Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

[mayaktheunholy]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

blog.com doesn't seem to have any policy against adult content.

You must be registered to see the links

Looking into setting up there. Looks pretty robust so far.

 

[Dycraxis]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

Someone mentioned FC2 and I checked it. Terms of use only say that it prohibits content of photography, video and models under the age of 18 in the adult content section.

Considering Eluku uses it and we know the content of his work it could be an option. I would like to know what others think about it in case I missed something.

 

[stuntcock42]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

Someone mentioned FC2 and I checked it. Terms of use only say that it prohibits content of photography, video and models under the age of 18 in the adult content section.

That's a specific exclusion, but they also have a lot of general "cover your ass" clauses which are highly ambiguous (like the Blogspot policy) and which would allow them to shutdown anything which generates complaints, anything which receives a DMCA notice, or anything they simply don't like. The key difference is that, unlike Blogspot, they aren't actively threatening to use that power and kick out all of the perverts ASAP.

• You must be registered to see the links
  :
  • Maintaining content which violates local, regional, national, or international law; in particular that which violates US law.
  • Depictions and/or conduct that go against public order or are immoral.
  • Engaging in any other action which FC2 deems to be inappropriate.
  • Infringing on other Users' and/or third parties' industrial property rights (patents, trademarks etc.), copyright, trade secrets and/or intellectual property rights.
    • Speculation: does this include "selling a porn game which include parodies of popular anime characters?" If so, your blog can potentially be shut down. When you login to your account and see months of content replaced by a 404 error page, shouting "parody is fair use!" won't accomplish much.
  • Using Our Service(s) as a medium to do illegal business or commit conduct that runs counter to the law.
    • Speculation: does this include "selling porn to someone without checking whether they live in a country where such products are illegal?" If so, you've just committed a crime and your blog can potentially be shut down.
• Users and Members are forbidden to publish or post any prohibited kind of content such as text, image, music, video etc. Even in the event that such data is set as private or limited in its Exposure Settings, applicable data is considered a violation the moment it arrives on FC2 Server(s).
• FC2 retains the right to deem what counts as a violation.
• Our Services are managed and provided by FC2 from equipment within the United States of America.

FC2 forces Adult content into a special area requiring a "yes I'm 18" clickthrough, but content within that area does seem to be accessible to search engines.

 

[SoED]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

blog.com doesn't seem to have any policy against adult content.

You must be registered to see the links

Looking into setting up there. Looks pretty robust so far.

I did some digging around various parts of the site, and found a few things.

#1 - (Positive) - No policy against pornography.

7.3 Author Responsibility

The Author is entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, the Content. That is the case regardless of whether the Content in question constitutes text, graphics, an audio file, or computer software. By making Content available, you represent and warrant that:
(i) The downloading, copying and use of the Content will not infringe the proprietary rights, including but not limited to the copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret rights, of any third party;
(ii) The Content does not contain or install any viruses, worms, malware, Trojan horses or other harmful or destructive content;
(iii) The Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing);
(iv) The Content does not contain threats or incite violence towards individuals or entities, and does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party;
(v) Your blog is not getting advertised via unwanted electronic messages such as spam links on newsgroups, email lists, other blogs and web sites, and similar unsolicited promotional methods;
(vi) Your blog is not named in a manner that misleads your readers into thinking that you are another person or company. For example, your blog’s URL or name is not the name of a person other than yourself or company other than your own;

#2 - (Negative) - Selective/arbitrary removal

7.4 Content Removal

Content published by The Author is not pre-screened by Blog.com. Blog.com shall have the right, in their sole discretion, to refuse publication or remove from their systems, of Content published by The Author.

#3 - (Negative) - Reporting content as "offensive"

Is mature content allowed on Blog.com?
Home / Guidelines & TOS / Is mature content allowed on Blog.com?

Adult content is allowed (if pictures are stored at Blog.com) but it may result in your blog being marked as a “Mature” blog, getting a pop-up warning when people visit your site.

It will work normally but visitors have to accept the condition that they are about to enter a mature site by clicking on the I understand and want to proceed button.

(All of the above seems fine, but then...)

More Frequently Asked Questions
+I want to flag my own blog as mature
+I want to report a blog that has adult or offensive content

So, basically, they can remove your blog for whatever reason they like, and their system is probably automated to remove blogs that get enough "offensive" reports. So if you're ok with that, then it seems like a viable option.




Edit:

It seems I spoke a bit too soon. This was on a tab I hadn't viewed when I made the original post here:

#4 - (Positive) - "Freedom of expression" policy standpoint.

