The Problem with Google and anti-Obama Bloggers
Stop the Aclu Blog tells us that Google is shutting down Anti-Obama Sites on its Blogger platform. One of the problems with systems like Blogger is that it only takes a few complaints to shut down a blog. Simply mark a blog site as Spam by clicking on the FLAG BLOG button ...
... and then Google's automated system locks your blog from view until they can review it which can take a few days or more, if ever.
GeekLove on Comealongway.blogspot.com, a pro-Hillary site, used to be on blogger until Google froze it. Here is an email she received on 25 Jun 2008:
Dear Blogger user,
This is a message from the Blogger team.
Your blog, at http://comealongway.blogspot.com/, has been identified as a potential spam blog. You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog.
Sincerely,
The Blogger Team
GeekLove has now moved to Wordpress, but is now a private, invitation-only website.
The problem here is that anyone can have their blog frozen if they are any bit controversial. When I first started blogging on 16 Jan 2006 I was on the Blogger platform at plancksconstant.blogspot.com and with less than two months of blogging under my belt I decided that I did not want to write under the whim of any arbitrary system. I have been here on this hosted site since.
Amazingly, Google, which is so good at so many different things, is such a jerk as to how it operates Blogger. The correct way to take care of spam Sites is to do nothing until a Blogger employee has the time to take a look see. Otherwise to arbitrarily and without prior review simply freeze a website until some live person gets the time to judge the website does more harm than good. Is this how they practice "Don't be evil"?
