Blogger and the Old Site

I got a series of emails last week from Blogger, notifying me that some of the posts on my old site have been deemed to be against blogger policy and have been removed from the old blogspot site. The emails all looked the same:

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 “xxx” was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it violates our guidelines and deleted the post, previously at <link, now dead>

Why was your blog post deleted?
Your content has violated our Regulated Goods and Services policy.

Please visit our Community Guidelines page linked in this email to learn more.

So here are the offending posts, so you can read them yourself:

• This is open? published January 2010 A post critical of the Obama administration
• Indoctrination published October 2016 A post exposing that schools were requiring teachers to discuss the benefits of being a sexual deviant to children. (This one wasn’t deleted, but is now behind a “trigger warning” page in order to view it)
• Discrimination published June 2012. A post about a man being removed from Barnes and Noble because men aren’t allowed into the children’s book section of the store unescorted.
• More Receipt Madness published December 2014. A post on how I refuse to show receipts to the door trolls at stores.
• Difficult to Keep Up With published January 2021. A post about the National Guard buildup for Biden’s inauguration
• Identify Those Guns published October 2019 A post asking readers to identify a pair of handguns. They deleted this one more than once in a ten minute period.

Just so we are on the subject, I provide for reference the Blogger Regulated Goods and Services policy, retrieved from here on May 7, 2023 at 1542 eastern time.

Regulated Goods and Services

Do not sell, advertise, or facilitate the sale of regulated goods and services. Regulated goods and services include alcohol, gambling, pharmaceuticals, unapproved supplements, tobacco, fireworks, weapons, or health/medical devices.

Note that not a single one of those posts was attempting to sell, advertise, or facilitate the sale of any goods and services. No, this is an attempt by Blogger to eliminate any opinion with which they or their employees disagree. They are slowly shutting down anyone with an opposing opinion.

This is exactly why I decided to move this blog to its own server.

That is why I set up this website on its own server. The idea here is that I setup and maintain the server for my use. That server has a lot more capacity than my blog is using, but costs a good chunk more than I can justify spending on a blog. So I came up with the idea of sharing that server.

This is what I did:

• I set up a server in a country that won’t submit to US takedown requests. Being across the pond makes the websites run a tad slower, but they are more resistant to being shut down.
• The server is backed up nightly.
• There is a mirror server in a second country.
• The entire thing is owned by a corporation.

The Pitch:

Last year, I moved to this new server and became my own IT guy. Because of this, I was able to realize significant cost savings that I am passing on. The cost is $15 per month. For that rate, this is what you get:

• You get your own blog, run on the widely available and customizable WordPress software.
• You get one email address with up to 1gb of storage. More options and storage are available for a nominal fee. The email address is attached to your blog, for example: You@yourblog.com
• I will migrate your blogger or WordPress blog to this server.
• You can use your own web address if you have one, or we can find one. There may or may not be an extra charge for that, depends on what you want to use. Some cost more than others.

What you don’t get:

I am not a web designer, graphic artist, computer expert, or any sort of artist. For that reason, I can’t offer custom websites, web design, or any of that. I recommend that you use any of the available WordPress custom themes that are widely available online, or that you go with one of the stock themes that comes with the software.

The only catch or rule here is that you can’t run a porn site. The risk for underage porn and the large amount of resources that they use just make that too much of a hassle. I just don’t want to be in the porn business or involved with that sort of thing. Other than that, I am hands off. Free speech and all of that.

How to sign up:

Email me to make the arrangements. Divemedic (at) areaocho (dot) com.