Writer says Google killed conservative blog—better back yours up
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 12:18PM 
As TUSR filed this column, The New York Conservative blog appeared to have been restored by Google. (Screen snip)With the shutdown of the New York Conservative blog, if you’re getting your blog for free at Google, or anywhere else, you’d better back it up, especially if you write about politics.
As we head towards November, the political debate will continue to deteriorate. After all, the incumbent has little to brag about and the presumptive GOP nominee still has to consolidate his own base. Polls show former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney in a tight race with President Barack Obama.
The fireworks will blast on a nuclear level between the Left and the Right. As an example, just check out Cher’s Twitter account or bloggers and other “citizen journalists” who have repeatedly called for violence against former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Breitbart ran a story on Monday, illustrating the level of amorality some in the political arena on the Left display.
Christian Brown recounted his experience with his site New York Conservative hosted by Google at the popular Blogger platform. Brown has been covering the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (“KSM”) and others facing charges related to terrorism. Brown wrote:
“I received a form email, no reply possible, from Google Blogger informing me that the New York Conservative had been deleted. The email classified my blog as ‘spam’ in violation of Google’s terms of service. There was no further explanation. My URL was dead; all of the content, everything I ever posted, was gone.”
The same thing happened to me a few years ago, with a blog that didn’t focus exclusively on politics. Google did restore my site after a few days, but I’m pretty sure a bunch of Leftist trolls decided to have some fun by flagging it as SPAM. The Left is no friend to free expression unless it’s their own.
That incident led me to this site where I pay Squarespace for hosting. I also pay for my domain and I pay another site for email. That, by the way, is one reason you see the little messages after columns wherein we ask for small contributions. We also use the small amount of revenue we get to pay contributors for their work. We operate at a loss, but there’s a tall mountain for any aspiring indie publisher to climb, and we have great hopes that one day the situation will reverse.
A takedown may not be the end of the world if you have a thinly populated website. The US Report has 1,971 stories posted over a period of years. That’s without photographs and artwork. You can see why we wouldn’t want to rely on a free service. An incredible amount of work goes into this site.
Bottom line—another conservative blog got killed. Be sure to back yours up if you’re doing politics unfavorable to the Left.
Remember candidate Obama whom Google and other media employees supported in 2008.
I did a cursory search prior to posting this article. New York Conservative appears to be back up and running. I’d suggest the owner of that blog find a spot to park it, even if he has to pay.
I’ll repeat something I’ve said before. There’s an opportunity for a conservative website host who will permit bloggers to monetize. Maybe someone will see that opp and capitalize on it.
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(Commentary by Kay B. Day/May 15, 2012)