Sunday, June 11, 2023

Beginning of the end of Blogger?







The other day I received this email from Blogger:

Hello,

As you may know, our Community Guidelines (https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy) describe the boundaries for what we allow-- and don't allow-- on Blogger. Your post titled "Printopolis book launch " was flagged to us for review. This post was put behind a warning for readers because it contains sensitive content; the post is visible at http://artistsbooksandmultiples.blogspot.com/2016/11/printopolis-book-launch.html. Your blog readers must acknowledge the warning before being able to read the post/blog.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team



The post was 100% innocuous, and the other two that were flagged could be offensive only to the most pearl-clutching of readers, who I doubt are perusing a site about contemporary art. One was a Warhol book that was sold in mainstream bookstores half a century ago and the other was a tumblr collection of records by John Giorno, that were posted to tumblr (if you look closely you'll see titles like "Smack my crack" and "Like a girl, I want you to keep coming"). 

Speaking of tumblr, this reminds me of their purge of "offensive" material, which was designed to eliminate child pornography and ended up eliminating regular porn, art, self-expression, health information related to breast cancer, birth control, gender-reassignment, etc. And, of course, it led to the death of tumblr. The company was purchased for 1.1 billion dollars and a few years later sold for 3 million. 

I'm assuming Blogger is employing a new AI algorithm that they've set loose on the site to spare us all a glimpse of nudity or expletives. In that case, might I suggest some posts that they failed to flag: 







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