I'm glad I'm on Movable Type

Has anyone noticed that Blogger now has a 'flag?' button at the top of Blogspot pages? This allows readers to flag sites they find objectionable. They explain 'The Flag button is not censorship and it cannot be manipulated by angry mobs. Political dissent? Incendiary opinions? Just plain crazy? Bring it on.'

Then they note that the purpose of the button is to inform them 'about potentially questionable content, so we can prevent others from encountering such material by setting particular blogs as "unlisted." This means the blog won't be promoted on Blogger.com but will still be available on the web'.

So, fine, people won't be able to find this objectionable blog in Blogger's listing. I don't know why Blogger couldn't just set up a specific area listing questionable blogs that people could choose to peruse, but whatever, it's their company and they do offer a free service of both platform and promotion.

I am concerned though, that the 'angry mobs' Blogger mocks in its explanation are not at all farfetched:

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.

Offensive can be anything. People can be offended by all sorts of opinions. The beauty of the internet is that it has something for everyone, and that has long also been the great thing about blogs. Want to read a blogging hooker, a guy who calls himself Allah or a multitude of bloggers who really, really like their guns? It's all here. People can be, and I'm sure have been, offended by each of those blogs. A Daily Kos-alanche could get an anti-gay marriage blog shut down and a listing on Free Republic could 'flag' a pro-Hillary blog out of existence. Blogger adds, in the creepiest phrase in their explanation: 'This feature allows the blogging community as a whole to identify content they deem objectionable. Have you read The Wisdom of Crowds? It's sort of like that.' Yikes. The Wisdom of Crowds is about having all information, not about shielding each other's eyes from it. It's an argument against censoring outsider opinions or views.

Here's the kicker: because Google now owns Blogger, the flag clicking can get you delisted from Google if your site is identified as Hate Speech.

When the community has voted and hate speech is identified on Blog*Spot, Google may exercise its right to place a Content Warning page in front of the blog and set it to "unlisted."

Get off Blogger, people, it has lost its way.