Blogger flagged me
I got a little note from Blogger recently – that is, from the entity that hosts my original blog at Blogspot, which apparently is still accessible. I assume the missive is not from a sentient being, but rather from some sort of AI. But it’s a sign of our touchy touchy times that this post originally published in May of 2005 (yikes!) is now considered to be insufficiently sensitive (that link is to the version that came over to the newer site, but it’s the exact same post).
The email notice of the flag read like this:
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 titled “Tracing the use of the anonymous source” was flagged to us for review. This post was put behind a warning for readers because it contains sensitive content; the post is visible at http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2005/05/tracing-use-of-anonymous-source.html. Your blog readers must acknowledge the warning before being able to read the post/blog.
We apply warning messages to posts that contain sensitive content. If you are interested in having the status reviewed, please update the content to adhere to Blogger’s Community Guidelines. Once the content is updated, you may republish it at [a blogger appeal link]. This will trigger a review of the post.
Lovely.
No one goes to that old site of mine anymore, as far as I know. Note that the post is over 17 years old. And it’s not the least bit sensitive in content at all, although the reference to a news story in the 2nd sentence is almost undoubtedly the offender in their eyes (or AI’s eyes). It was a report that someone tried to flush a Koran, but I didn’t deal with the report at all in the post, which had to do with the history of anonymous sourcing in the news.
I’m not planning an appeal.
[NOTE: By the way, in the transfer to this site of all my pre-2008 posts from Blogger, the comments to each post are listed backwards in time, with the more recent ones at the top. I can’t fix it; that’s just the way it is.]
I got a few of those last year referencing posts dating from around the same time as yours. It is ludicrous that Blogger is doing that, which is good reason to drop the platform. I note that Althouse is sticking to Blogger.
Maybe Blogger is trying to remain relevant? Do they know that you’ve left?
Neo from 2005
I am reminded of coming across a reference last year of a Seymour Hersh supposed quote. A professor writing on Substack on the truckers’ convoy in Canada made reference to the 1972 truckers’ strike in Allende’s Chile. To show that the truckers’ strike in Chile was the creation of the CIA, the professor linked to a Seymour Hersch NYT 1974 article that quoted a CIA operative saying that the US/CIA had funded the 1972 truckers’ strike in Chile to the tune of $6 million dollars.
That didn’t sound right to me, because the Church Committee found out that from 1970-73, the CIA funneled $8 million to various endeavors in Chile. ( A substantial part of that went to fund media like the El Mercurio paper, which lost nearly all of its advertising revenue in the wake of the Allende’s hundreds of nationalizations.)
Turns out that several weeks after the original Hersh NYT article, the NYT published corrections to the $6 million claim. The CIA guy hadn’t said that. But the professor writing the article on the truckers’ convoy in Canada didn’t know that. Or if she knew it, she ignored it. So much for lefty professors. Hersh- no surprise.
More like several thousand instead of 6 million.
Interesting comments on that old post. I even recognize some of the commenters’ names. Plenty of heat and light in the comments in those days as well.
Gosh, where have the years gone?
Mark Felt seems more offensive than his nom de guerre. Still, neat way for the FBI to hide their record of malfeasance.
The company spent 10 million on the italian elections in 1947
I can see a couple of phrases in the post which might have triggered an AI algorithm to flag you. But like so many automated processes, it’s ridiculous, since the article isn’t offensive. And it was seventeen years ago! Even these bots should have something better to do.
Isikoff never gave his source now i recall a year later there was another incident at gitmo where another guard alleged things to harpers
Curious in light of what happened the next year
https://harpers.org/archive/2010/03/the-guantanamo-suicides/
If you were still at Blogger, some of this decade’s posts and comment threads would have all of us suspended, if not investigated by the FBI.
Will WordPress start looking for things to flag now?
The headline for the next post after the flagged one is almost amusing – although I’m sure you meant it sarcastically, even back then.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2005/05/26/it-must-be-true-after-all-its-in-fbi/
“It must be true–after all, it’s in the FBI report”
Now we are divided into two almost totally separate factions:
Those who will believe everything the FBI says (or is even reputed to have said),
and those who will believe NOTHING attributed to the FIBs.
Who was the witness who was the agent and did he confirm it there was at least one bureau agent who would believe anything
Doubleplus ungood.
I think of myself as being mostly beyond the reach of punishment by the woke unless/until they get way more powerful and more determined to go after little fish. I’m effectively retired and not at the mercy of an employer. Etc. By “way more powerful” I mean, for instance, having the ability to seize the assets of people who haven’t committed any crime.
I’m on Facebook but wouldn’t care much if I got banned. I just began the 20th year of my own very small-time blog, and think of it as pretty much beyond censorship, in part because it doesn’t have very many readers. And it isn’t mainly focused on controversial subjects. But it has occurred to me that all it would take is for the blogging company (Typepad) to go seriously woke for all that 20 years of writing to be memory-holed at the flip of a software switch.
Point being: Neo, I hope WordPress provides you the means of downloading your entire blog, and that you do that occasionally.
Sadly if this happened to Neo today I wouldn’t be surprised.
European hate speech laws are being brought here I am afraid.
Here the watch word is Disinformation
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I find myself being more careful in what I say at blogs and actually in Emails to friends. Paranoid, yes maybe.
yep
https://tinyurl.com/j7recx5m
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1612158735731785735.html
Blogger is the least of my concerns.
The FBI knocking is of greater concern.
Please explain: did someone flush a Koran ? An inmate ? A guard ? Was it a hoax ? Was it covered up. ? Was the entire store bull sh*t. ?
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Someone mentioned a time when a corrupt FBI official abused their office to covertly share classified intelligence with the media in order to build distrust in a duly elected President for the self serving purposes of the corrupt FBI official.
Klaus:
See this.
“Did I call it or not?” – George Orwell
Was the reason because you used the word “Islamofascist”? Or didn’t they even tell you (“double secret probation”)?
FOAF:
They almost never say why. They just refer you to their list of arcane and often vague rules and leave to you the task of guessing have you offended them. You have to rewrite the piece based on your guesses, and then appeal. Then they say either okay or no.