Tuesday, 6 February 2007

Google threatens CYFSwatch

That's right; Google is threatening to shut down CYFSwatch if they keep making posts about Social Workers and CYF. It was reported that Google deleted a threatening message to a social worker because the post "breached the terms and conditions". The message was reposted again only a few hours afterwards. Fellow blogger David Farrar says:

"The behaviour has endangered the entire blog. If the person wanted to repost the message they should at least have deleted the identifying details of who it was about".

The post has been deleted again, but CYFSwatch still lists many social workers in it's "hall of shame". The Ministry of Societal Deprivation has made calls for the blog to be deleted.
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I should post a reminder for the Google censors: Google doesn't own the internet, and CYFSwatch is the property of it's creator, just as this blog is the property of me. Google has no right to delete a post, let alone delete the site if it decides to do so. As a search engine and major source of information on the internet, Google should be a champion of Free Speech, not the other way around.

The Ministry for Societal Deprivation should butt out of our affairs, and not tamper with our rights to free speech. Besides, the ministry is useless. When politicians learn some common sense may they see that.

Article link here.

5 comments:

Kane Bunce said...

Politicians learn common sense? That is as likely as them not lying every time their lips move, i.e., it is impossible. At least for the current bunch. They only exceptions are those like Libertarianz but most people either don't know of them or think ill of them.

Callum said...

Yeah, the sad truth of today is that unless you really care for something, most people will not care too much about government decisions as long as they don't directly affect themselves.

Luke H said...

Google doesn't own the internet, but it certainly owns blogspot.com ! It has terms of service which are clearly marked and agreed to by blog owners.

When we protest Google shutting down blogs, we are asking them to follow their maxim of "Don't Be Evil", not stating that they are required to provide free speech to others.

Individuals have the freedom of free speech, but we can't take away the freedom that others like Google have to withdraw their megaphones, servers, newspaper column-inches, etc, at any time they wish.

Kane Bunce said...

Callum, that is sadly all too true. The concept of ethics applying to politics doesn't matter to most people, even though it is our views on ethics that form our political views.

Also, Callum, Luke has a good point.

Callum said...

I see. I knew Google had something to do with Blogspot, but I didn't know they actually owned it. My bad.