2421 Blog Porn

I guess I should have realized when Google announced they were going to forbid porn on their Blogger subdivision that they weren't serious.  Not that it isn't a nice idea.  But defining what actually is porn was hard for the Supreme Court even before they got highly polarized and politicized.

When I first heard Google's announcement I was curious.  Hello.  Porn on a blog?  Porn by whom?  With Fifty Shades of Gray burning up Kindle circuits for so long, isn't this a little like closing the porn door after the wild animals have slipped their leashes and escaped the whips? 

Then I saw the actual Google warning on the Blogger start page: "On March 23rd Blogger will no longer allow certain sexually explicit content.  Learn More Here."  Sounds pretty harsh doesn't it?  Not so much.

"Um... excuse me, sometime later this month you'll need to find someplace else to post your porn..." 

So it was no surprise when the very next day Google retracted their initiative.  In a society where one person's porn is another person's free speech, albeit it with pictures, it's hard to clamp down on.  Hard to tell people not to cross a line when you're not sure where to draw it. 

This is the world of selfies and snapchat and totally unhacked public display of all manner of narcissistic nudity.  These days it's porn for the people, Google. 

If folks want to expose themselves, who are we to say they can't?  Google's next idea, to have folks post a graphic content warning landing page, is far better.  That will at least give us the option to avoid it.

There's a pretty clear line right there.  Think of it as the difference between porn by choice, and an unsolicited tweet from Anthony Weiner. 

America, ya gotta love it.