LOS ANGELES—Late last night, Google issued an update on its recent decision to ban sexually explicit content on its Blogger network. The update essentially reverses the most egregious changes to a policy that would, as one consequence, have forced longtime users of the platform to either scrape their blogs of content or become essentially invisible to all but invited guests. But Google is not backing down all the way. Instead, in conceding defeat on its desired plan, it resolves to double-down on what it calls "our existing policy prohibiting commercial porn."
The complete statement reads:
Hello everyone,
This week, we announced a change to Blogger’s porn policy. We’ve had a ton of feedback, in particular about the introduction of a retroactive change (some people have had accounts for 10+ years), but also about the negative impact on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities. So rather than implement this change, we’ve decided to step up enforcement around our existing policy prohibiting commercial porn.
Blog owners should continue to mark any blogs containing sexually explicit content as “adult” so that they can be placed behind an “adult content” warning page.
Bloggers whose content is consistent with this and other policies do not need to make any changes to their blogs.
Thank you for your continued feedback.
The Blogger Team
