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Conspiracy Where There Is None

By: Mike Krempasky (Diary)  |  July 21st, 2009 at 09:32 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Two posts in one day…the hell is wrong with me?

Anyway, sorry to be late to this particular discussion – but it looks like Google (specifically Blogger) had drawn a ton of flak this week over placing a blog behind Blogger’s “interstitial” content warning and accusations of political bias have followed quickly behind. Without rounding up all the links (Moe did that quite well here), I would like to weigh in on this: Rick Klau, the Product Manager for Blogger at Google has posted a response.

A couple things: first, I think that if the company Google can be attributed to hold political views, they probably (ok, pretty much certainly) aren’t mine. I think as a rule, conservatives have a lot to disagree with the way that Google sees the policy world. They do quite a bit to earn distrust on the right (come on, would it freaking KILL them to toss out a Memorial Day logo instead of Tetris’ birthday fercrissakes?)

Second – I’ve known Rick for years. While he was at Feedburner he was a great friend to RedState in its early years trying to scrap together a few nickels to keep the lights on and the beer flowing. Yes, he’s a Democrat – and he’s also an honest broker and I take him at his word.

And no,  I wouldn’t believe for ONE SINGLE SECOND that he’d let political concerns affect the way Blogger is run. No way, no how. Everything else is just faked moon landings and forged birth certificates.

P.S. [insert likely unnecessary disclaimer about my employer having many clients in the technology arena]

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  • George Claghorn

    Or “was”, back when I had my own small blog.

    In fact, I would recommend Blogger over the more popular WordPress.com, because it’s (a) much more customizable and (b) much more tolerant of people who don’t exactly share the views of it’s management.

  • George Claghorn
  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    I’m sure that he’s a nice guy and all, but if you shrug when it gets pointed out to you that people are gaming your system to remove blogs that they don’t like politically, don’t be surprised if people take their own conclusions from that.

    But if Blogger wants to become exclusively left-wing content-friendly, that’s their business model, not mine.

  • Mike Krempasky

    But our system stomped on him since he hasn’t been registered long enough. Here it is..

    “Moe – I’d hope that the repeated e-mails, multiple comments and lengthy blog post indicate I’m doing anything but shrugging my shoulders. But where is the evidence that people are gaming the system? I’ve seen many claims about this, but it all rests on the assumption that the only people who would take time to point out that there is, in fact, content that is explicitly identified as meriting an interstitial are Obama supporters.

    Can anyone point out where this evidence for gaming is? If there’s a systemic problem that biases one group at the expense of another on Blogger, by all means – I’ll fix it. Period.”
    –Rick Klau

  • The_Gadfly

    I’m not well versed in her site, but I followed one of zroxx’s links below. It looks to me like Google have presented their terms of use, and she hasn’t been following them. Google owns the publication mechanism and get to set the rules for their publication mechanism. You wouldn’t have allowed that post here at Red State where similar rules have been established. Why should Google be different?

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    Mr. Klau clearly thinks that his company’s actions are justified in this case – the content warning is still in effect, after all – and I’m not particularly inclined to concede that just yet.

  • 6eorge Jetson

    Google’s givers go (98%) Democratic (in 2005).

    I signed up for an account today at nmatv.com. I’m torn between using money-loser YouTube to drain Google’s resources versus using nmatv.com to support a platform backed by more Jetson-like-minded capital. I’m going with nmatv.com, but as long as YouTube is a money pit, conservatives shouldn’t be too worried about patronizing it with non-critical content.

  • zroxx

    From Google’s Blogger Content Policy:

    Pornography and Obscenity: Image and video content that contains nudity, sexually graphic material, or material that is otherwise deemed explicit by Google should be made private. Otherwise, we may put such content behind an interstitial.

    Some selected, relevant posts from her blog:

    A Gay and Libertarian Republican Restoration – 4th picture in entry, explicit nudity

    White America Fears Lil’ Kim’s Dancing – 9th picture in entry, nudity

    The Shame of Gay Pride Month – 1st picture in entry, cartoon penis drawings, 3rd picture in entry, nudity

    Constitutional coup d’?tat in Honduras – last picture in entry, full frontal nudity

    Property Rights Kiss Off – 9th picture in entry, nudity

    Let us know when you feel that you have attained sufficient information to work out whether Google’s actions “are justified in this case”, given the content, Google’s policy, and the fact that the blog is still accessible for anyone willing to click a link.

    Only in the trainwrecked lands of Republican anti-Googleism and Democrat anti-Walmartism can a successful American company that employs thousands or tens of thousands of Americans and whose stock is owned by millions of Americans become a pariah.

  • Common_Cents

    http://ytbizblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/youtube-myth-busting.html