Blogs of Offensive Nature

We can proceed to the suspension of a certain blog if:

the content contains threats or incite violence towards individuals or entities
the blog violates the privacy or publicity rights of any third party;
the blog and its content are misleading readers about the author’s identity;

We are aware that there may be content that is personal in nature or feels invasive. Please note that Blog.com is a provider of content creation tools, not a mediator of that content. We allow our users to create blogs, but we don’t make any claims about the content of these pages. We strongly believe in freedom of expression, even if a blog contains unappealing or distasteful content or presents unpopular viewpoints. We realize this may be frustrating, and we regret any inconvenience this may cause you. In cases where contact information for the author is listed on the page, we recommend that you work directly with this person to have the content in question removed or changed.

Here are some examples of content we will not remove unless provided with a court order:

Parody or satire of individuals
Distasteful imagery or language
Political or social commentary

If you believe that you’ve found a blog that violates our Terms of Service, please submit a request to our team, filling out the form below.

That general standpoint still doesn't protect people from arbitrary deletion, and their terms are entirely subject to change without notice, but it doesn't mean that you're less likely to get your blog deleted because people flagged it as containing offensive content.

The fact that the site's terms and other info don't address things like sexually suggestive images of minors suggests that the site currently doesn't expect legal entanglements (otherwise they would have made that issue front-and-center like reddit has). In other words; things might change if the site's owners/admins feel like legal issues are going to become a bigger bother to them. (Their frontpage currently boasts about having over two million members - a rather small amount of which are likely to post adult content of the types that have been the targets of recent laws.)

They could feel that way if a bunch of people from Blogger switch to Blog.com, or they might be resolute about their "freedom of expression" stance in that case. Some simple content searches didn't provide me with any sense of what direction they might go in.

 

[mayaktheunholy]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

That general standpoint still doesn't protect people from arbitrary deletion, and their terms are entirely subject to change without notice, but it doesn't mean that you're less likely to get your blog deleted because people flagged it as containing offensive content.

The fact that the site's terms and other info don't address things like sexually suggestive images of minors suggests that the site currently doesn't expect legal entanglements (otherwise they would have made that issue front-and-center like reddit has). In other words; things might change if the site's owners/admins feel like legal issues are going to become a bigger bother to them. (Their frontpage currently boasts about having over two million members - a rather small amount of which are likely to post adult content of the types that have been the targets of recent laws.)

They could feel that way if a bunch of people from Blogger switch to Blog.com, or they might be resolute about their "freedom of expression" stance in that case. Some simple content searches didn't provide me with any sense of what direction they might go in.

Yeah, I saw something when I set up the new blog there that also leads me to believe they are pro freedom of expression. But I hadn't seen that, thanks for pointing it out. And you are right, the real test will be if they actually face legal issues.

With the report adult content thing, I think what that is for is so they could just mark a blog as adult that wasn't already. (I sent a request to have mine flagged already)

And as far as arbitrary deletion, you aren't going to get away from that. It's a standard policy. (If it was your system, wouldn't you want the ability to remove content that would get you in legal trouble?)

 

[freeko]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

I could be wrong, but if blog.com is not actually incorporated in the usa, then it would not be subject to their laws. So if you were able to incorporate in say, some random country that has no internet policy stuff, you could do whatever you wanted.

That is what you should look into. Where is blog.com incorporated out of as I believe the rules are that you have to follow the laws of the country that you are incorporated in at minimum. With how often the internet seems to change its "rules" anymore it is almsot sad.

Oh, keep those negreps coming, I want to have the high score for negative rep.

 

[SoED]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

With the report adult content thing, I think what that is for is so they could just mark a blog as adult that wasn't already. (I sent a request to have mine flagged already)

The adult side, yes, but the "offensive" side is about the arbitrary decision-making. If they were really committed to freedom of expression to the point that they'd keep that stance even as legal hassles become an issue for them, then they wouldn't even have "report as offensive" in their description of the reporting feature. It shows that they'd not solidly on the side of expression to the degree that, say, asstr is.

That's not a knock on them. They're a small company with limited resources. It's just something to keep in mind for people when they're deciding where to put their content. That's why I prefer reddit - reddit's got a proven track record when it comes to legal issues, and the resources to contest legal challenges.

And as far as arbitrary deletion, you aren't going to get away from that. It's a standard policy. (If it was your system, wouldn't you want the ability to remove content that would get you in legal trouble?)

Of course, but I'd also make my guidelines rather clear cut. The more vague that a service provider is, the more likely they are to be arbitrary, in my experience.

