Apparently, some of my posts are "sensitive content" requiring a warning before letting you view them.
Me! Your gentle TDR host! Exceeding the boundaries for what is allowed!
I must procure a leather jacket! Forthwith!
At the end of January 2023 I noticed unusual Google corporate viewing of posts while in admin mode. Shortly thereafter I received notice from Google's Blogger Team telling me that unless I changed posts, they'd receive a warning:
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 "I Remain Old" 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> 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> This will trigger a review of the post.
The post cited in the email was about a Spider-Man movie. I know! Controversial, eh?
I asked what exactly is objectionable so I'd have a clue about what to change. Because nothing in the content policy seemed to apply to that post. Or the other one initially banned. [Oops. Their email address is a no-reply address. And they provided no means of contact to challenge their ruling. My only option is to change the post. Well, I'm sure I can find typos to fix.]
I may try changing punctuation somewhere and resubmitting.
We'll see what this apparent harassment amounts to. More posts are being looked at by the Blogger Team, according to my statistics package.
In the meantime, if more posts are flagged and blocked for reasons that remain unclear to me, I'll link them here for your convenience.
And if any of the warnings to my readers are lifted, I'll note that, too.
Beware! You've been warned!
Flagged For Your Safety!
I Remain Old LATER: I DELETED THE ORIGINAL AND RE-PUBLISHED A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL
Weekend Data Dump (April 26, 2020). LATER: DECLARED INNOCENT AFTER THREE WEEKS IN GOOGLE JAIL!
UPDATE: Also, my advertisements disappeared. Is it related to the content warning? Not that my ad revenue is anything to get excited about. But still.
Since the reviews seem to have ended, I figured I'd leave the blockaded posts as is in a tribute to the stupidity involved. But maybe I should test the reviews by making cosmetic changes and resubmitting.
We'll see.
UPDATE: It may be unrelated, but my viewing statistics have dropped significantly in February. I appealed the Weekend Data Dump and it was approved for your viewing. Other than the header, I only made a punctuation change. Or maybe fixed a typo. Now I can't remember. Very odd.
But I'm having trouble figuring out how to restore "I Remain Old." The WDD post actually had an "appeal this post" button that I used. The "I Remain Old" post did not have that button. I tried using the appeal link for the Spider-Man post by pasting it into the custom link area, but nothing yet. And then I returned the post to draft and republished it a minute earlier. Nothing. And the next morning after receiving no reply on this post, I published again after pasting the appeal link into a new tab. I'm guessing that's the way to do it. We'll see.
The bright side is I know how to react in the future.
UPDATE: The flagged "I Remain Old" link above that leads to the warning is now dead since I republished the post a minute earlier in an effort to get around the obviously unjust ban. That republished link works now, but the post retains the little "flagged" notice in my posts list.
Uh oh. It may be in Google Limbo. Fingers crossed that the latest appeal using the appeal link works to lift that.
UPDATE: After my WDD post appeal succeeded, my statistics show someone with Google admin authority looking at the WDD post. Perhaps the statistics indicator is just delayed--by 7 hours?--from an earlier human review that cleared the post. Or maybe it was an automatic review that cleared the post and triggered a later human review. Lord, this is annoying.
Uh oh:
Well. That's the WDD post.
UPDATE: What is going on? Wasn't the WDD post cleared?
I'm hoping this is an investigation into why my posts were flagged rather than resuming censorship.
I decided to stop waiting for an appeal on the I Remain Old post. I re-published a copy of the original and deleted the original to eliminate the unjust stain on my blog.
UPDATE: Interesting. Almost immediately after deleting the final flagged post I have advertisements back.
UPDATE: My traffic clearly dropped after I had two posts wrongly flagged and lost advertisements. Traffic is starting to recover. I wonder if I lost traffic from people at work that blocked sites deemed problematic? And a site with any posts flagged count as problematic.
I learned I should react immediately to correct that error in the future. And I have a couple means to do so based on this recent experience.
