The Register: Google slays thousands of fake news vids posted by pro-China group Dragonbridge. “Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) has burned more than 50,000 spammy fake news stories and other content posted by the pro-China ‘Dragonbridge’ gang. Dragonbridge ran disinformation campaigns across Google-owned platforms YouTube, Blogger and AdSense.”
Business Insider: Google has pulled down a propaganda blog backing the military coup in Myanmar after outcry by online activists. “Google has pulled down a propaganda blog supporting the military coup in Myanmar after the blog was discovered by an online activist this week. The blog was managed and hosted via the Google-owned Blogger platform under the URL seniorgeneralminaunghlaing.com, taking its name from the Myanmar military leader who has seized control of the country.”
9to5 Google: Blogger gets Material Theme revamp, responsive design on the web. “Blogger’s ‘improved web experience’ was quietly announced in May and very much in line with other Google Material Theme revamps. The new look increases spacing, while the navigation drawer can now be hidden by tapping the hamburger icon in the top-left corner. Meanwhile, articles are displayed in cards with faint outlines, which is again par for the course.”
Search Engine Journal: Google Reportedly Tolerated Spam on Non-Search Products. “An Ex-Googler who was product manager of Blogger from 2003-2006 revealed that Google tolerated spam on it’s network. He said that resources were devoted to fight spam on the Search side but not for Blogger spam.”
Digital Information World: Google Has No Plans to Shut Down its Blogger Service. “After the termination of Google Plus, Blogger users are also becoming apprehensive about their position on the platform. However, Google sets the record straight by stating that they don’t plan to close their free blogging service anytime soon.” I haven’t seen this reported anywhere else, just FYI.
Blogger Blog: It’s spring cleaning time for Blogger. “To make room for some exciting updates coming soon to Blogger, we’re simplifying the platform to enhance the blogging experience for all of our users.” Every time I see Google talking about “spring cleaning,” I worry they’re about to kill something off. Does not appear to be the case here. Yet.
The New York Times: ‘The Internet Is Broken’: @ev Is Trying to Salvage It. “‘I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,’ Mr. Williams says. ‘I was wrong about that.’”
The Omega: TRU law student files lawsuit against bloggers and Google. “Third-year TRU law student and reformed right-wing extremist Daniel Gallant recently filed a lawsuit against bloggers Arthur Topham and Monika Schaefer, as well as Google, Google Ideas and Google Blogger for defamation.” The Omega is the student newspaper of Thompson Rivers University in Canada.
If you want a hard and somewhat scary lesson on digital impermanence here you go: Google apparently deleted someone’s Blogger blog with no warning, and, according to this article, very little communicated reason. “Along with his blog, Google disabled [Dennis] Cooper’s email address, through which most of his correspondence was conducted, he told me via Facebook message. He got no communication from Google about why it decided to kill his email address and blog.” Mr. Cooper’s blog had been running on Blogger since 2002 – since before Google purchased the blogging platform.
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