Where Twitter goes, Blogger follows
February 1, 2012 5:43 PM   Subscribe

Google has altered the architecture of Blogger to allow censoring blogs on a country by country basis.
posted by jfuller (41 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
And Twitter led the way. Wait to see what the EFF has to say before getting too pissed. It might be just like Twitter. Sucky, but the lesser of evils.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:52 PM on February 1, 2012


"Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law," Google wrote.

"Also, up is down, black is white, and censorship is promoting free expression," Google added.
posted by vidur at 5:56 PM on February 1, 2012 [14 favorites]


Wait, what was the other, greater evil than a communications company enabling censorship to local governments?
posted by DU at 5:57 PM on February 1, 2012


Welcome to the new world citizen, make sure to ██████████████████.
posted by fuq at 6:00 PM on February 1, 2012 [2 favorites]


what was the other, greater evil than a communications company enabling censorship to local governments?

Being banned from offering their service altogether within the jurisdiction of that government.
posted by Ardiril at 6:01 PM on February 1, 2012 [2 favorites]


I'm confused, so with this change would say an Iranian blogger still be able to open a blogger account in say Poland claiming to be Polish?
posted by Blasdelb at 6:02 PM on February 1, 2012


You cant just say you're in Poland. You have to go through a proxy in Poland.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 6:07 PM on February 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Goddammit. It was already hard enough to read decent articles in places like Vietnam and China.
posted by secondhand pho at 6:12 PM on February 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Hmm, it's ambiguous whether this kind of thing would mean more or less censorship overall.

It makes sense to say that Google can simply block a post from a specific country rather then deleting the entire thing but realistically, would they have actually complied with requests from Lithuania or Uzbekistan? In the past, probably not. But now there's less of a reason not too.
I'm confused, so with this change would say an Iranian blogger still be able to open a blogger account in say Poland claiming to be Polish?
My impression is that, like with twitter, they're blocking posts not posters. So an Iranian would be able to post whatever they want, but people in Iran wouldn't be able to see their posts if Google complied with requests from Iran, which they probably won't. Most of their stuff is blocked there anyway.
posted by delmoi at 6:24 PM on February 1, 2012


Being banned from offering their service altogether within the jurisdiction of that government.

Do you think China or Iran is going to start letting people use blogger or twitter now? Other then those two, is there a real risk that they'd be blocked in any countries that matter?

The issue here is liability and the ability to make money in countries they already operate in. If China tells Google to remove a doc, they're free to ignore them, because Google doesn't do business in China and has nothing to lose.

On the other, if the Germans ask them to remove some Nazis stuff, they're much more likely to do so since they probably make a lot of money in Germany and certainly wouldn't want to stick their neck out over some Nazis.

With per-country blocking, Google would be able to censor a lot more stuff.

But it's not like this is totally new for them, it's been the case with youtube for a long time.
posted by delmoi at 6:30 PM on February 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


delmoi: I see no loophole that would help stop Iran, or Uzbekistan, or Saudi Arabia from censoring their respective blogospheres. In fact after this and the twitter decision, social media can no longer be used as instruments in popular organizing against tyranny. Or these particular platforms can't anyway...
posted by talos at 6:31 PM on February 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Thank you Google. You chickenshits.
posted by BlueHorse at 6:46 PM on February 1, 2012


Sorry, isn't just blocking the stuff from being accessed within national boarder X a better idea than having it taken down? Then people who know how to use Tor or another proxy can still get it, even if it is down in their region, while everybody else doesn't even notice.

Also, the way I read the twitter one was "We've been taking down these tweets quietly all along: Now we are going to tell you about it via ChillingEffects, and it may not totally remove the tweet everywhere"
posted by Canageek at 6:54 PM on February 1, 2012


Don't Be Evil.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:57 PM on February 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


This is pretty much part of having offices in other parts of the world. This looks like a list of most of their international offices. So if, for example, Egypt demanded they take something down, they either do it, or accept that their local employees are at risk of arrest. With this change they can take the item down in just Egypt. Their other option would be to close all of their international offices.

