Adieu, blog-gone erotica
Feb 27, 2015 - Nandini d. tripathy
Come March, and a massive crackdown by Google on Blogger, its
popular global blogging community, will effectively ban all ‘mature’
creative content from the site
So much for blogs being a space of creative abandon. If Google has its way, Blogger — one of the largest blogging communities in the world — will face a drastic crackdown by the end of next month that essentially bans all publicly available “mature” content from the platform. And if reports are to be believed, Tumblr might follow suit. Are even blogs, then, poised to lose the freedom of expression that was once their core ideal?
“As writers of any kind, we work within at least a few constraints as it is. For every copywriter in advertising, the client will have a point of view. For every novelist, the editor will have a point of view. A blog, on the other hand, was meant to be something more personal and liberated. Now for every blogger, Google will have a point of view. Wow. I certainly didn’t see that coming!” exclaims Vibha Batra, author of Sweet Sixteen (Yeah Right!).
She adds, “I personally believe in self-censorship, both as a writer as well as a reader. If I don’t agree with something, I won’t write or read it. It’s as simple as that. I’m okay with my friends or family advising me about such matters, but I don’t like the idea of a third-party coming in to make my decision for me. I don’t get it. It’s like someone is trying to have their voice heard within a muddle of disparate voices and you go right ahead and strangle it instead.”
Ajit Batra, one among the scores of bloggers who’ve been directly hit by Google’s decision, has decided to wrap up and close his blog Rhythmic Rain himself before Google does it for him. “I’m in the process of packing up as we speak, actually. I have no choice left but to self-host my writing by buying a domain,” he rues.
Ajit goes on, “It’s such a pity that we’re about to lose the only uncommercialised creative space left on the Internet to such prudery. A small group of mostly male, mostly heterosexual elitists are deciding for scores and scores of readers and writers what can and can’t be read and written. And if anyone tries to give me the argument that they’re not actually deleting blogs but only making them private, I’m sorry but what they’re doing is as bad as deletion. If you kill a blogger’s entire user base with zero public access, what do you actually leave them with? An empty domain with no fresh perspectives, insights and conversations? Entire online communities will be laid to waste by this move.”
Adult fanfiction writer Khyati Gupta, who has been writing an ongoing work-in-progess of erotica for almost six months now, shares, “From where I’m looking, this is the saddest development till date for writers like me, as far as censorship of free speech and expression goes. To me, a blog always meant a space where I could be myself, express myself freely and share my creative musings with a host of people who don’t personally know me and are therefore better placed to give me completely objective feedback. It was that one space where I didn’t have to restrain my imagination. Erotica is a fairly marginalised genre in India as far as paperbacks go. If you take away my blog, you’ll take away the one platform I have to reach out to people who seriously appreciate the genre and can enable me to grow as a creative writer.”
From a reader’s point of view, Delhi University student Anuradha Agarwal points out that in light of the recent trend of social media bigwigs like Facebook, Tumblr and Vine zooming in on “adult” content on their respective platforms arbitrarily, not only does such a move affect the individual who posts the content but also takes away an important platform from those who are at the receiving end of that content. “I’m not into writing adult fanfiction or erotica, but for a little over a year I’ve really enjoyed following a few great writers online on platforms like Wattpad, India-Forums and Tumblr. There are many like me, in fact, who seek out fresh works in progress especially by budding Indian writers online. The Internet is pretty much the only place where you get to not only experience different creative experiments with the genre but also interact with other people like you who also take an interest in the genre and might be more than a little hesitant to admit to that interest in person.
That’s the thing about the Internet and the simultaneous sense of identity and anonymity it can afford you, where you can set aside social pressures to just indulge in your creative fancy. Limiting adult content will not only hit writers but readers like me too, and it’s so insanely regressive that I’m at a bit of a loss for what to say or do about it. I think everyone, readers as well as writers, should raise their voice against this together. Given that Blogger is a huge global community, if we all stand by each other we might at least be able to make a pertinent statement even if we don’t achieve a miraculous revocation,” she concludes.
