And I guess I'll be looking for a new home...

I, like I'm sure many of you, have woken to an email from Google Blogger this morning:


Dear Blogger User,

We're writing to tell you about an upcoming change to the Blogger Content Policy that may affect your account.

In the coming weeks, we'll no longer allow blogs that contain sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video. We'll still allow nudity presented in artistic, educational, documentary or scientific contexts, or where there are other substantial benefits to the public from not taking action on the content.

The new policy will take effect on 23 March 2015. After this policy comes into force, Google will restrict access to any blog identified as being in violation of our revised policy. No content will be deleted, but only blog authors and those with whom they have expressly shared the blog will be able to see the content that we've made private.

Our records indicate that your account may be affected by this policy change. Please refrain from creating new content that would violate this policy. We would also ask you to make any necessary changes to your existing blog to comply as soon as possible so that you won't experience any interruptions in service. You may also choose to create an archive of your content via Google Takeout (https://www.google.com/settings/takeout/custom/blogger).

For more information, please look here (https://support.google.com/blogger?p=policy_update).

Yours sincerely,
The Blogger Team



I don't have adult images on my site but apparently that hasn't stopped them from casting the net to include me in their possible 'deletion'. Go on to the forums and the response you will get from 'top contributors' (apparently nobody from Google interjects on the forums by the looks of it) is that porn is bad and Blogger must be a porn free environment. There appears to be no way of contacting Blogger to find out if your blog will be affected and yet the 'top contributors' all claim the purge will happen on a site to site basis. Surely if that were the case then there would be no need to send out such a blanket email in the first place.

Regardless of the system used, what is the need for this policy change anyway? Well, apparently there is none (apart from the porn spam, spam is porn, porn is bad rant).

I don't have explicit content on my blog but some of my links might, maybe, but I couldn't say for sure. I marked my blog as adult (to protect my content from Bloggers previous attempt to censor us) on the off chance I might post post something along those lines and because *gasp* there might be pictures of men kissing. Protect the innocents right away!

It's early in the morning here and this post may be less than eloquent--I've not even had coffee yet. Here's a better written and more thought out post on the whole business. 

Blogger might be easy to use for those of us without the ability to build their own website but I for one am tired of having my content held to ransom on a whim. Anyone out there able to teach me how to use Wordpress?