This morning, when I signed on to Blogger, I noticed a
broadcast warning that, on Monday March 23, 2015, images or video with sexually
explicit material will not be allowed on public or searchable blogs on
Blogger. The basic link with the exact
wording is here. It
appears as of this writing that ALL Blogger users saw this when signing on this
morning.
It also appears that specific users got individual
emails from Blogger service advising them that their content may have this
problem, as explained in this story on
Vox-owned “The Verge”, which shows a tweet containing the exact wording of the
email, here.
I did not receive such an email on either of my two
platforms (Gmail or AOL). That would
give me some reassurance that “I don’t have a problem” with any of the sixteen
blogs. But the story is disquieting, and
has a lot of angles that seem unclear.
Blogger says that it will not delete content, but will
mark the blog as private and remove it from Google search engines. A private blog can only be shared with “whtelisted”
users who are signed on, very much like a Facebook account where most material
is marked viewable only by “friends”. Effectively,
blogs with “adult” content (limited in scope hopefully to visuals) can no longer be used
as a form a broadcast self-publishing. Google says it will offer the ability to
export the blogs to XML or other formats to put them onto other platforms.
The Google policy does indeed appear to be limited to “redlining”
content only because of what is images or videos – which might include third
party embeds. This apparently is also
limited to what is normally viewed as “graphic nudity”. It apparently does not appear to apply to
material that some users would see as objectionable for cultural reasons. Google also says there is an exception for material
reasonably viewed as having “public benefit” for documentary, scientific (medical)
or artistic purposes.
There are many
other issues in Blogger Terms of Service, including copyright infringement
(covered by the DMCA Safe Harbor takedown), harassment, threats, violence, and
the like. But so far these all seem to
be covered on a case-by-case basis, when there are complaints from other users.
The “obvious” question is, how does Blogger identify the
offending blogs? One item mentioned in
the discussions so far is blogs marked as “adult” in Blogger settings (link ). Presumably these would be made
private. I have not marked any blogs as
such (I’ll double check). But if a blog
is not self-identified, Blogger would have to rely on complaints from other
users, or on some sort of automated process.
It is possible to identify some images based on watermarks, but any
images marked by NCMEC would actually be illegal anyway (and could get the
poster arrested).
By the way, there is a twist. The Blogger content
policy allows Blogger to mark a blog as adult even if it is non
sexually-explicit in nature (see the links ). But that scenario doesn’t seem to be
covered by the announcement Monday, that seems more limited to sexually
explicit images and video, if I interpret it correctly. This page covers other
issues, like gratuitous violence or threats, in a manner that most people would view as reasonable and
necessary, especially given international issues.
Embedded (third party) videos could pose a risk. On the movies blog, I often embed trailers,
usually from studios if possible. Most
trailers, even for R-rated movies, are marked for “all audiences” so presumably
these are OK. But some independent
films, especially those released mostly as VOD, could have R-rated
trailers. I usually don’t use these,
but there could be a handful among the 2000+ postings. Could this cause the blog to be unlisted as
private forever? A few trailers may have
material that is “risqué” but not really perceived as sexually explicit by most
viewers. Generally, images and videos
that themselves would fall within the “PG-13” area as Hollywood defines it
would be OK.
It’s not quite clear what motivated the suddenness of
this change. Were there complaints from
advertisers? These standards already
apply to Google+ and YouTube, so Google apparently wanted consistency. Google+ TOS does appear to be a little
stricter than Facebook’s or Twitter’s
I do think that Google should answer some reasonable
questions in the coming days. For
example, will there be an appeal process (as there is for spam)? Will there be some way to be notified that a
particular post (especially an older one) has a problem, if it is right on the
edge? I have no way of knowing
(retroactively) that there isn’t an isolated post somewhere (especially in
Movies, TV, or GLBT) that doesn’t cross the edge. I know that as a “whole”,
there wouldn’t seem to be problems. But there is the “isolated tornado” effect.
