now reports taht google is not implementing the policy anyway, at least that's what I've seen this morning, now that google has had 'a lot of feedback from users'.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of taking everyrhing over to wordpress was because several people have already said that they were considering doing it. If that was to be the case (and of course it now seems it probably isn't) I think the idea of an 'orderly move' might have been better than a disorganised flight. The idea of the protest and the common message was not so much aimed at google, but other people maybe using blogger.
Presumably, we've all left loads of references to our blogs all over the place, and moving the blogs would be a pain, but if 50 or 150 or however many of us all put up messages saying where we could now be found on wordpress, then the existing blogger pages would continue to exist as a series of gateways and the scattered references would still point to something.
But, it's all moot now it seems, no-one needs to go to wordpress if they don't want to because it looks like google are backing down.