The quick shift came about after Google received “a ton of feedback” pertaining to the rule change. Instead, Google will step up its enforcement efforts and continue with its current policy.
“We’ve had a ton of feedback, in particular about the introduction of a retroactive change (some people have had accounts for 10+ years), but also about the negative impact on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities,” wrote Google. “So rather than implement this change, we’ve decided to step up enforcement around our existing policy prohibiting commercial porn.”
So long as bloggers identify their blogs as adult — if they could contain sexually explicit content — no further action will need to be taken. Under the current policy, blogs must continue to identify themselves as adult if they contain such content. Google reserves the right to add an “adult” tag to blogs, if the company thinks it’s appropriate to do so.
Google’s reversal comes a few days after Reddit decided it will remove sexually explicit content site-wide, unless the person gave permission for its publication.