Source: http://www.asianage.com/cover-story/adieu-blog-gone-erotica-308
So much for blogs being a space of creative abandon. If Google has its way, Blogger — one of the largest blogging communities in the world — will face a drastic crackdown by the end of next month that essentially bans all publicly available “mature” content from the platform. And if reports are to be believed, Tumblr might follow suit. Are even blogs, then, poised to lose the freedom of expression that was once their core ideal?
“As writers of any kind, we work within at least a few constraints as it is. For every copywriter in advertising, the client will have a point of view. For every novelist, the editor will have a point of view. A blog, on the other hand, was meant to be something more personal and liberated. Now for every blogger, Google will have a point of view. Wow. I certainly didn’t see that coming!” exclaims Vibha Batra, author of Sweet Sixteen (Yeah Right!).
She adds, “I personally believe in self-censorship, both as a writer as well as a reader. If I don’t agree with something, I won’t write or read it. It’s as simple as that. I’m okay with my friends or family advising me about such matters, but I don’t like the idea of a third-party coming in to make my decision for me. I don’t get it. It’s like someone is trying to have their voice heard within a muddle of disparate voices and you go right ahead and strangle it instead.”
Ajit Batra, one among the scores of bloggers who’ve been directly hit by Google’s decision, has decided to wrap up and close his blog Rhythmic Rain himself before Google does it for him. “I’m in the process of packing up as we speak, actually. I have no choice left but to self-host my writing by buying a domain,” he rues.
Ajit goes on, “It’s such a pity that we’re about to lose the only uncommercialised creative space left on the Internet to such prudery. A small group of mostly male, mostly heterosexual elitists are deciding for scores and scores of readers and writers what can and can’t be read and written. And if anyone tries to give me the argument that they’re not actually deleting blogs but only making them private, I’m sorry but what they’re doing is as bad as deletion. If you kill a blogger’s entire user base with zero public access, what do you actually leave them with? An empty domain with no fresh perspectives, insights and conversations? Entire online communities will be laid to waste by this move.”
Adult fanfiction writer Khyati Gupta, who has been writing an ongoing work-in-progess of erotica for almost six months now, shares, “From where I’m looking, this is the saddest development till date for writers like me, as far as censorship of free speech and expression goes. To me, a blog always meant a space where I could be myself, express myself freely and share my creative musings with a host of people who don’t personally know me and are therefore better placed to give me completely objective feedback. It was that one space where I didn’t have to restrain my imagination. Erotica is a fairly marginalised genre in India as far as paperbacks go. If you take away my blog, you’ll take away the one platform I have to reach out to people who seriously appreciate the genre and can enable me to grow as a creative writer.”
From a reader’s point of view, Delhi University student Anuradha Agarwal points out that in light of the recent trend of social media bigwigs like Facebook, Tumblr and Vine zooming in on “adult” content on their respective platforms arbitrarily, not only does such a move affect the individual who posts the content but also takes away an important platform from those who are at the receiving end of that content. “I’m not into writing adult fanfiction or erotica, but for a little over a year I’ve really enjoyed following a few great writers online on platforms like Wattpad, India-Forums and Tumblr. There are many like me, in fact, who seek out fresh works in progress especially by budding Indian writers online. The Internet is pretty much the only place where you get to not only experience different creative experiments with the genre but also interact with other people like you who also take an interest in the genre and might be more than a little hesitant to admit to that interest in person.
That’s the thing about the Internet and the simultaneous sense of identity and anonymity it can afford you, where you can set aside social pressures to just indulge in your creative fancy. Limiting adult content will not only hit writers but readers like me too, and it’s so insanely regressive that I’m at a bit of a loss for what to say or do about it. I think everyone, readers as well as writers, should raise their voice against this together. Given that Blogger is a huge global community, if we all stand by each other we might at least be able to make a pertinent statement even if we don’t achieve a miraculous revocation,” she concludes.
Source: http://www.asianage.com/cover-story/adieu-blog-gone-erotica-308
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