Google have changed their minds, you don’t have to take down explicit images on your blogs, but you probably don’t know that yet.
Here’s the notice that was posted on Google Forums;
Hello everyone,
This week, we announced a change to Blogger’s porn policy. We’ve had a ton of feedback, in particular about the introduction of a retroactive change (some people have had accounts for 10+ years), but also about the negative impact on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities. So rather than implement this change, we’ve decided to step up enforcement around our existing policy prohibiting commercial porn.
Blog owners should continue to mark any blogs containing sexually explicit content as “adult” so that they can be placed behind an “adult content” warning page.
Bloggers whose content is consistent with this and other policies do not need to make any changes to their blogs.
Thank you for your continued feedback.
The Blogger Team
Well that’s all okay then!
For now, if you have a sex blog or erotica blog, or write on any subject that may touch on these areas you’re content is still okay on the Blogger platform and your readers will still be able to find you; but Google probably hasn’t told you this themselves.
I knew about the proposed changes to content policy because I received a shouty email from them, as did all bloggers with blogs marked as adult, they don’t seem quite so keen to shout about the fact that they’ve changed their minds. No email to the community that they’d scared and worried, just a quite post in the forums. I only know about this change because the Slantist article was shared on my social media.
A cynic might think that Google are hoping that the community that they’ve scared will have started the work of deleting content or moving off the platform – I’ve certainly seen many people already acting on Google’s previous demands.
My personal advice still stands – move your blog to self-hosted to protect your content and maintain your independence, as much as you can.
