Google warns sex bloggers: clean up or get out

Google is banning public explicit photos and videos from its blogging service Blogger, and giving affected users just one month to comply.

The new rules require any blog with “sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video” to take them down by 23 March, or the blog will be made private by Google. A private blog can only be seen by the owner or admins of the blog, and people who the owner has shared the blog with.

Google promises that the majority of users of the service, which Google acquired from Twitter co-founder Evan Williams’ Pyra Labs in 2003, won’t see any change from the new rules. But many users are concerned that the new rules represent a huge about-turn from Google’s previously stated support of explicit material on its platform. The company’s previous policy said: “We do allow adult content on Blogger, including images or videos that contain nudity or sexual activity … All blogs marked as ‘adult’ will be placed behind an ‘adult content’ warning interstitial.” Its only exceptions were to ban illegal explicit content, explicit images shared without the subject’s consent (commonly known as “revenge porn”) and making money on adult content.

Zoe Margolis, author of the Girl with a One Track Mind books and sex blog, joined Blogger in 2004. She says that “either Google believes in freedom of expression, or it doesn’t. Restricting blogs which contain explicit content to ‘private only’ effectively kills them off. This is like offering a library where all the books in it are invisible to the readers unless an author is standing there and personally hands each reader a copy of their book.”

“Many blogs, mine included, have been on Blogger for well over a decade. These blogs are not just part of a community which offers an alternative, sex-positive, supportive network, but they also make up how the web functions: millions of interconnected links. By making these blogs invitation only, it immediately kills off all those connections, resulting in people visiting non-existent pages and all the links they click on being dead. A long-standing community will be killed off overnight.”

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Activist Lauren Weinstein wrote: “I find it disrespectful to users for Google to announce apparently with only 30 days notice that they are summarily banning most explicit materials from Blogger. It is utterly within their rights to do so, but the lack of longer notice (absent specific legal constraints), and a total lack of any explanation in the announcement for this change (only perfunctory operational details), are extremely disappointing.

Google says it will still allow some forms of nudity on the service “if the content offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts.” It also provides instructions for users who want to migrate elsewhere.

Although the search firm isn’t known for taking a prudish attitude to content, explicit videos are also banned on YouTube, the biggest site Google has where it directly hosts user content. The site’s rules state: “YouTube is not for pornography or sexually explicit content. If this describes your video, even if it’s a video of yourself, don’t post it on YouTube.”

Other Google services that host user-uploaded content have similar polices. Google Plus, the company’s social network, warns users: “Do not distribute content that contains nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit material.” Its rules for profile pictures are even stricter: “Do not use a photo that is a close-up of a person’s buttocks or cleavage.”