Some of the issues here remind me of the debate over
COPA, the Child Online Protection Act, which was struck down in 2007 (discussed
here on Wordpress, link ). One of the issues there was the notion
of what constitutes “adult content” – in the real world, there is a sliding
scale of variable maturity among minors as by age and circumstances (the “Smallville
Problem”).. Some progressively-minded
efforts after that case recommended voluntary self-labeling (with metatags) of
adult content. But that appears to be
what would get a blog blacklisted now, so this contradicts voluntary efforts
that would serve the public interest.
There is a lot of panic and anger out there this
morning. The most hysterical story seems
to be on ZDNet, here, by Violet Blue from Pulp Tech, here. ZDNet also believes that the shift in
use to mobile apps has an effect on how service providers view content. The Guardian (whatever Glenn Greenwald’s
influence) has a more moderate story here. BBC has a story here and reports that in 2013, Blogger had
prohibited adverts for adult websites, a measure that I vaguely remember but
that had little impact. BBC hints that
the mechanism will be for Google to add the “adult tag” itself. That would suggest that a blogger could check
his or her profiles to see if the tag was added, but that’s isn’t clear
yet. Computerworld, in an article by John Ribeiro,
also notes the “adult flag” issue marked above, which doesn’t seem entirely
consistent with the new policy, link here. Global News Network has a story which also discusses Wordpress and Tumblr policies for comparison, here.
One can expect a lot more protests and comments, and
hopefully there will be more clarification from Google soon. (Tumblr went through this and dropped it.) The lack of clarity as to how questionable
content is identified is one thing. Another is the concept that content can be
adult but not be sexually explicit in the usual sense – that seems immune now,
but what about down the open road?
One issue is whether “free service” blogs will
continue to be a viable way to broadcast content (as opposed to whitelisting on
newer social media sites). I have often considered reducing the number of
these blogs, and migrating entirely to hosted sites, but so far all I have done
is start two new “hosted” Wordpress blogs, where I probably have more control. But broadcast self-publishing doesn’t seem
to enjoy the support today that it did ten to fifteen years ago, before it would have
to survive COPA and then SOPA (after surviving the CDA). It’s been sheltered largely by downstream
liability limitations (Section 230 and Safe Harbor). But the social climate, placing more emphasis
on the need for real engagement of people, seems to be affecting the current
perception of blogging.
Yes, the artwork picture for this posting is tame,
deliberately so.
Update: Later Tuesday
Blogger does have some details on the Product Forums. A user has to be signed on to a Google account to see these details, but the direct link is here. A user should sign on, go to the Blogger Help Forum, and then navigate to all discussions. A posting from Carles PG (two posts now) about a "Blogger content policy change appears". The user may have to click an extra time to see the first posting before the second. Apparently the emails went out to those who had interstitial (adult content warning) pages, regardless of whether there was nudity. Blogger seems to suggest that self-identified adult pages can stay public if they don't actually contain nudity. It's not clear yet how third party embeds are handled, or whether future warning emails can identity specitic posts or images when atypical on larger blogs.
Users of Blogger should visit this forum frequently in the coming days for more details, which will surely be posted.
There is some discussion on line of the vague term "adult content", as here on a webmaster forum. Note the passage of material that is "not for audiences" but then gives an example of a cartoon with see-through clothing. Seriously, "not for all audiences" would dumb down pretty much everything if taken literally. Seriously, some verbal (not image) content is inappropriate for younger minors; when I talk about sensitive issues (which is often), I usually maintain a certain tone of formality and distance to avoid creating "problems". This problem got debated with COPA a few years ago.
One tip in embedding or even linking to YouTube videos. Try playing them from YouTube without being signed on. If you get an adult interstitial (justified or not), consider using a different video. What gets marked on YouTube now probably gives a fair indication of what Google would consider a problem.
It's possible to upload and process video right to Blogger without embedding from YouTube, Vimeo, or other sources. Maybe this is what the new policy refers to; one wonders if content that is accepted on YouTube should be automatically accepted on Blogger. If am embedded video gives an interstitial when played on YouTube, couln't it be set up to do that from Blogger?
Update: Friday, Feb 27
The Google Forum for Blogger has been updated to show a deferral of the policy. See my posting Feb. 27, and revisit the actual Forum (after signing on) as soon as possible for the latest update.
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