Google Bans Porn on Blogger, Effective March 23

If you like to post sexually explicit content on your Blogger blog, you might want to think about making the switch to Tumblr. Google has announced that it is banning “images and video that are ...
Google Bans Porn on Blogger, Effective March 23
Written by Josh Wolford
  • If you like to post sexually explicit content on your Blogger blog, you might want to think about making the switch to Tumblr.

    Google has announced that it is banning “images and video that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity” on its Blogger platform, effective March 23. According to Google, if you operate a blog with sexually explicit content, your blog will be made private on March 23. Google’s not going to remove your content, but your blog will only be viewable to you, other admins, or users you share it with specifically.

    If you want to keep your blog from going private in a few weeks, Google says you need to start cleaning it up. Any blogs created after the March 23 cutoff will be up for removal if they contain adult content.

    There is one exception to this – and it has to do with the context of the nudity.

    “We’ll still allow nudity if the content offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts,” says Google.

    Of course, this will no doubt lead to some bickering between Google and its bloggers, as the line between pornographic and artistic is rather undefined at times.

    In 2013, Google cracked down on blogs that monetized from adult ads, but allowed bloggers to continue to post adult content as long as it was marked as such.

    This decision could drive bloggers elsewhere – most likely Tumblr. If you’re not familiar with Tumblr, it’s a porn free-for-all. As long as your Tumblr blog is properly marked as NSFW, then you can “go nuts, show nuts, whatever” (those are Tumblr’s actual words).

    At one point a couple years back, Tumblr was accused a removing adult content from blogs – but it turned out the site wasn’t really removing content, just changing search settings and making it a little harder to find.

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