You'd never guess that Google or its blogging platform Blogger (aka blogspot.com) would have issues with hosting porn. But apparently the service was having enough of an issue to enable a new policy banning it.
Google posted an update to its rules that will regulate how people use Blogger to host explicit or sexual content. Starting on March 23, Blogger accounts won't be able to share images or videos that are sexually explicit. However, any sexual content that can be categorized as artistic, educational, documentary or scientific won't be affected by the policy change. Any account that does host sexually explicit content will be converted to a private account. Only the owner and anyone the owner gives access to will be able to view the content.
If, for some reason, a user is not happy with this decision, he or she will have the option to remove the content or export the files and place them somewhere more appropriate.
This isn't the first time Google has come down on pornographic content hosted on Blogger. Google deleted a number of pornographic blogs in 2013 that used ads to make a profit from the site's traffic. While Google never released an official number for how many blogs were deleted, some estimate it was in the tens of thousands. It's also unclear how many Blogspot blogs actually exist in 2015. The most recent stat Google released about Blogger user numbers was 500,000 accounts in 2002. However, this was before Wordpress or Tumblr were developed or gained notoriety in the blogging community.
While the service still provides users a method for finding porn online, the company has done its best to make access to porn more difficult. Google incorporated a policy in 2014 banning Adwords campaigns that connected to sexually explicit content or to pornography. It also adjusted the algorithm in 2012 so that pornographic content would receive a lower ranking on non-porn-related searches.
