Blogger has instituted a quasi-censorship program.

When a person visiting a blog clicks the "Flag?" button in the Blogger Navbar, it means they believe the content of the blog may be potentially offensive or illegal. We track the number of times a blog has been flagged as objectionable and use this information to determine what action is needed. This feature allows the blogging community as a whole to identify content they deem objectionable.

Blogger excuses this quasi-censorship by referring to the "Wisdom of Crowds" concept. That's complete bullshit. They might have an argument if they gave readers the option to designate a blog as "unobjectionable." But even that would be problematic, because it's always more likely that a offended person would be motivated to click on a flag than someone who's not offended by content. You're going to see a situation where hypersensitive people or those with intolerant political viewpoints will have a kind of "hecklers veto" on blog content.

This is a bad idea, and totally goes against what i thought was Blogger's most important asset, the total freedom it gave to its users.

Posted by: annika at 07:46 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Whereas here we go by the much more reliable "Wisdom of Pixy" method.

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at September 10, 2005 11:27 PM

2 I know I clicked on that on a blog or two, not because I thought it was objectionable, but because I thought it meant you marked it for later or something. It's not self explanatory if you didn't get the memo....

Posted by: caltechgirl @ at September 11, 2005 02:54 AM

3 great post, annika. thanks for updating us.

Posted by: kyer @ at September 11, 2005 01:24 PM

4 Didn't anyone ever tell them not to mess with Mister In-between?

Posted by: Pixy Misa @ at September 11, 2005 05:44 PM

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