My Thoughts on Blogger's New Policy

I actually have some updates and upcoming news that I'm excited to share, but this post is about something that has seriously angered me recently. The other stuff (upcoming new releases, something exciting I've been asked to be part of, among other things) will be put on a separate post, hopefully within the next few days.

Most of you are aware that Google is on the verge of yet another censorship sweep with Blogger accounts. In my real world, I went through this a year or so ago and was forced to switch from Blogger to another blogging site. This was because Google was cracking down on explicit advertisements and such. Well, apparently that wasn't good enough. In the latest version of censorship, us authors (and others) are being informed that we are to remove all explicit CONTENT from our pages or they will be set as private by the powers that be at Google. There has been an uproar on social media and rightfully so. A majority of people use Blogger because it's user friendly. We use it because it's a good way to get our stuff out there. Hell, we use it because it doesn't cost us an arm and a leg to post something.

I am against censorship. I'll be the first to rant and rave over books being removed from libraries and schools and what not. I don't want to be told what I can see, read, or whatever when I'm online or when I'm not. When you go to sites on Blogger, you have the option of clicking the box stating you're aware there might be adult content before entering the site or you can click the other one and not continue. I've read a lot of stuff from parents saying that what Google is doing is an excellent idea because it keeps their little ones from accessing stuff they might not need to see. Like Google does? *sarcasm*  Here's a thought - if you're so concerned about your 'little ones' seeing adult content, how about supervising them when they are online instead of expecting us to change things just for a select few? 

I don't know if what I've published on this site would be considered explicit or not by the Google prude police. I suppose I should go over all my posts (you know, since I have nothing better to do... sarcasm again) to see what might offend someone's little darlings. Over the past week, I've seen well-known authors who have been around for years walk away from sites they've used since they started writing. I've seen reviewing sites freaking out because they have blog tours scheduled over the next few weeks and are being forced to find another option for their reviews and blog tours. A lot of time goes into blog tours, so imagine having several scheduled over a period of weeks while you're trying to transfer everything to a new site. I can tell you from experience that it's not an easy task. This, on top of transferring what might be hundreds (or thousands) of posts. It's utter bullshit. Can you tell I'm angry over this?

I am a parent and I get parents not wanting kids to see things that aren't age appropriate. However, I also know that it's the responsibility of the parents to monitor what their kids see online. I did. Did mine end up seeing stuff they probably shouldn't have at one time or another? Sure they did. We live in the technology age where so-called explicit content is as close as advertisements on TV. But I can assure you that as their parent, it was MY responsibility to make sure they were supervised, whether they were on their computers, phones or whatever. There's a thing called parental controls that can be easily set on all the devices. Apparently some don't feel the need to use them. 

Speaking of censorship, now we get to my Saving Travis cover - the one I'm leaving on this site and everywhere else other than Amazon. It was up on Amazon for a few hours before it was removed. Why was it removed? Apparently it shows Travis' almost-pubes. Or could it just be the fact that it's *gasp!* a photo of two guys? Look at it. Does that look offensive to you? To have a cover on my Amazon page, I altered it slightly, though I've yet to figure out why I had to. God forbid someone might use their imagination and wonder what exactly is under my name on the book cover. I could also go on about Amazon and how they hide erotica titles (regardless of the sub genre) from their home pages and how just this past week an author buddy of mine had one of their books removed completely because it violated their so-called terms of service. I won't get started on Amazon because that's another rant in itself. 


Rant over.

I will update with a new post soon. Like I said above, there are a lot of new things coming up in my world. I can't wait to share it with all of you.

I hope everyone has an amazing weekend.

Until next time,

~Candi Kay