Hello Wake-up America Readers:
This is Faultline USA posting here with an important message for all who post on Blogger. Please read this because it could happen to you.
Are Thompson’s Bloggers Being Locked from Their Google Blogs?
On Friday, June 1, 2007 three conservative political blogs were locked from making new posts because the Google spam robot “suspected” they were SPAM blogs. These bloggers will have to wait until Google finds a real human to review their blogs before unlocking their blogs. What do these three blogs have in common??? They are all actively supporting Fred Thompson.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that out of an estimated 70 million blogs worldwide a handful of connected conservative bloggers just happened to get locked out of posting on their Google blogs on the same day. . . Or maybe it’s not such a coincidence at all?
Before we get all sentimental about our free Google Blogs and the difficulty poor Google is having fighting spam blogs, let’s not be so quick to give Google a free pass.
I have no way of knowing just how many blogs are locked every day by Google, but a blog search Sunday showed that very few locked bloggers have managed to get the word out through other blogs. So I visited the Blogger Help Group and found just a few bloggers (less than a handful this weekend) claiming they had been locked out. Hummm???? Now a spam blogger (Splogger) is not likely to even notice that they’ve been locked out but a real blogger is bound to have plenty of righteous indignation – enough to start crying foul very loudly. So what are we to make of this???
Let’s look at how Google is fighting Spam on blogs. They are using three measures to shut down spam: (1) Automated spam classifying algorithms (or robots), (2) extra word verification, and (3) Flag as Objectionable.
Please do take note of the last measure – Flag as Objectionable. This is how a “community” of bloggers can actually shut down a blog just because they don’t like the political content. Google is deliberately vague on what constitutes “potentially offensive” content and leaves it up to the “community at large.” It doesn’t take a mental giant to figure out just how easy it would be for a political “community” to target specific Google blogs for some political sabotage and dirty tricks. All they have to do is to point each "community" member to the targeted Google blogs and tell them to click on the Flag Blog at the top of the blog’s page Navigation bar.
Let’s see what Google actually says about Flag Blog. . .
“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. 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.”
Now who would dream of doing such a dastardly thing??? Please note that I have no proof that such a plot has been hatched, but where there’s smoke . . .
According to Elephant Biz
“DailyKos, the Left's online Bible, sees Thompson as the likely nominee, so you can understand why they're shooting at him. I would have thought they might not stoop to slander and lies this early in the race.”
Here are the blogs we know of so far that have been locked from new posting by Google.
1. DeMediacratic Nation has a sidebar bllogroll for Fred Thompson
2. Insight on Freedom has a petition to draft Fred Thompson for President. Fighting fire with fire, Insight on Freedom has a new site The Longstreet Option . Additionall Longstreet has just started a WordPress blog Harricane Alley
3. Faultline USA has a sidebar blogroll for Fred Thompson
Any Google blogger who suddenly finds themselves locked out please contact fautltineusa(at)yahoo(dot)com
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Fred Thompson
Google
spam prevention