Google: Blogger Off

Google is banning public explicit photos and videos from its blogging service Blogger, and giving affected users just one month to comply.

The new rules require any blog with “sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video” to take them down by 23 March, or the blog will be made private by Google. A private blog can only be seen by the owner or admins of the blog, and people who the owner has shared the blog with.

Google promises that the majority of users of the service, which Google acquired from Twitter co-founder Evan Williams’ Pyra Labs in 2003, won’t see any change from the new rules. But many users are concerned that the new rules represent a huge about-turn from Google’s previously stated support of explicit material on its platform. 

The company’s previous policy said: “We do allow adult content on Blogger, including images or videos that contain nudity or sexual activity … All blogs marked as ‘adult’ will be placed behind an ‘adult content’ warning interstitial.” Its only exceptions were to ban illegal explicit content, explicit images shared without the subject’s consent (commonly known as “revenge porn”) and making money on adult content...

The Guardian.

Oh for buttfuck's sake!

Do Google really expect me to go back and check through nearly five years worth of posts?

I'm pretty sure the only 'sexually explicit or graphic nude image' I've ever published was this one of Hunx sporting an erection.

I've now doctored it in haste to save the world's morals, and in case any convent schoolgirls stumble across my humble blog.

If Google can find any more, please let me know.

Google say they'll still allow some forms of nudity “if the content offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts.”

I think this covers my (metaphorical) arse.

Update: Google appear to have reversed on this and allowed nuddy pics.

Ass Hunter: It's All Fun And Games Til...

Google removed a game that asked users to kill gay people to survive today, after a public outcry, but not before the game had been available for weeks and downloaded thousands of times.

Ass Hunter had been downloaded over 10,000 times and had received 200 five star reviews before it was pulled, and is still available across the internet.

In the game, players control a hunter with a shotgun who must kill naked men before they approach him. If they are able to reach him then the game shows a cartoon depiction of the men having sex with the hunter.

The game was first uploaded on November 5. “Popular game hunting on gays is now on android!” the description read. “Play and do not be gay!”

That description remains cached on Google, though the page has now been taken down. Cached versions of the original site continue to be held by Google.

In the description of the app, its uploaders AppDay described Ass Hunter as a “Legendary game, where you are hunter and your mission is to kill gays as much as you can”.

“Remember! When they catch you they will do with you whatever they want,” the game’s Google Play Store entry read, followed by a winking face...

The Independent.

Some people are no fun!

Now I'm no expert on these 'video games' - not being a spotty 15 year-old boy - but don't rather a lot of them involve mindless killing?

PS Play it here.

Daniel Radcliffe: Search Me

It’s hard to argue with Radcliffe’s contention that everyone wants to talk about it [his drinking]. I wonder if he has ever Googled himself and seen the automatic search entries, but before I finish the question he’s started reeling them off: “Daniel Radcliffe alcoholic. Daniel Radcliffe gay. Daniel Sebastian Coe. Radcliffe girlfriend,” he says, sighing as he does. Actually, I tell him, girlfriend is the top result these days.

“Oh great – I’ll take that, as these things go. I’m pleased my girlfriend comes up before alcoholic or gay. When I first did that, I got really annoyed for about half a minute, until I tried a few other people’s names and I found out [gay] comes up after almost everyone if they’re a man, and even some women – Florence Welch had it, and I was like, really?”

Maybe it’s a sign that a star has made it. “Probably. If people are speculating about your sexuality, then you’re doing OK,” he laughs.

The Guardian.

The talented Mr Radcliffe's next film role is playing the notoriously heterosexual athlete, Sebastian Coe.

Daniel's current top searches at the time of typing.

Russia: Rights

The Times.

I hope you're happy now
that...

the right really cares about gay rights
Again, the right really cares about gay rights
but only when it's useful to them, and it suits them
the right really cares about gay rights.

We got a Google Doodle
just to fool ya
that we really care.

Google bankrolls the far right ALEC.

Every click will give them money - gay pride!

How Fagburn hates the Independent's patronising point-missing gay coverage.

Uganda: Googling Gay Porn?

Last year, Google published statistics about the places in the world where their search engine was most used to find gay porn sites. The results were extraordinary. According to its figures, Uganda is third on the list of counties where "man fucking man" is most searched for, behind Kenya and Pakistan, both of which are countries where homosexuality is illegal. These figures also demonstrate a high degree of correlation between places of conservative religious practice and internet searches for gay porn...

The Guardian.

But who would Google the bizarre term "man fucking man"?

If you actually Googled the more obvious "gay porn" the world looks rather different.

And less than 7% of Ugandans have internet access anyway.

