Google Shuts Down Anti-Obama Sites on its Blogger Platform
By Warner Todd Huston Posted in Blogosphere — Comments (42) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
**UPDATE** BELOW FOLD
It looks like Google has officially joined the Barack Obama campaign and decided that its contribution would be to shut down any blog on the Google owned Blogspot.com blogging system that has an anti-Obama message. Yes, it sure seems that Google has begun to go through its many thousands of blogs to lock out the owners of anti-Obama blogs so that the noObama message is effectively squelched. Thus far, Google has terminated the access by blog owners to 7 such sites and the list may be growing. Boy, it must be nice for Barack Obama to have an ally powerful enough to silence his opponents like that!
It isn't just conservative sites that Google's Blogger platform is eliminating. For instance, www.comealongway.blogspot.com has been frozen and this one is a Hillary supporting site. The operator of Come a Long Way has a mirror site off the Blogspot platform and has today posted this notice:
I used to have a happy internet home on Blogger: www.comealongway.blogspot.com. Then on Wednesday night, June 25, I received the following e-mail:
Dear Blogger user,
This is a message from the Blogger team.
Your blog, at http://comealongway.blogspot.com/, has been identified as a potential spam blog. You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog.
Sincerely,
The Blogger Team
It turns out that there is an interesting pattern where it concerns the blogs that Google's Blogspot team have summarily locked down on their service. They all belong to the Just Say No Deal coalition, a group of blogs that are standing against the Obama campaign. It seems the largest portion of these blogs are Hillary supporting blogs, too.
All I can say is, WOW! If Google is willing to abuse its power like this even against fellow leftists, what does it plan against conservatives, the folks Google hates even more!?
Here is a list of the Blogspot blogs that have been frozen by Google thus far:
- Blue Lyon @ http://bluelyon.blogspot.com
- Come A Long Way @ http://comealongway.blogspot.com
- Hillary or Bust @ http://hillaryorbust.blogspot.com
- McCain Democrats @ http://mccaindemocrats.blogspot.com
- NObama Blog @ http://nobamablog.blogspot.com
- politicallizard.blogspot.com @ http://thelizardannex.blogspot.com
- Reflections in Tyme @ http://reflections-in-tyme.blogspot.com
**UPDATE**
I have been hesitant to post this update because I cannot find a link to prove the claim, but it is starting to look like this Blogspot shut down of anti-Obama sites occurred because of a concerted effort by Obama supporters.
What they did was go to the Blogspot addresses found on the site of the NoObama coalition called Just Say No Deal and constantly hit the "mark as spam" link so that Google's Blogger would be flooded with spam warnings. This caused Google/Blogger to freeze the sites marked.
Apparently, this campaign merely took advantage of Google/Blogger's flawed system of finding spam blogs. So, it looks like what we have here is an Obama dirty trick to shut down political opposition. Looks like Obmatons aren't much for that whole democracy thing, eh?
Once I find a link to an Obama site talking about this attack, I will post it.
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by Obama supporters to flood complaint emails to close down anti-Obama sites.
McCain for POTUS so the left can't ruin SCOTUS.
deserves another.
The Obamanation's Obamatons are not scouring the web to defend their candidate's honor.
They are scouring the web to shut down all voices of dissent.
Perhaps their team of crack smoking astronauts, or whatever they were.
Impeach the 5 usurpers
to call to rectify this obvious marxist tactic of shutting down free speech from another political party? If we can shut down the Senate phones we can do something about this....I am unfamiliar with blogger/google but if you give me something to do I will be on it tomorrow.
Freedom of Religion NOT Freedom from Religion
I used to have a blogger account but I found them nearly impossible to ever interact with. When I had a few troubles, it never seemed like I was able to get in touch with anyone.
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from a company that will censor itself just to do business in china?
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Proud to be under 30 and not supporting liberals!
Can someone sue them for this?
I'm no legal eagle, but unless there was something in the user agreement about Google not targeting a specific blog or blogs b/c the political point of view expressed on that blog, then there is no cause for action. The first amendment does not apply here because Google is a privately owned company, and unless the *flimsy* arguement that they serve a public function holds up in a court, your constitutional right to free speech, assembly, and association is not protected.
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4.62, 0.51
IANAL, but the way I understand it, if you censor one client on the basis of (otherwise legal [+]) content, then you lose your safe-harbor protection as a common carrier, and are now liable for ALL content by ALL clients. Anybody posts a libel or slander, you're liable. Worse, you've got deeper pockets than the schmuck who actually authored the content. Translation: safe harbor protection as a common carrier is VERY valuable, because otherwise *you* become the deep-pockets first-resort target of every lawsuit.
