Google-hosted Blogs – Content Warning

February 26, 2007

96

When a Google Blogger blog is flagged by many users, and Google reviews it deciding it contains hate content, then Google may put up a “content warning” (this is not a new feature, it exists for some time).

What happens is that you won’t see the blog’s content when you enter its address, but a page reading the following (case adjusted):

Content Warning

Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog’s content is hateful. In general, Google does not review nor do we endorse the content of this or any blog. For more information about this message, please consult our FAQ

[I Do Not Wish to Continue] [I Understand and Wish to Continue]

If you hit the “I do not wish” button you’ll be sent to the Blogger homepage. Click the “I understand” button and you’ll be forwarded to the content of the blog in question. Google in their FAQ entry on flagging blogs explains:

The Flag button is not censorship and it cannot be manipulated by angry mobs. Political dissent? Incendiary opinions? Just plain crazy? Bring it on. (…)

Special Case for Hate Speech

When the community has voted and hate speech is identified on Blog*Spot, Google may exercise its right to place a Content Warning page in front of the blog and set it to “unlisted.”

An unlisted blog won’t appear in listings of Blogspot updates shown on Blogger. However, it still shows up in Google’s web search. To locate such hate blogs, you can search for:

Google+because+they+believe+this+blog%27s+content+is+hateful.%22+site:blogspot.com&hl=en&safe=off&filter=0″>“Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog’s content is hateful” site:blogspot.com

There are 211 results for this search in Google right now but that is not the number of “warned” blogs, as not every hit will actually point to a blog frontpage with a warning. But some of the blogs which were or are actively filtered alleged hate sites are listed below (my analysis of what people may have objected to is only brief, and not meant as any form of conclusive statement on the issue; e.g. a deeper analysis may or may not conclude that a blog was actually a parody of hatred, or that a blog was actually balanced criticism):

Overthrow88.blogspot.com: Not filtered anymore, but the cache reveals it was filtered before. “88” as contained in the subdomain name is a common neo-Nazi symbol (“h” is the 8th letter in the alphabet, so “88” is a code for the Nazi greeting “Heil Hitler”). People may have considered this holocaust denial and anti-Semitism.

KillBattyman.blogspot.com: Still filtered some minutes ago, but now completely removed. People may have considered this hate towards gay people.

FlushTheKoran.blogspot.com: Still filtered, albeit the warning appears in a slightly different (older, I suppose) design than some of the other blogs (the “I understand” button is given more emphasis, whereas in the recent design, both buttons receive about equal weight). People may have considered this to be hatred towards the Islam.

The-Muslim-Question.blogspot.com: Not filtered anymore, though the Google cache shows the warning message. However the site now moved to another location after Google prefaced it with their disclaimer. People may have considered this blog to be hatred against Muslims/ Islam.

WhiteLawTowers.blogspot.com: Not filtered anymore, but the Google cache shows the warning message. People may have considered this to be hatred towards Australian Aboriginals.
Md1992.blogspot.com: Not filtered anymore, but the Google cache shows the filter. People may have considered this to be misogyny (hatred of women).

MuhammedPron.blogspot.com: Still filtered. Like some other filtered blogs, this one shows a weird mixture of the warning page overlayed by the blog’s content, like videos. “Pron” is code for “porn” often used in internet contexts. People may have considered this to be hateful towards Islam.

Juba-Online.blogspot.com: Still filtered. I’m unsure what people may have considered hate content here; the blog seems to discuss the Bagdhad sniper nicknamed “Juba”, whose videos of killings of US soldiers circulated on the web. Potentially people considered this blog to be hateful towards the US.

TheDudePhilosophy.blogspot.com: Still filtered. (Quote from the blog: “If US sodiers do not kill JEW or HOMOSEXUAL on behalf of the Kingdom of Christ, then the LORD Jesus Christ will execute them in the battle field.”) People likely objected to anti-Semitism and hatred towards gay people.

AVoiceOfDissent.blogspot.com: Not filtered anymore, but the Google cache shows the filtering. This blog claims to counter “leftist bigotry and extremism in Australia and New Zealand”. People may have considered this blog to be anti-Semitic, hateful towards Muslims, and to contain Holocaust denials.

IranianForAryans.blogspot.com: Not filtered anymore, except in Google’s cache. This is a self-proclaimed “anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, and anti-Zionist” blogger, so people may likely have considered this to be hateful towards Jewish people.