Google/Gulag Blogger's faceless, unaccountable, cowardly censors. What are they afraid of?

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

Most if not all bullies are also cowards. They pick on the relatively powerless, knowing that they are unlikely to meet any significant resistance.

'Nothing to see here. Move along.'

Bully Blogger

Google Blogger has been showing itself to be a bully of late.

In the last few weeks, it has deleted two of my blog posts for what amounts to reasons unknown. Or 'just because'.

The first to be summarily done away with was 'The case for non-pharmaceutical defences against covid', originally published in November 2021. On 12 August last, Blogger emailed me to inform me that this story was now binned. An audio version of it is available at https://youtu.be/cOnUpPoUkjo.

Then on 02 September just gone another pandemic-era post, 'The vaccine vexers', originally published in September 2021, got the chop (audio version at https://youtu.be/Z8hRwiHfrTs).

Here's the text of that latest email Blogger sent to me, worded the same as the 12 August correspondence:

Hello,

As you may know, our community guidelines
(https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy) describe the boundaries for what we
allow – and don't allow – on Blogger. Your post entitled 'The vaccine
vexers' was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it violates
our guidelines and deleted the post, previously at
http://wwcorrigan.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-vaccine-vexers.html.

Why was your blog post deleted?

Your content has violated our misleading content policy. Please follow
the community guidelines link in this email to learn more.

If you believe that we made an error, you can request an appeal:
https://www.blogger.com/go/appeal-post?blogId=2732538313987233397&postId=7490742377544475627.
You may have the option to pursue your claims in court. If you have legal
questions or wish to examine legal options that may be available to you,
you may want to consult with your own legal counsel.

We encourage you to review the full content of your blog posts to make
sure that they are in line with our standards as additional violations
could result in termination of your blog.

For more information, please review the following resources:

Terms of Service: https://www.blogger.com/go/terms
Blogger community guidelines: https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy

Senseless censorship

So my content has violated Blogger's 'misleading content policy.' Yet, Blogger doesn't tell me what it is that is misleading. It seems to think that by reading the community guidelines I'll find out why my content was deleted. I have read the community guidelines and they don't shed any light as to why these posts have been labelled 'misleading'. It's similar to the if-you-don't-know-what-you've-done-wrong treatment from an irate girlfriend.

Not agreeing with somebody's take on contentious issues in which there is still much ongoing debate is not the same as that take being misleading. Also, going into specifics of the content, which Google Blogger fails to do, it's a fact to say that some people have non-vaccine-acquired immunity, i.e. natural immunity, to covid-19 and therefore don't need the jab. To state otherwise is not only misleading but potentially deadly and it further erodes trust in public health.

Blogger avoids specifics because it simply wouldn't be able to win the argument. 'You are misleading because we say you are misleading', that's the approach. What's more, its guidelines are so general that they can be fitted to suit the platform's own perspective on every occasion.

This is the big problem for small fry such as me. Google Blogger can do and does what it wishes with content published on its platform and there's little we lightweight users can do to fight back, save for, as mentioned in the email, appealing the decision or taking legal action against the company. I've done the former but, unsurprisingly, have thus far received no reply, while the latter is something few modest bloggers could afford to contemplate.

It's like a country that has strict entry requirements for would-be visitors. We may think the requirements are unnecessarily restrictive but the country can set them as it sees fit.

In this case, Google Blogger is letting it be known that it is against science, rigorous debate, and free speech while it supports Big Pharma and censorship.

Who's really doing the misleading here? Bully Blogger, you can delete all my stories if you wish but all you'll be doing is revealing your autocratic aims. Welcome to Gulag Blogger.
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Ten-up: a decade of 'Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog'

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

Ten years ago today, sat in Bogotá's popular Cranky Croc hostel and based on advice from an Indian friend I knew from my Belfast days, I started a Google-hosted blog.

Where will the next ten years bring us?

Google blogger, my acquaintance told me — he knew much more about these things than me, although that wasn't hard at the time — was blogging for dummies compared to the likes of WordPress (via El Tiempo, I've subsequently become au fait with various aspects of the latter).

Putting the world right, the Wrong Way

With the prospect of staying in Colombia for a time on the cards — I certainly didn't think that over a decade later I'd still be here — I wanted my own space to share my thoughts and views.

You see, whilst working as a broadcaster for Ladbrokes bookmakers in Belfast from 2009 to 2011, I became a serial letter writer to the Irish daily and Sunday newspapers. I touched on various topics, things I couldn't really get off my chest in the day job (although I did try, at times, to mention them in between greyhound races from such exotic locations as Monmore and Romford).

Rants to colleagues, housemates and down at the local pub weren't enough. I was a curmudgeon in my mid-20s you could say. And I felt that as much of the world as possible needed to know my thoughts. 

'Who knows how rich I'd be today had Google AdSense not suspended its services on this page for six years due to unspecified "irregular activity".'

Once the first few letters were published, this gave me the belief that at least some editors found what I had to say interesting. Or controversial. It became something of an addiction — I just wanted more, more, more.

However, moving continents and consequently not being as tuned in to events back home meant it became less likely that my musings would appear in Irish newspapers with the same regularity as before.

In any case, I couldn't be leaving it up to the whim of an editor to get my, um, profound perspective on the world "out there" (the way things are in these crazy, heavily censored pandemic days, that point has taken on extra pertinence now).

Hence the creation of the blog. The medium was kind of all the rage back then, although I may have been a little late to the game. Other, more visual media were beginning to take over.

Be that as it may, Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog has survived, for better or for worse.

At its birth, I flirted with the idea of giving it a more Colombian specific name but I figured I may not be in the country too long, so I didn't want it associated with one particular place over another.

Call it a lack of ambition or a failure to think big, but I always saw it as a means to an end, not an end in itself.

That aside, who knows how rich I would have been today had Google AdSense not suspended its services on this page for six years due to unspecified 'irregular activity'. I could have made at least 100 euros by now. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice, eh?

Nonetheless, and fittingly enough, it all started with The wages of love, something of a motif over these last ten years, writing about affairs of the heart. A mixture of bad romances and financial woes, in a way. Three hundred and eighty-three posts later, it could be said, plus ça change.

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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".