Wednesday 10 August 2022

(You Know What) Portal Banned!

 
Internet censorship has been the scourge of social media for over half a decade now. The biggest offenders are definitely Twitter and YouTube, with Facebook coming in a close third. What I have never experienced is Blogger doing the same... until now. I had come to believe that Blogger was different, much more easygoing about radical opinions, acting only against material that is specifically illegal. Not any more. Last week I posted the latest in my series of portals, lists of HPANWO posts on a particular subject. The portals make it easier for readers to find the articles they are looking for if they have a particular interest set. They also make it easier for me to source background links on other articles; just adding one instead of a series. My latest portal was about a subject to do with a theorized secret insider in the United States administration who is giving the public anonymous information about an attempt to remove the corrupt globalists from the country. The day after I published the portal I was shocked to find that it had disappeared from the main HPANWO site. When I checked my account I saw that it had been listed with the notice in red letters: "This post was unpublished because it violates Blogger's community guidelines. To republish, please update the content and adhere to the guidelines." This is a slightly better policy than the other platforms. They don't just mindlessly delete the post and leave behind a shadow of if-you-want-to-appeal-this-decision" buttons. Blogger merely reverts it to draft, allowing you to make changes and then submit it for review. However, just like the Zucks, Jacks and Susies, it doesn't tell you what you have done wrong and so you have to go by guesswork. In this case it was obvious, so I removed all reference to the offending handle. Conversely to the urgency with which they banned the portal, the review process takes about a week. The service seems to feel no need to prioritize the welfare of their content creators. My edit was turned down and the portal remains in the naughty corner.
 
However, about five days before that, I had posted an identical replacement with every example of the forbidden expletive written in code. I even warped the hyperlinks. I used the placeholder name "P*R". To crack the code, simply recite the English alphabet to yourself. The good thing about AI is that it is not very I. It is easy to outwit the algorithms with a little bit of lateral thought. Here's the new portal: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2022/08/pr-portal.html. It has all the necessary content the original post had. Despite feeling very pleased with myself I'm also disturbed and frustrated that Blogger has decided to join in with the banning fiesta, deleting material I'm posting, like the others have, see background links below. I'm a loyal and regular user of their platform and have been for eighteen years. I've never broken the law with anything I've posted. If this policy stays then I will probably lose other posts in the future. I am very active on alt-tech free speech platforms. There are well-developed alternatives to all the mainstream ones. You can't put all your eggs in the mainstream social media basket these days; that is unless you plan to post nothing but cat pictures and makeup tutorials. I'm sure there are alternatives to Blogger too. I'll set up an account on them, and have at least a provisional presence on them for now. Can readers recommend any? If things get any worse then those might be the only places I can maintain my online presence.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2021/06/boris-and-trump-return-banned.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/12/is-hpanwo-fake-news.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2020/05/ive-been-zucked.html.

4 comments:

Laurence said...

Substack seems to be popular with authors and would suit your essay style, I believe.

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Thanks, Laurence. I'll take a look at that.

Anonymous said...

"My latest portal was about a subject to do with a theorized secret insider in the United States administration who is giving the public anonymous information about an attempt to remove the corrupt globalists from the country".

Perhaps they are trying to stop vulnerable folks reading made up fantasies on the internet and then acting on it violently... It's similar to putting age restrictions on media but for mentally unstable types, that's a bit hard to do so they have to outright ban it like video nasties back in the day.

https://www.cbs7.com/2022/09/13/father-shoots-family-killing-wife-daughter-blames-qanon/

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Do you feel comfortable with the government reducing you to the level of a potentially misguided baby who needs to have their life controlled "for your own good." I can't think of a more patronizing patriarchal attitude! "Don't worry. Big Daddy government will take care of you!" There are mentally unstable people in the world and always will be. Some are inspired to carry out insane and destructive acts because of things they read on social media, but this could just as easily be another subject altogether, like climate change. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/04/26/wynn-bruce-fire-supreme-court-climate-activist/
Does this justify corralling ALL people into a huge intellectual playpen?