I'm not sure why people think companies are able to ignore the laws of the lands they are operating in.
posted by markr at 7:03 PM on February 1, 2012 [3 favorites]


Look at this as a cost-savings measure: all those governments will get to spend less money on layer 7 packet inspection hardware.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 7:10 PM on February 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Wait, what was the other, greater evil than a communications company enabling censorship to local governments?

This lesser evil would be removing the content everywhere in the world because some local government wanted it blocked.

Any evil is still evil, but google dropped the don't be evil thing a long time ago.
posted by empath at 7:18 PM on February 1, 2012


(err greater)
posted by empath at 7:18 PM on February 1, 2012


I've just gone from a small amount of outrage to 'Well, what else could they do?' to outrage at the symbolism of this decision. Even though we rationally know it's false, it's very appealing to think of the internet as something without borders and country-specific redirects destroy that illusion. However many months on, the Guardian's US redirect is of no consequence to me--the UK main page is what Firefox gives me when I press 'g'--but occasionally I remember and I'm still a little irritated.

Though, on a practical level, I've got some browser setting that has broken the new Blogger, at least sometimes, so I can sit here and ask if this is something I'd need to be able to access Blogger to be able to understand.
posted by hoyland at 7:34 PM on February 1, 2012


flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law

There are valid censorship requests?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:39 PM on February 1, 2012


There are valid censorship requests? - Just ask France about their Nazi hangups.
posted by Ardiril at 7:48 PM on February 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather...

Cyberspace does not lie within your borders... You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist...

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity."

Not so much anymore. And the technology industry, once the vanguard of freedom and individual liberty, is now cooperating with the oppressors because doing so is the best way to make money.
posted by gd779 at 7:50 PM on February 1, 2012 [4 favorites]


Pipa/Sopa was so bad that Wikipedia was blacked out, and countless other sites put up big warnings about it; Google implements policy that streamlines the exact same thing, yet it isn't that bad?

Is it not bad because it mainly will be imposed on "other people?"
posted by Threeway Handshake at 7:51 PM on February 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


There are valid censorship requests?

Sure, depending on the country, copyright infringement, hate speech, classified information, child porn, etc..
posted by empath at 7:52 PM on February 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


is there a real risk that they'd be blocked in any countries that matter?

Hell, some time back, France wanted to block sites for not using the French language. Like I said before: Don't blame twitter, blame the country.
posted by Ardiril at 7:52 PM on February 1, 2012


It really is a shame I've been getting so much use out of that ascii █.
posted by fuq at 8:06 PM on February 1, 2012


Google implements policy that streamlines the exact same thing, yet it isn't that bad?

The laws to demand these takedowns are already in place. Google is making it so that they can comply with local laws without it overflowing into other countries.

I wonder if that means that DMCA takedowns to Google will now only affect .com sites and not other countries (I doubt it since Google would get sued over their other domains in the US regardless).
posted by markr at 8:11 PM on February 1, 2012


delmoi: I see no loophole that would help stop Iran, or Uzbekistan, or Saudi Arabia from censoring their respective blogospheres. In fact after this and the twitter decision, social media can no longer be used as instruments in popular organizing against tyranny. Or these particular platforms can't anyway...,
Okay?

I'm talking about other countries that might not want to go through the trouble of actually setting up a firewall, but might not have a problem with demanding google pull something down.

In the past, Google might have ignored them if the poster was from another country (or using TOR). Now it will be easy for them to do it, and the poster might not even know their post had been blocked in that country
Sorry, isn't just blocking the stuff from being accessed within national boarder X a better idea than having it taken down?
Like I said, why assume that every takedown request in the past was accepted? How many blogger takedowns had their been at the request of some government in the past?

And critically, countries are most likely to request censorship of stuff that people in their country might actually be interested in, so in terms of the number of people blocked from accessing content It seems likely that this could mean more views prevented.
Pipa/Sopa was so bad that Wikipedia was blacked out, and countless other sites put up big warnings about it; Google implements policy that streamlines the exact same thing, yet it isn't that bad?
Yes, totally the same thing. It's just like how the government taking your site off the entire internet is just like when Jessamyn deletes a post of Metafilter. You totally can't just go to some other message board and post it there. Just like there are no other message boards to post on, there are also no other blogging hosts out there. *rolls eyes*

But seriously, there are actually no other DNS roots for people to use, at least not realistically. There are a couple alternatives to the DNS system that people use but they are not widespread. Getting removed from the DNS essentially means being removed from the internet.
posted by delmoi at 8:13 PM on February 1, 2012


I'm not sure why people think companies are able to ignore the laws of the lands they are operating in.

