Less than an year after Google began cracking down on Blogger blogs that make money off of adult-themed ads, the company has banned sexually explicit material from the platform. The ban will come into effect next month.
The search giant has updated Blogger's adult content policy, saying that starting March 23, users will not be allowed to publicly share images and video that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity on the blogging platform. The Mountain View, California-based company has also sent out emails to selected Blogger users informing them about the aforementioned change.
Existing blogs that continue to feature such content will be made private from that date, meaning the content itself won't be deleted, but it will be visible only to the owner or admins of the blog and the people who the owner has shared the blog with. On the other hand, new blogs created from March 23 that contain sexually explicit content may get deleted. "We may remove the blog or take other action," the search giant said.
However this doesn't mean a blanket ban – Google said it will still allow nudity if the content offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts, although it will be mandatory for these types of blogs to show an interstitial warning to remain public.
When reached out for a comment, a Google spokesperson said, "We've updated our policy to fall in line with our policies across Google's hosted products (including products like YouTube or Google+)."