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Google Advertising Censorship Social Networks The Internet

Google Reverses Stance, Allows Porn On Blogger After Backlash 102

mpicpp writes In a reversal, Google says that porn will continue to be allowed on its Blogger site. Google said it has received a big backlash after deciding earlier in the week that bloggers will no longer be able to "publicly share images and video that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity." The ban was to have taken place on March 23.

Instead, Google said that the company would simply double down on its crackdown of bloggers who use their sites to sell porn.
In July, Google stopped porn from appearing in its online ads that appear on Blogger. And in 2013, Google decided to remove blogs from its Blogger network that contained advertisements for online porn sites. "We've had a ton of feedback, in particular about the introduction of a retroactive change (some people have had accounts for 10+ years), but also about the negative impact on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities," wrote Jessica Pelegio, Google's social product support manager, in a post on Google product forums. "So rather than implement this change, we've decided to step up enforcement around our existing policy prohibiting commercial porn.
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Google Reverses Stance, Allows Porn On Blogger After Backlash

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Does google object to porn? maybe they should show some balls!

  • Google: Fight The New Drug
  • Not Porn (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wisnoskij ( 1206448 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @08:09PM (#49151437) Homepage
    "publicly share images and video that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity." Is hardly porn. Most movies released would fall under that category. Meaning you could not even host a movie review blog without censoring the video you are reviewing.
  • by dywolf ( 2673597 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @08:25PM (#49151503)

    Is this the "beta" I've been hearing about?
    Not a fan, I must say.

    I wanted to update my signature today, and under this new layout I can't seem to find it at all.

    • no, this is not the beta you were hearing about. this isnt that bad. i actually like it so far.. the beta you heard about was HORRIBLE
      • When we were kids, we used to have to walk uphill both ways to Beta, in borrowed boots or barefoot, to get to Slashdot.
    • It's not Beta. It still works, more-or-less. Beta had a comment section that was completely impossible to browse or work with - considering the comments are the only real draw, it's no surprise it was dead on arrival.

      This looks like just some styling to make Slashdot look less 2002. Still odd that they don't talk about it, but that's Dice for you. We're no longer the "community", we're the "audience"; we're supposed to just sit there and take it.

    • No, the beta you heard about so much looked suspiciously like this [dice.com]. I'll leave the reason why that was as an exercise for the reader. What you're commenting on is a variant of the classic layout and described a bit more here [slashdot.org].
    • by s.petry ( 762400 )

      I was rather surprised with the new layout, and last night was buggy as all get out. Now that the bugs are worked out I like the new design. It's not beta, or if it is they built in everything we said was missing and fixed the text layout we complained about.

      If there was some sort of announcement system I'd have been understanding last night. That is something Slashdot has never been good about though...

  • please visit my triumph fetish site: http://www.poughkeepsiejournal... [poughkeepsiejournal.com]
  • Glad to see Google cracking down on those evil advertisers.

    • by ShaunC ( 203807 )

      I think it's more likely they were afraid that Bing would continue to have the upper hand. Or the lower hand. Or maybe the hand stroking both up and down...

  • Posting porn: wrong

    Expressing your identity by posting porn: good

    There is something weird in this logic.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There is something weird in this logic.

      Posting porn: wrong

      Found it.

  • by ZipK ( 1051658 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @10:10PM (#49151849)

    "We've had a ton of feedback, in particular about the introduction of a retroactive change (some people have had accounts for 10+ years), but also about the negative impact on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities," wrote Jessica Pelegio, Google's social product support manager...

    So did Google (a) not solicit user input that would have revealed the likelihood of a backlash, (b) not know (without even asking) there would be a backlash, or (c) know there would be a backlash that could drum up free publicity?

    • by Anonymous Coward

      I have a friend at Google that says the real backlash was internal, and he thinks Matt Cutts even threatened to quit over this.

      • I have a friend at Google that says the real backlash was internal, and he thinks Matt Cutts even threatened to quit over this.

        (I'm a Google employee)

        Internal backlash was massive, and as far as I can tell hugely stronger than the fairly mild complaints outside the company. The strength of the internal opposition took me by surprise. I understood that while Google doesn't wish to censor the web it also doesn't wish to be the entity serving up sexual content. That seems like a reasonable position to me. I thought the 30-day notice was a bit short, even though the terms of service only offer 14 days, but other than that it seemed r

        • Here is what is so frustrating about all this.

          Consensual sex is good. Consensual sex is fine. Consensual sex is entertaining.

          The "bad' things about consensual sex, mostly including distributing media recording it -- disease, "moral" backlash, reputation damage, difference from how the external objector thinks it should be performed, perceived "offense", blatant rationalizations about agency magically not being present for the most ridiculous, transparent and obviously invalid reasons -- all of this stuff co

    • by johncandale ( 1430587 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @10:35PM (#49151941)
      Google is just another one of those large corporations that are run by middle managers: and C level head nodding exes. The way decisions flow up stream is dysfunctional, which is why they are often reversed seemingly pscyofranicly if they get play in the media.
  • 'Takes it in another direction' should have been the title.
  • Just Google andyprovocative body part and look to the images.. Google is hardly censoring its main product.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Google is hardly censoring its main product.

      Not true, Google's advertising products (at least adsense) are heavily censored.

  • Indeed, the PenIs mightier than the sword.
  • by Theovon ( 109752 ) on Saturday February 28, 2015 @07:47AM (#49153015)

    Honest question: What proportion of complainers just want porn, and what proportion just don't want censorship? And what proportion of those complaining about censorship really just want porn?

  • I said it from the beginning it wasn't about porn it was about enforcement of their TOS. They already had the rules but didn't want to enforce them due to the amoung of people/cost needed to take care of the TOS and abuse reports. that is IMO
  • Google Play site says: "This app is incompatible with all of your devices."

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