Will be accessible to those the blog has been shared.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BENGALURU: Google’s blogging platform Blogger announced that users posting sexually explicit graphics and videos will be hard hit by a new privacy update.
According to Google, the new update scheduled for March 23, will make sexual/pornographic blog content accessible only to the administrator and people with whom the blog has already been shared. Even though such blogs will be blocked in search engine results, Google has assured that the content will not be deleted.
Blogger was launched in 1999 by Pyra Labs and was acquired by Google when it became a popular alternative medium in 2003. It was one of the first services to use the Web 2.0 technology allowing users to write, share and edit content without knowing the basics of HTML coding.
Blogger remains to be one of the repositories for user-generated content on just about anything under the sun. Like any other blogging platform, some users used Blogger to post and share sexually explicit content and graphics, which Google has been trying to avoid from its search pages.
Google has always stood up for freedom of speech and expression but, lately, the company faced legal issues in many countries due to provocative content posted by users. Even now, blogs penalized by Google for posting vulgar content will be accessible to a few users with whom the admin has shared the content, but the blog will be slapped with an “adult” tag.
The latest Blogger Privacy update released by Google says the company doesn’t believe in curbing the rights of its users to freely express but, it also gives a caution to the users that “in order to uphold these values, we need to curb abuses that threaten our ability to provide this service and the freedom of expression it encourages. As a result, there are some boundaries on the type of content that can be hosted with Blogger.”
Google’s decision to flag sexually explicit content will be a setback for bloggers and freelancers who currently feature such contents on their blogs. Freelance blogger Violet Blue wrote on CNET sister site ZDNet, “When Google forces its ‘unacceptable’ Blogger blogs to go dark, it will break more of the Internet than you think,” Blue wrote. “Countless links that have been accessible on Blogger since its inception in 1999 will be broken across the Internet. For instance, with this new Blogger policy change, my personal blog (since 2001) will see over 500 blogspot.com links go dead.”
Google’s new Privacy Change for Blogger has garnered the praise of organizations such as National Center on Sexual Exploitation that has been in a constant tussle with Google for the removal of sexual content from the search engine.
The official Facebook page of the organization wrote: “Another HUGE VICTORY with GOOGLE to report! They just announced yesterday that they are kicking out all pornography and explicit material in their popular platform Blogger. This comes after sweeping changes last year when they kicked out porn from AdWords and GooglePlay.”