Indeed. Take a look at the books you can buy on iTunes or Amazon in China versus iTunes or Amazon in other countries. You won't find books that reference the Dalai Lama in the books you can purchase in China. It would be wonderful if Amazon, Apple, Google, etc. didn't do business in countries with shady human rights practices, but then they wouldn't be operating in the States either given it's rampant corporatism and corruption.
posted by juiceCake at 8:36 PM on February 1, 2012


Now I know and understand the salient points here revolve around censorship and the like but I only noticed this change to my own blog as of yesterday.

I cannot for the life of me fathom why adding .au ccTLD to my blogspot address in *my* browser window has any bearing or is necessary at all. Aren't they already logging my IP and know where I am? So why do they have to tell me? I could understand this if they were going to change and allow blog.blogspot.com.au AND blog.blogspot.com AND blog.blogspot.co.uk or the somesuch. Why not make an announcement about the censorship and maybe put a link to information about it from the header section of each blogspot blog and tell people that they might see something different in China -vs- USA?? Why not just say "we have to censor in the following countries so if you are there you might see something different"? *sigh*^

http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2402711

^I hate it most because I copy/paste my blog entry URLs all the time and now will have to manually modify them. This thing begs for a Chrome anti-ccTLD plugin. Anyone??
posted by peacay at 9:03 PM on February 1, 2012


Man, it would suck to be an Iranian blogger and your blog is censored in Iran and you type up a wicked awesome post and click "preview" and there's just nothing there, so you hit "post" and just pray you don't have too many formatting fuckups.
posted by tumid dahlia at 9:21 PM on February 1, 2012


I can't wait to see the blow-up around here when Facebook implements the same modifications.
posted by Ardiril at 9:22 PM on February 1, 2012


You can still get around the censorship by not going to country specific domains when you go to blogspot, btw.
posted by empath at 9:42 PM on February 1, 2012


I can't wait to see the blow-up around here when Facebook implements the same modifications.

Holy shit. Will I be able to issue takedown notices for my mother's unhinged political rants, my brother's blurry cellphone photos of beer can ziggurats, or my high school girlfriend's endless photographs of her inbred, likely psychotic children?

Brave new world, sign me the fuck up!
posted by R. Schlock at 9:44 PM on February 1, 2012 [3 favorites]


Remember when the Internet was about freedom? Yeah, me neither.
posted by asnider at 9:46 PM on February 1, 2012


I miss Eric Schmidt.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:16 PM on February 1, 2012


So not surprised about this.

The tragic thing is, American government is talking about how we need to keep our technical and innovative edge in the world. Apparently, we will only allow some to stay innovative in finding ways to meet new and restrictive laws.

Long live the lawyers!

And, just so you know, I have always had my blog in Eurasia.
posted by Samizdata at 1:08 AM on February 2, 2012


Wow, that lawyers line reminds me I need to see Dune again.
posted by Samizdata at 1:09 AM on February 2, 2012


Thing is, this is just the tip of Google's iceberg. As Google more tightly converges and unites their many properties (ostensibly under the G+ banner), it will make global censoring on the user level a simple matter of clicking a button, at least as far as your Google-owned identity is concerned.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:44 AM on February 2, 2012


My hope is this: on both Blogger and Twitter, that when viewing a censored-by-specific-country blog/post/tweet from a non-restricted region, a notification would let the reader know that the blog/post/tweet has been censored in [list of countries].

Barring that, I'd hope they at least let the author of the blog/post/tweet automatically know they've been censored in certain regions.

Keeping a database on chillingeffects (or an equivalent page) is a fine first step, but the information should also be placed directly in context.
posted by nobody at 4:38 AM on February 2, 2012


Steven Den Beste (mefi 462) is looking prescient, with both his old site and his newer one in the .nu domain. (And not on blogger; and hey, his mefi account closed. Heh, I take it Steven doesn't care to risk being moderated by anybody.)
posted by jfuller at 6:09 AM on February 2, 2012


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