Tuesday 24 February 2015

Google's Blogger gets right-wing religion and abandons freedom of expression

Yesterday I received the following email from Blogger:

Dear Blogger User,

We're writing to tell you about an upcoming change to the Blogger Content Policy that may affect your account.

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 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.

Our records indicate that your account may be affected by this policy change. Please refrain from creating new content that would violate this policy. Also, we ask that you make any necessary changes to your existing blog to comply as soon as possible, so that you won't experience any interruptions in service. You may also choose to create an archive of your content via Google Takeout (https://www.google.com/settings/takeout/custom/blogger).

For more information, please read here (https://support.google.com/blogger?p=policy_update).

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

(c) 2015 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

____________________________________________________________________________

My Comment

It seems that Google who own Blogger have succumbed to right-wing Republican, Tea Party and extreme right-wing religious pressure and are going to ban sex from anyone using Blogger. Of course we all know that these weird people who try to control our lives don't usually think about sex except when they breed or molest children and they don't want real human beings to have sexual thoughts either. Not that that's going to work!

What I'm really insulted about is that I (and other Blogger users) received this email accusing me of publishing pornography. The only image on my blog that could possibly fall under this heading is the following reproduced painting:
























And the only reason this painting could be considered pornographic is because of the person who is displayed here whose name I won't mention. On the other hand, because it is a painting, it's excluded from Blogger's non-publication policy.

So, because Google and its Blogger subsidiary are trying to violate my right to freedom of speech and expression, I will delete this blog when the anti-free speech policy comes into effect and will also monitor and limit my exposure to Google products (although that will be difficult, just as it is difficult or impossible to escape scrutiny by the CIA and NSA, and its, thank god much less effective, counterparts in Canada). It seems the warnings of George Orwell's "1984" are coming ever closer to reality 30 years later!