Google Changes Adult Content Policy on Blogger



Blogger LogoGoogle is making a change regarding what kind of content is allowed to be publicly visible on Blogger. Starting March 23, 2015, people who use Blogger will no longer be able to publicly share images and videos that are sexually explicit or that show graphic nudity.

There are some exceptions to this rule. Google will still allow content that includes nudity to be publicly visible on Blogger if it “offers a substantial public benefit”. The example Google gives clarifies “in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts”. In other words, it is the “not safe for work” content that is being removed from public viewing.

To be clear, Google isn’t going to start deleting blogs that contain nude images or sexually explicit content from Blogger. Instead, those blogs will be made private after March 23, 2015. In other words, the only people who will be able to see the content on those blogs will be the blog owners, the admins of the blogs, and the people the owner of the blog has shared the blog with.

The blog owner could invite people to view their blog by adding individual email addresses of each person they want to grant access to. The Google account associated with those addresses could then view the blog by signing into an existing Google account, creating a new Google account, or choosing to view the blog as a “guest” (which would not require an account). A “guest” account expires after 30 days and requires a new invitation before that person can view the blog.

There are some who have pointed out that blogs that have been marked private will be removed from search results. Obviously, this will result in much less traffic to the Blogger blogs that become private as a result of Google’s content policy change. There is another option. Affected bloggers can export their blog’s text and images and repost it on a personal website.