The recent decision by Google to ban blogs featuring sexually explicit images/video or graphic nudity continues to reverberate around the blogsphere. While in theory text only explicit blogs are safe, but how long would you like to bet on that lasting? If they can change the rules once, they can do it again and probably will.
Over time Google has clearly got more conservative and less idealistic. Their image search is another good example of that. For example, assuming you have safe search off, compare a search for the lovely Mistress T on Google and Bing. Google barely features her in the results where Bing features a bare her from every angle imaginable. CBT on Google is a lot of powerpoint slides, where on Bing it’s wall to wall penises. My favorite is probably Men in Pain. On Google it’s a lot of stock photos of guys with headaches where on Bing it’s all sorts of good femdom stuff. This kind of conservatism is an expression of Google’s current culture.
They’re not alone in this. Apple has consistently run into bad press for censorship. Facebook recently got into trouble for it’s policy of blocking drag performers from their platform, and has many previous censorship problems. Amazon seems to run into censorship questions every few months.
What I find fascinating (outside my annoyance at the outcome) is how these kind of decisions are taken. The external perception of large tech companies is of corporate monoliths, but the reality is that very few people will be involved with these kind of decisions. I’ll also bet that they’re not taken at a particularly high level. A few product managers get into a room and make a bad call based on very limited information. They end up affected millions of people, but they’re not some grand expression of corporate will taken by cigar smoking board members. They’re a corporate culture filtered through a few people.
I had difficulty picking an image for this post until I stumbled on the shot below. It seemed apt.
Well said. Maybe Bing will develop a decent platform for us. Wishful thinking right? Text may very well soon be on the chopping block.
sissy terri
Bing makes for a reasonable search engine alternative in some respects, but I wouldn’t hold your breath on the blogging options. Blogger was originally a start-up and was purchased by Google. They did some initial work on it in 2004, but I don’t think they’ve really done much with it since. I can’t see any major tech company investing big in blogging platforms from this point unless the market changes significantly.
-paltego
The BBC is reporting that Google have backed down. It sounds as if they now intend only to enforce the existing policy – adult warning on all such blogs, and no commercialisation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31659669
But I haven’t received another email, so who knows whether this is true? What a mess.
Interesting. I’ve now seen that on a number of different sites, but I’ve not seen a site owner report that they’ve received a different message. Definitely a big mess. Like I said in the post, there’s probably just a handful of relatively junior people owning this. I doubt the best and brightest in Google are rushing to manage their blogging platform. Ill thought out decisions are likely to happen.
-paltego