A few days ago when I blogged about Twitter’s new country-specific censorship capability, I did not know that the platform I was blogging on had already initiated a similar program three weeks earlier. Apparently the only indication of this fact was a new help article published on January 9th. There was no official announcement, and no attempt at transparency as there is from Twitter. Google does not say what will happen to censored blogs. Will they simply be invisible or will there be a notice saying they are censored? Will Google be publishing the take-down orders they receive the way Twitter will?
In any case, what this means is that if I blog about human rights, for instance, my blog could be blocked in any number of countries, and I may never even know it. But I am even more concerned about bloggers in those countries. When Wordpress was approached by China in 2006 to censor blogs, they were also asked to hand over user information. To their credit, they refused, and Wordpress blogs are still blocked in China (though the blocks are easily circumvented). But consider the implications if China made a similar request of Google. Google, along with Twitter, has now committed to obeying local laws, even if they violate universal human rights, in exchange for permission to operate in that country. If a country like China were to make a law that a web service must not only censor but supply information on all violators, how can a web company with resources invested in that country refuse? Now add in Google’s new “privacy” policy, which amalgamates user data across almost all Google services, including Gmail, YouTube, Google+, and of course Blogger. It is conceivable that a blogger who violates some censorship law might end up having their email, the videos they watched, and their friends’ names on Google+ handed over to their government. Now a service that used to give ordinary people a voice will not only take away that voice but could potentially denounce users to governments that imprison, torture, and kill dissidents.
I was already thinking of leaving Blogger but this is definitely the last straw. I do not want my blog to be subject to censorship laws in other countries, nor do I want to support a company that carries out censorship for the sake of ever-increasing profits. I am inclined to move to Wordpress, which has already refused to censor and so is blocked in several countries (though as I said above, it is easy to circumvent those blocks and indeed Wordpress is popular in China). They even state explicitly on their website that they support freedom of speech and will not censor blogs (with the usual exceptions of spam, pornography and hate speech). The only question is whether to use Wordpress.com or self-hosted Wordpress. Since I left Typepad in 2009 I’ve gotten used to not paying for my blog, but free Wordpress.com is somewhat limited in design and widget options. Moreover, with US media companies trying to clamp down hard on copyright infringement, I may be better off locating my blog in Canada. I do like the idea of owning (or at least renting) my own little piece of cyberspace, but I’m not sure I want to deal with the technicalities of running Wordpress on my own. I will have to investigate the options, but I certainly will be moving this blog in the near future. Stay tuned…