Oh, and people speak 40 other languages apart from English.

So what is your point?

Google Pride: It's The Least We Could Do

Pink News gets even more excited about Google doing a stupid rainbow Doodle to celebrate gay pride that only shows up if you type in some LGBT searchwords.

Which slightly defeats the whole point of Pride, one might think.
But look at that baby - isn't it AMAZING?
It's surely of half-hearted tokenistic corporate PR crapola like this that our gay brothers and sisters dreamed of while rioting outside the Stonewall Inn on those balmy hot summer nights back in June 69.
And - right here, right now - it feels so good to be constantly reminded - post-Snowden - that Google are keeping tabs on me and hopefully filing them for whenever the US national security state wants my personal details handed over.
HUZZAH!

PS I don't mean to keep singling out Pink News, it's just Gay Star News won't realise Google have done this for a few days.

Update: The PN PR-driven idiocy goes on. Celebrate how much megacorps know about you. Yay!

Robbie Williams: The Full John Travolta

“I was Googling myself today and the first search that comes up is gay.

“But I’ve got the wife pregnant, so I’m doing the full John Travolta.”

Robbie Williams at the GQ Men Of the Year Awards. 

Tee hee.

PS Just tried and the top three matches for Robbie Williams now are; baby, songs, and angels, but what the hey!
The first gay thing to come up is on Yahoo! Answers.
"Is Robbie Williams gay?"
"Best answer: According to Wikipedia....no"
What on Jupiter did people do before the internets?

Google: Computer Love

Legalise Love: LGBT Rights Are Human Rights  
Though our business and employees are located in offices around the world, our policies on non-discrimination are universal throughout Google. We are proud to be recognised as a leader in LGBT inclusion efforts, but there is still a long way to go to achieve full equality. Legalise Love is our call to decriminalise homosexuality and eliminate homophobia around the world.
At Google, we encourage people to bring their whole selves to work. In all of our 60 offices around the world, we are committed to cultivating a work environment where Googlers can be themselves and thrive. We also want our employees to have the same inclusive experience outside of the office, as they do at work, and for LGBT communities to be safe and to be accepted wherever they are. 

From Google's statement on their Legalise Love campaign which launches in London today.
Good for them.
But seeing as gay people are almost always criminalised, not for "loving", but for having sex, calling it Legalise Love seems politically banal, prudish, dishonest, and counterproductive.

Google: Being Evil

Google's new "privacy policy" kicked in at midnight.
Countdown til the first gay kid gets outed to his family by it and gets thrown out of home.
Countdown til the first gay kid gets outed at school by it and is driven to suicide.
Tick tick tick...
Welcome to Google's brave new world.

• For more on this see Big Brother Watch.

DADT: Doones Ask, Doones Tell

I liked the way Garry Trudeau just slipped this in Doonesbury today...

Google Search: Where Gay Men Come First

"Take That ticket sales, the iPad launch, Cheryl Cole's divorce and the World Cup - these were the events the nation most wanted to know about this year," puffs The Daily Mail in full Phil Space mode.
WikiLeaks and world economic meltdown apart, real news is getting thin on the ground in the silly yuletide season.
"Internet users sought information on the election, rail strikes, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, according to Google's Zeitgeist for 2010.
"Zeitgeist means spirit of the times and the list of biggest search terms gives a clue to the hottest celebs and sites around. So there's no surprise to see MailOnline making an appearance..."
Fagburn would have thought it fixed if you weren't!
Sorry. Do go on.
"But there are a few surprises.
"The fastest rising people section is topped by Kristian Digby, the BBC TV presenter who died at his home in March after a solo sex game is believed to have gone horribly wrong."
It's always nice to see a gay man winning something, isn't it?
And well done Britain!
But why on Google Earth were people so keen to Google him?
To find out more about the shining star of property daytime TV programmes?
Or to read about his sex game gone wrong in as much titillating detail as possible?
People funny boy.
Over to The Sun; "BRITS are obsessed with Cheryl Cole, their weight - and chatting to strangers, Google reveals today.
"The man - and woman - in the street also cannot get enough of Justin Bieber and the sex game that killed TV property host Kristian Digby last March."
Tastefully put - and in no way liable to a libellous misreading.
"The tragic star, 32, found in boxer shorts with a bin liner over his head, tops a 2010 list of celeb searches - rated by how much they increased."
I'm sure it's how he wanted to be remembered.

Things I Learnt Today: A Doodle of Dorian Gray

That blurry image on the Google homepage is meant to be a tribute to Oscar Wilde on his 156th birthday.
If only there was an amusing quote from Oscar about Google Doodles that I could cut-and-paste here...