For example, even adding the following to their Terms/Content/Acceptable Use would make expectations of what would be safe vs deleted clearer (which matters not just for the user, but also for the admins when they're making decisions and have to reference their own guidelines):


Potentially Offensive Content

Ok:
- Text that
+ Is fiction that is unrelated to real persons (e.g. erotic stories about a fictional mother and son)
+ Discusses arguments in favor of controversial beliefs (e.g. white supremacy)

- Images and videos that
+ Depict non-copyrighted fictional persons in sexual situations
+ Depict controversial content (e.g. people who are anorexic) in a way that is non-defamatory


Not ok:
- Text that
+ Directs or encourages others to do harm to anyone in real life
+ Depicts interactions with real persons (e.g. celebrities, a blogger's next-door neighbor)

- Images and videos that
+ Appeal to a prurient interest in violence (e.g. "crushing" porn)
+ Violate applicable local or international laws (e.g. defamation, privacy, hate speech)*
+ Violate copyrights of third parties
+ Direct or encourage others to do harm to anyone in real life
+ Depict real people under the age of 18 in sexually suggestive clothing, poses, or situations (including drawn artwork)
+ Depict nudity of real people under the age of 18 (including drawn artwork)
+ Depict real private persons (non-celebrities) in sexually suggestive clothing, poses, or situations - unless the image or video was created for a licensed adult company and that fact can readily be verified (including drawn artwork)**


* Clarification:
- "International laws" means laws that are applied across international borders; not laws that only apply in limited jurisdictions.

** Clarification:
- Images and videos of people who were paid via contract or employment agreement by legally established companies for professional photoshoots or pornographic video can be depicted.
- Images and video of people who were paid in cash by someone who uploaded their photos online cannot be depicted - even if the person who took the images/videos was a licensed professional.


That's not a list that's completely on the side of freedom of expression, but it's a policy set that is reasonable for a small company that wants to avoid legal troubles while still offering a lot of freedom. It complies with both current laws and likely possible laws, and it doesn't prevent people from sharing content that is about anything fictional.

As soon as the real world is a part of content, things become messy. As long as a site explicitly forbids real-life content that isn't commercially produced by a legal establishment, they're not likely to get tangled up in legal issues.

I could be wrong, but if blog.com is not actually incorporated in the usa, then it would not be subject to their laws. So if you were able to incorporate in say, some random country that has no internet policy stuff, you could do whatever you wanted.

That is what you should look into. Where is blog.com incorporated out of as I believe the rules are that you have to follow the laws of the country that you are incorporated in at minimum. With how often the internet seems to change its "rules" anymore it is almsot sad.

Oh, keep those negreps coming, I want to have the high score for negative rep.

The jurisdiction of the place that hosts the website is important in regard to how that country regards international laws and what local jurisdictional laws it requires people to follow. It's not just a matter of "X is okay in the US, but not okay in the UK". Every site has to provide terms that comply with the jurisdictional rules of the place where its business has primary domain.

However, users also have to follow their local laws and any applicable international laws - above and beyond a site's jurisdictional mandates.


In other words, you can't post guro on a site if guro is illegal in your country, the site's country, or internationally between your two countries.

 

[urielmanx7]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

Heh, it's funny how when blogger started to became famous for H games, it blocks such content.

 

[SoED]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

Heh, it's funny how when blogger started to became famous for H games, it blocks such content.

I'm honestly sure that it's just a coincidence. The real cause is more likely advertisers and jurisdictions changing their policies because of the new international laws that have popped up in the past 5 years. New restrictions are popping up all over the place - not just for Google-owned stuff.

 

[kiko]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

I haven't read every post in this thread, but I think that google will ruin blogspot. Almost 95% of google blogs contain pornography. The rest of them are warez sites. Lol. But I think adult bloggers will be able to find something else until google stops derping. Trust me, they will revert this change when they see that they've done a mistake. Because the blogger service will be rarely used. And google will lose a number of revenue they get from ads. Not a large, noticeable impact, but it's something. As for the blogs that allow adult content, there are plenty of blogs that can be found. One being fc2, the japanese blogger service, also there's wordpress, even tho' they ban content marked as pedophilia (Loli), yet there's no statement that they ban beastiality and stuff like that.

You must be registered to see the links

 

[SoED]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

I haven't read every post in this thread, but I think that google will ruin blogspot. Almost 95% of google blogs contain pornography. The rest of them are warez sites. Lol. But I think adult bloggers will be able to find something else until google stops derping. Trust me, they will revert this change when they see that they've done a mistake. Because the blogger service will be rarely used. And google will lose a number of revenue they get from ads. Not a large, noticeable impact, but it's something. As for the blogs that allow adult content, there are plenty of blogs that can be found. One being fc2, the japanese blogger service, also there's wordpress, even tho' they ban content marked as pedophilia (Loli), yet there's no statement that they ban beastiality and stuff like that.