[+] you're allowed to censor threats of violence, etc, without losing safe harbor.
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4.62, 0.51
Google will no longer be my default search engine.
The free exchange of ideas inevitably yields both heat and light.
I've had it with Google. First they censor YouTube and now their bloggers. They're an arrogant bunch, that's for sure. I will now commence to uninstall the Google Toolbar search box and Google Earth. Yahoo! does search and mapping just as well.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. --- John Adams
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
http://www.redstate.com/blogs/gamecock/2008/jun/29/all_caps_and_yelling_...
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
No I photo shopped that picture.
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Be sure and Visit my Home blog Publius' Forum. It's what's happening NOW!
blog mean? talk to me like I am a 5 yr old
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
Photoshop is a photo-editing/graphic design program that allows the user to manipulate an image so that the final image is different from the original image. It also allows you to insert different things, such as other images, into an image so that it looks different than the original image. I hope that this explanation did not go over your head.
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4.62, 0.51
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
That has been mentioned a couple times over the last weeks.
It is not google making a conscious decision what the libs are doing is bombarding google with everything from complaints, comment spam and DMCA warnings to get them to pull the sites. Google pretty much has to react to them and pull the material until it can be re-evaluated.
These tactics have been around since the DMCA was instituted corporations are well known for using them to silence sites hosting everything from damaging materials to their thanksgiving day sale prices.
The really sweet thing about this is it exposes a liberal hypocrisy as they are usually the first to complain about the DMCA and how it infringes on the rights of the people. It seems that they only care about it when its not them infringing on others rights.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/03/26/anti-gore-ad-yanked-from-youtube/
Apparently anti-Al Gore anti AGW are also a no-no with Google.
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business … frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise.Ronald Reagan
If you had a website I could take you down for a week or two.
The bottom line is if you are on a cheapy hosting plan and your value as a customer isn't worth it to ISP you can be knocked off easily.
In the case of youtube or blogger, the value of any single account is about zero.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
http://www.chillingeffects.org/
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business … frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise.Ronald Reagan
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
An attorney (Ben Affleck) in a rush to make a court appointment to file legal papers involving a multi-million dollar trust accidentally collides with an alcoholic insurance salesman (Samuel Jackson), who also is a rush for a court appointment involving the custody of his children. The attorney leaves the scene of the accident and strands the salesman, causing him to miss his custody hearing. During the process of the post-crash discussion, the attorney accidentally drops the papers he needs to present in court. The judge gives him until the end of the day to present the papers and thus begins a cat and mouse game between the proponents. A few questionable actions later on both parties' part, they finally start questioning their actions and their lives. In the end, both come to new understanding of what is important and appear to be set in new ethical and moral directions.
The 'questionable actions' on the lawyer, (Affleck), are what I am reminded of by the subject of this blog.
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business … frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise.Ronald Reagan
Again. Mostly we have a somewhat more youthful participants lately. It does tend to make things much more imperative for them.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I'd be astounded if there was an actual human behind this decision. I'd be willing to bet that this happened via an automated process.
One of the techniques spammers will use is sham blogs that they use links from to game the page ranking artificially raise their google search rankings for pages. One way to do this is by having a bunch of blogs that just link to each other, raising the number of incoming links. I suspect that this is what these blogs ran afoul of.
Now, I'm only partially defending Google because, considering the number of people who make their living blogging these days, or at least derive significant income from it, they need to have a human double-check these decisions, and either that didn't happen here, or the person didn't do his job. Google wants to be a platform for all businesses in the future, but every time they do something like this it will make people reluctant to use them.
Do you believe google is trying to purge anti-obama blogs?
If they are, aren't there so many that it would be obvious and end up hurting them.
HEY, how about putting these questions on the blog and try and answer and open up for the author to address!
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice
they don't like. . . .
http://samuelatgilgal.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/is-senator-obamas-birth-c...
I'll post something anti-Obama & see if I can get booted... :)
"Freedom will only survive on the weight of every effort expended to preserve it"
I had a blog at blogger. http://bitter-american.blogspot.com
As of today the blog has been deleted. So that is it, I will move my e-mail off gmail, I will find someone else as an alternative to adwords and I will tell everyone that Google has become the new facist. At least here they cannot have me put in prison like the Chinese dissidents.
Whose evil now!
http://hillaryorbust.blogspot.com
at least is back online.
I suspect this was a computer flagged thing and I'm glad to see google cleaning it up.
Personally, I wouldn't hate google on this. Just realize that the Obamites are *gasp* willing to play dirty.
I'll be posting a last post and putting it to bed.
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