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The Involuntary "Adult Content" Warning Is Collaborative

Some blog owners find evidence of opinion from their viewers, but cannot accept the opinions expressed.
Why is there a "Content Warning" on my blog?
They don't understand the collaborative opinion being expressed, when this warning is displayed.

Long ago, the "Flag Blog" link, in the navbar, was a misunderstood feature.

The "Report Abuse" navbar link provides offense classification selections.
The "Flag Blog" button was later replaced by the "Report Abuse" link, with multiple classifications of offenses.

Enough readers, reporting "Objectionable content" - and the blog gets a warning.


Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog's content is objectionable.

The text of the warning is somewhat self explanatory.
Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog's content is objectionable.
The conclusion here is simple.
  1. The opinion is collaborative - multiple readers have expressed this opinion.
  2. The blog content is offensive - the readers object to this content.

A warning, in front of your blog, can have several causes.
If you are seeing this warning displayed in front of your blog, there are several possible causes.
  • You are accepting contributions from other people, and not carefully checking what you accept.
  • You are pushing the limits - a bit too far.
  • You are marketing your blog, inappropriately.

And you have several options.
You have several choices.
  • Objectively examine the content in your blog, and remove anything objectionable.
  • Market your blog more carefully, to a more appreciative audience.
  • Set the voluntary "Adult Content?" option to "Yes".
  • Accept the involuntary warning.

You publish your blog to educate or entertain your readers, right? Why spend time providing content that your readers don't appreciate?

Comments

D.B. Echo said…
You ignore the other obvious possibility - the complaints against the blog, while collaborative, are also false. I've had an openly gay friend have his blog flagged as inappropriate numerous times, and even suspended, based on spurious complaints. (Or not-so-spurious; I suppose it is to be expected that some people might strenuously object to the existence of an openly gay blogger - not that this legitimizes their objections.)

I could imagine anyone who spoke out too strenuously against the culture of online piracy that is supported by so many people (and organizations) or against a group like "Anonymous" might find himself or herself lucky to only have spurious reports of abuse filed against his or her blog. Unfortunately, unless human judgement goes into reviewing every complaint, there will be no way of distinguishing false complaints from true ones.
G. B. Miller said…
I actually set a couple of my blogs (one open and one now closed) with the Adult rating, simply because I knew that some of my flash fiction short stories might be offensive to some, and thus wanted to nip any kind of problems in the bud.

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