You must be registered to see the links

A quote from what you just linked to:

However, there are limitations to the mature content permitted on our service. Please don’t:

Post sexual materials that can be considered pornographic, such as images or video of explicit sexual acts or close-up images of genitalia;
Post links or ads to adult-oriented affiliate networks, such as pornography site signups;
Post links, text, or images promoting or advertising escort or erotic services;
Post images of extreme violence or gore without associated context or commentary; *
Post images of child pornography;
Post content that promotes pedophilia, such as blogs with galleries of images of children where the images, content surrounding the images, or the intent of the blog is sexually suggestive.

* By this, Wordpress means something like commentary about how horrible a government operation was, or historical information about war crimes - not comments like "This is from my game, and I don't advocate harming real people."


Wordpress is one of the most restrictive content hosts that is widely used for blogs. They specify child pornography separately only because they have several additional notes about how they respond to content that they consider "child endangerment" - which includes more than just images of naked children in sexual situations, and involves more than them just reporting your IP address to the authorities.

I talked to their support team ages ago to ask about some of the vagueness of their legal wording about "promotion" and "advertisement" - and their response was basically "If you think it's something that someone would find offensive, your blog will probably be deleted."

Blogger is much more lenient than Wordpress, even with Blogger's recent change of terms.


As has been said previously, people should go to

- Reddit, if they want freedom to post fictional content without worries about the rules changing drastically

- Blog.com, if they want to post fictional loli/guro/bestiality/other extreme content and don't mind the possibility of the rules potentially changing in the future

- Tumblr, if they don't post anything that involves violence or underage content



Edit:

A side note about Google and ad revenue: Many adult content blogs make Google no money, because advertisers won't allow their ads to be featured on sites that contain certain words in an erotic context or that suggest certain types of content - such as rape, incest, BDSM, and so on (depending on which ad company's policies you're looking at).

Some high-dollar examples, so that you know I'm not talking out of my ass:

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

Google's top two ad programs don't allow most adult content, so Google doesn't get any ad revenue from blogs that include those types of content - it only earns money from pay-for-features/hosting plans for those adult content blogs.

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

 

[szarala]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

Google has reversed their decision (after much backlash) and will now maintain the current policy.

 

[barreytor]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

Google has reversed their decision (after much backlash) and will now maintain the current policy.

Could you provide a link to that, or was it sent via mail?
Not that I don't trust that.

 

[freeko]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

Sounds like an early april fools joke to me as well. I have received no notice about their recanting of the policy change.

Provide proof please?

 

[Xil]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

Hmm, the only "proof" I see is that there is no longer a notification saying that it won't allow adult content when I visit my blogger.

 

[barreytor]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

Hmm, the only "proof" I see is that there is no longer a notification saying that it won't allow adult content when I visit my blogger.

That sounds good enough for me. That, and being told through other means by other person.
Either way, even if we can stay on blogger, I think we should do the thing of giving that reddit thing a chance.

 

[Anon42]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

Google has reversed their decision (after much backlash) and will now maintain the current policy.

You must be registered to see the links

 

[Fenril]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

Well, my two cents on this is that Google may backpedal in the wake of this policy change, and I have my reasons for thinking this way.

A while ago, maybe a couple years back, Google had pretty much wiped out most adult keywords from their search engine's search matrix. Then, slowly but surely, it seemed that a lot of those searches started coming back.

I'm almost positive they're doing something similar, probably because they're being pressured into doing so. I'm betting big government or soccer mom investors or some other "white knight" organization is threatening to regulate them if they don't do something about internet porn. And then maybe they will eventually enforce the policy less and less until it goes back to the way it was.

Their search engine also isn't the only instance of where they've done this whole policy vaporware situation. In fact, they may eventually back off their Youtube comments policy because of how badly it affected them and how everyone's figured out they did that to push Google+. After all, there's been news stories about how that particular dev team shifted over to a different part of the office to work on Google's mobile social networking app instead of Google+'s social network structure.

And despite what Google's damage control team might say about making the Youtube comments change to eliminate trolls or whatever crap they may be shoveling, and whatever they may say about reallocating personnel over to the mobile apps because it's 'satisfactory' with how they finished 'fine-tuning' the system, we all know the real story here.

I'm betting this could be a similar situation with BS. After all, they haven't yet screwed over Pixiv to my knowledge and that place has just as much (if not more) porn that BS.

So the bottom line is I'd suggest that H-game devs keep their BS accounts and let it go private under the policy change. Don't scramble to remove everything just to keep it from being "taken down" and just play the waiting game. Of course, migrating everything to keep up with your fans is still do-able so go ahead and use another website for the time being.

 

[BigJohnny]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

If people will be forced to move that's gonna give Urielman an excuse to not update on Mitsuko! Not good.

CRISIS AVERTED

BACK TO FAPPING EVERYONE

 

[KuraScropia]

Re: Blogspot removing all Hentai blogs

CRISIS AVERTED

BACK TO FAPPING EVERYONE

-Insert "The Internet Is For Porn" song as victory song here-