Could it be that Google is now practicing the gate keeping it perfected in the People’s Republic of China?
For some years I have been publishing a blog, Open Letters to George W. Bush, purportedly written by one Belacqua Jones who is best described as a Karl Rove on meth. In the blog, I criticize our rogue administration by praising it to the high heavens.
Last December, I began posting at Google’s Blogspot. Monday, I received an e-mail from Google’s subsidiary, Blogger, notifying me that the blog “has been identified as a potential spam blog” and that, “You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog.
In normal times, it would be easy to dismiss this as an annoying glitch. Unfortunately, we are not living normal times.
The National Security Council (NSC) is busily monitoring electronic traffic without the benefit of FISA warrants. We have an administration that has a zero tolerance for dissent. Couple that with Google’s history of blocking sites in China, and one begins to wonder. (When Google formed Google.cn in order to penetrate the Chinese market, it agreed to remove “certain sensitive information” from its search results.)
Hopefully, this is simply what it appears to be, a computer program run amok. But it is a commentary on the sorry state of our democratic republic that what might be a simple glitch takes on some rather frightening proportions.
Of course, it is possible, that my blog does qualify as spam. Google claims that spam blogs are characterized by their “irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text.”
No doubt my blog is irrelevant to the shrinking minority that still loves Bush. It is repetitive because when writing about the Bush administration I keep falling back on gastrointestinal metaphors. And I confess the text is nonsensical at times because I enjoy twisting syntax and riding rough-shod over the rules of grammar in order to create the voice and point of view one would find in a stoned political consultant.
Oh God!
Could it be?
Am I really guilty of posting Subversive Spam?
Google claims it uses an “Automated spam classifying algorithm” to screen for spam posts.
Is this the same algorithm the NSC uses? The next time I try to pass through airport security, will I be bumped because my name popped up on a Subversive Spammer No-Fly list?
Those of you who are in the mood for some subversive spam are welcome to visit my site at http://belacquajones.blogspot.com/. It’s still up even though I am still unable to post on it.
Maybe if I started wearing a flag lapel pin…
