Earlier this week, Google announced that people who publish sexually explicit videos and photos on its Blogger platform would no longer be allowed to do so starting from March 23. The web search giant confirmed at the time that they will be giving such people a month to delete posts falling into such categories or have their account statuses made ‘private’ so that they could only be viewed through a given author’s account. This move was widely welcomed by campaigners who believe that the ease of accessing pornographic contents especially by children will be greatly reduced.
However, when news that Google was turning back on their plans to ban such contents on their blogging platform just 3 days after the initial announcement filtered to the public, the next question people asked was why? According to Reuters, the company made an almost complete U-turn on its earlier plan after bloggers complained that they need to publish explicit content in order to ‘express their identities’.
‘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,’ the company said.
‘So rather than implement this change, we’ve decided to step up enforcement around our existing policy prohibiting commercial porn.’
PHOTO CREDIT: DADO RUVIC/REUTERS
