Saturday, August 15, 2009

Within minutes of my first post to this blog, I received this excellent comment:

Hi Jeff,
After seeing the title of your former blog it immediately came to me what your problem may be. It's not so much that your blog was gay it's your choice of title. Anytime the words 'daddy', 'little sister', 'boy', 'mommy' etc. are used on an adult blog, they will block use of the blog or e-club or other type of group on other sites like Blogger until a full review of the site can be made. And they will not rush to that review because they want to discourage pedophile traffic. The action is not to discourage gays-but pedofiles. People on Yahoo! Groups and other meeting sites complain about the same actions of other web communities. In other words it could be months before they get to your site. Just remember, they want it dead not because your title attracts gays, but because it attracts pedos. But your number 3 suspicion is also correct. If Blogger reviews your site and finds OK it will be reported again and probably by some homophobe who knows that your title will get you shut down for automatic review if he/she complains and then gets a friend to complain who gets another friend to complain...



My response:
Hi Anon(8/15/09 7:11 AM),
An excellent point and clearly stated. I have not thought of that possibility, yet, it is very logical. For the record, I do not condone Pedophilia; I do not condone pictures of Pedophilia; I do not condone breaking the law when it concerns children, or any acts of violence- be they sexual or otherwise between non-consenting adults.

With that said, I pose, as a devil's advocate, some thoughts:

With today's technology, Google Blogger could easily block blogs from opening up in the first place on Blogger should they use terms such as "daddy", "mommy", "boy", "girl", etc. Why wait 8 months and a million or two million hits later to shut the blog down. Surely Google Blogger is technically sophisticated enough to act sooner. Hell, all someone needs to do is follow the blog links.

Google Blogger could add these buzz-words in their Terms of Service and prohibit them. Now isn't that a simple thing to do?

It is my opinion that Google Blogger cannot stop or discourage Pedophiles from looking through Blogger blogs. Aside from closing down Blogger It is beyond their ability to do that.

The one fact I am sure of is that some blogs which did not contain in their titles any of those buzz-words you mentioned have been closed.

You may be totally correct in your assumption. And if you are correct, I recommend to Google Blogger that a simple well-worded statement be sent to the blog owner. We want to know why our blogs have been closed.

Here's the problem as I see it: If the Terms of Service were violated, just tell the blogger...and be specific about explaining the violation so it will not be repeated in the next blog. Why this big mystery? Why promise a 48 hour review and not follow through? Why do so many gay blogs get closed at once? 

Google is a hugh company with shares over $400 the last time I looked. They are well staffed and on the cutting edge of technology. If they are really afraid of Pedophile traffic, they are doing one lousy job in addressing their fears. The Pedophile problem you so well pointed out may indeed be part of the problem. I, however, think the problem goes much deeper.

Thanks for your comment. It adds a perspective which may well be part of the mix.

Jeff 

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