I came across this earlier this evening.
I don’t use certain types of language in my own writing and have mentioned this more than once in the past, but can a company offering a blog hosting service suspend a site for language use?
Where exactly do you draw the line?
What exactly is “offensive”?
Thoughts on a postcard ….
WordPress.com has of late started trying to portray itself as the ‘nice’ blogging service, I think.
Far, far more detail in various places on http://wank.wordpress.com
Since Club Penguin blogs are aimed at (and run by) kids I’m guessing a parent saw their 10 year old looking at that blog and then complained.
Not that you’re going to believe me but it wouldn’t have been suspended without good reason.
The blog is primarily about Disney’s Club Penguin, so the author is probably aged 8-14 as are, I would imagine, most of the readers. So I guess in this situation a bit of “moderation” was required.
@Robert – have they got a policy on this somewhere?
@Donncha – But from what I can gather the blog that was suspended isn’t part of Club Penguin, so what gives WP the right to unilaterally suspend it without warning?
@Tom – the problem is how you manage the moderation not the moderation itself
For reference, Donncha up there is an employee of Automattic, the company behind wp.com. For some strange reason, they don’t believe in stating that they’re employees when making a comment like that.
Also see the comments within this post for details as another employee (ie Mark) states that that wasn’t the reason why it was suspended.
To take a guess, I’d go for copyright violation. The wp.com support forums have a number of Club Penguin players complaining about how each other swipes the content back and forth. That is a guess though.
wp.com does censor though. They’ve admitted to it a number of times in their forums but never out in public.
Mike
Most regulars on here would know who Donncha is and I’ve personally met him several times
Michele
Of course, there shouldn’t _be_ anyone under 13 on WordPress.com; COPPA.
If it’s copyright infringement, it’s fair enough. If it’s just a case of censorship for the sake of the children, then it’s probably something that Automattic needs to establish a clear, unambiguous standard on. Just because someone took offense is not a sane raeson to censor.
Stay away from WordPress. Switch to http://www.blogspot.com – Google’s blogging service. Whatever you write, they will not censor.
Actually Blogspot is also known for it’s censorship as well. If someone flags your blog for any reason and they find fault with it for any reason, it’s gone with no recourse.
But to follow up, Matt and crew got caught again censoring people. I had my account closed when a “blog” of mine was marked as spam. Of course this was with an user account that had not blogs attached to it but they’re refusing to acknowledge their mistake. They also removed my credit for all of my posts in their support forum, violating my copyright. Matt’s answer to my complaint? He made light of my physical handicap.