MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – In a speedy reversal of the new content policy announced earlier this week, Google has decided not to implement a porn ban on its Blogger platform after all.
“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,” Google’s social product support manager Jessica Pelegio stated in a post to the Blogger help forums. “So rather than implement this change, we’ve decided to step up enforcement around our existing policy prohibiting commercial porn.”
The current text of the Blogger content policy’s section on adult content states:
[QUOTE]Adult Content: We do allow adult content on Blogger, including images or videos that contain nudity or sexual activity. If your blog contains adult content, please mark it as “adult” in your Blogger settings. We may also mark blogs with adult content where the owners have not. All blogs marked as “adult” will be placed behind an “adult content” warning interstitial. If your blog has a warning interstitial, please do not attempt to circumvent or disable the interstitial — it is for everyone’s protection.
There are some exceptions to our adult content policy:
– Do not use Blogger as a way to make money on adult content. For example, don’t create blogs that contain ads for or links to commercial porn sites.
– We do not allow illegal sexual content, including image, video or textual content that depicts or encourages rape, incest, bestiality, or necrophilia.
– Do not post or distribute private nude or sexually explicit images or videos without the subject’s consent.”[/QUOTE]
It’s unclear whether this will be the final word on Blogger’s content policy with respect to adult content, or if further adjustments will be made sometime down the road.
Between adjustments to the AdWords content policy, the Blogger ban on links and ads for commercial pornography and a series of changes to Google’s search algorithm which largely removed adult sites from search results, Google gradually has pushed sexually explicit content into a less obvious corner across its various platforms. In light of the trend, future shifts in policy seem likely, if not inevitable.
Regardless any future Blogger content policy changes, strict enforcement of the prohibition against commercial promotion of pornography (a policy established in 2013) puts an obvious limit on the usefulness of the platform from the perspective of adult webmasters and companies that operate blogs as part of their broader marketing strategy.
